This cover of the Johnny Cash song was heavily inspired by the 80s version done by Wall of Voodoo. You can hear their version here. We did our version before Social Distortion did theirs. I like ours better. Social Distortion made more money from theirs.

Rod (singer) brought in the Wall of Voodoo tape and I came up with a keyboard sound that was close, but not too close. As with most of the keyboard sounds on these songs, mine were squashed pretty hard in recording and mixdown.

I recall pushing very hard for a click when we did these sessions and boy howdy did we fight it on this track. I think we eventually gave up, but not after some heated discussion. I should have let it go. One of the things I wanted from us was a tight sound that would help us sound somewhat professional. That was a loaded idea back then, as some in the band didn’t want us to sound too “commercial” or “pop”. I don’t think we had much to worry about.

This track got us some airplay on a locals only radio show and was a crowd favorite. We played a show at the Utah Valley State College (now Utah Valley University) and in the slow parts of the song had a 100 person mosh circle. It was crazy. We played a show at a club in Salt Lake called The Zephyr Club on a weeknight for money. We weren’t a very good bar band. We did better when we played a set at a show. So at the club, we had to play three sets about an hour each, with two breaks. Nobody was there. We repeated our first set and when we played “Ring of Fire”, the owner of the club got on the dance floor and poured a ring of Bacardi 151 on the floor. He took a large shot into his mouth, pulled out a lighter and sprayed fire onto the floor, dancing around the ring of fire. It may have been the coolest crowd response we got to this song, even though there were only about 7 people at the club.

Production Notes
Of all the tracks, this one proved the most difficult thus far to get a solid low end without sounding too ridiculous. I’m learning a few tricks, having never had much experience with an expander. The results aren’t too bad. I wish I had the source tracks. We shoulda bought the reels. Grrrr.

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Direct Download – Swim Herschel Swim – I Wish I Had a Raygun – Ring of Fire – Remastered, MP3, 320kbps constant

o

Sundays are for being calm.

The CIA’s $1,000 a Day Specialists on Waterboarding, Interrogations

ABC News on the psychologists involved in creating the CIA’s use of torture. Oh, GOP, aren’t you PROUD?

The new memos also show waterboarding was used “with far greater frequency than initially indicated” to even those in the CIA.

Abu Zubaydah was water boarded at least 83 times and Khalid Sheikh Mohamed at least 183 times.

If the Dems handle this correctly (and I doubt they will), their majority should be solid for a few more terms. This is definitely a Watergate-like era for the United States. o

Panel for the SubBass plug-in in Logic Express

Another in the reggae then ska then reggae then ska songs we wrote in the first months. There are two things about this song that I really love. The first is the lyrical content. It’s not entirely apparent, but I believe this song is about a woman in Provo with a decidedly Thomas Hardy bent to how she lived her life. Rumor was that she wanted kids and would lie about birth control to get pregnant, then try to manipulate the father into either marrying her or staying married to her. Victorian hypocrisy laid bare, right there. It’s hard to capture the notion that even in the late 1980s/early 1990s there could be a Mormon woman seducing men to give her children. It seems so 19th century. But so it was. Second, reggae always reminds me of driving in my dad’s 1980 VW Rabbit in the middle of a scorching summer, the AC broken, my shoes off and the windows down. This song always reminds me of summer. Summer is also when we added our sax guy, Sam, to the band.

We took the summer of 1990 off and when we all came back to Provo, we did some summer rehearsals and I’ll never forget the new sound of the sax with our songs; there was a kind of Paul Desmond (listen) vibe to Sam’s playing that reminded me of an innocent and hot summer. Sam looks like Paul Desmond. For some of those early Sam rehearsals, we played in Rich’s (drummer) apartment complex weight room. I believe those sessions were done partially semi-nude or topless. I also remember the feeling of playing with the band again after those few months and it’s hard to explain the exuberance, the feeling of finding something great with these lads that I wasn’t sure would come back after a break and wondering where it might take us.

1990 was a marrying year for the band. Three (four? five?) of us married during that year. The wives were super supportive and without their support, I doubt we could have continued as a band.

