The Smush Newsletter, August 1st, 2001 Contact: oskillator@hotmail.com Home: http://www.mindspring.com/~pfister_/smush/ Table of Contents: 1. More of the Beginning .. Line 19 2. New Music .............. Line 62 3. R.F. Is Back ........... Line 77 4. Classics ............... Line 109 5. Fond Farewells ......... Line 133 6. If You Want More ....... Line 139 MORE OF THE BEGINNING --------------------- Last issue, I told you about how Rubbahead and I were locked in the basement, emerging only after becoming master musicians. When we emerged, it took us a long time to realize that it was our calling. Until then, we spent most of our free time sitting in front of our Super Mario Bros poster, holding the controllers that we had left after the NES disaster and pretending to stomp goombas. When William Golding heard about our basement ordeal, he bought the rights to our life stories for the price of a new NES, and proceeded to produce the pile of tabloid fodder called "Lord of the Flies". I don't know which one of us was supposed to be the Lord and which one was supposed to be the Flies, but William Golding is a cynical bastard who never had a real insight into human nature. He should've asked us -- While incarcerated, we had over 115 insights, and we wrote them all down in our own blood. The ones we could remember, that is; the police hearings after we got out addled our minds a bit, and we were in a sorry mental state. William Golding put the list in his book as an appendix, so if you find it in the bargain bin, maybe you should pick up a copy. Or better yet, just rip that page out and stick it in your pocket. We're currently in the process of converting these 115 