When we played our first big paying show the fall of 1990, we had enough money to pocket that would have gone a long way towards making the band a viable second income. However, immediately after that show in the parking lot behind the “Center Stage”, we had a Spinal Tap Moment™ or two discussing what we should do with the money. I think the door total was a couple of grand or so, and after paying the opening bands (at least I hope we paid the opening bands) and taking a few bucks for ourselves (I think $25 or $50 per member) we decided to pool our money and make I Wish I Had a Raygun.

Production Notes
I boosted the hell out of the bass and the subsonics. Logic Express has a sweet way to boost the lows without completely jacking the rest of the mix. Of all the tracks on I Wish I Had a Raygun, this was the one that had the most potential for the standard reggae bass treatment. In our modern age, where subwoofers are the norm, the bass fiends should find their fill here.

This may have been the third or fourth song we wrote. I’m still pleased with Rick’s dub guitar work and Jeff’s bass playing. Jeff was not a formally trained bassist, but this track features some of his better true-to-the-genre playing.

I love the organ sound. Love it. Super carnival fun house and extra cheesy. This was one of the first organ sounds I did on the Roland D-50/Cheesemaster 2000. It’s a pretty good Hammond B3 knockoff, if a little lacking in the analog department.

Fire up your subwoofer:

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Direct Download – Swim Herschel Swim – I Wish I Had a Raygun – Suzy Q – Remastered, MP3, 320kbps constant

o

I love the exuberant little stems in this shot. Love them to death.

Soundtrack to this image would be the Doves’ “Catch the Sun“. The chorus is brilliant. o

100 days of Barack Obama’s Facebook news feed

Via Slate’s twitter stream. o

Those little purple thingies (pistils? stamen? pistii? stamens?) are cool. Sure, now comes the nasal passage/soul deadening pollen, but the beauty!

Taken before the bathroom redo started and effectively rendered my brain and body into mush. How did we do that kitchen remodel all those years ago? I’m working solo on the bathroom, maybe that has something to do with it. It’s not that the bathroom even comes close to what we did with the kitchen. It’s that Heather’s nesting/ADD is kicking in so she’s all bossing me around like I’m 18 again and have energy to burn. Doesn’t she know I’m pushing 90? o

The Banality of Bush White House Evil

Another winning column from Frank Rich. Of note:

“Judge Bybee’s résumé tells us that he has four children and is both a Cubmaster for the Boy Scouts and a youth baseball and basketball coach. He currently occupies a tenured seat on the United States Court of Appeals. As an assistant attorney general, he was the author of the Aug. 1, 2002, memo endorsing in lengthy, prurient detail interrogation ‘techniques’ like ‘facial slap (insult slap)’ and ‘insects placed in a confinement box.’

He proposed using 10 such techniques ‘in some sort of escalating fashion, culminating with the waterboard, though not necessarily ending with this technique.’ Waterboarding, the near-drowning favored by Pol Pot and the Spanish Inquisition, was prosecuted by the United States in war-crimes trials after World War II. But Bybee concluded that it ‘does not, in our view, inflict severe pain or suffering.’”

Mr. Bybee is a Brigham Young University graduate. Also: Mormon. Mormons seem to be all over Bush’s worst, most immoral judgments. Yay for conservatives (especially religious ones) AGAIN! o

UPDATE: From the Washington Post. Still. Bybee Should have stood up for what he believed was morally right. That he didn’t do so makes his impressive CV lose much of its luster.

UPDATE: The Salt Lake Tribune picked up the story on April 29. The comments are gold.

These massive tulips take a little longer to bloom than others in our yard. They are huge. I’m avoiding the obvious subject at hand, which would be a discussion about Georgia O’Keefe ^{1, 2}. My image is only midly suggestive. O’Keefe’s images are all the way labiariffic. o

I am in love with spring this year. This winter was not as brutal as last year, not even close. Yes, we had snow last week, but this week is heavenly despite having a sick Leta. She’s on the ups (we hope) and the weather looks to stay lovely for a few more days.

I shot this one with the Lensbaby and a macro adapter. I’m still getting the hang of shooting right on top of things, but the light this morning was too lovely not to share. I snuck out while Heather watched sick Leta and I grabbed a few shots I liked. o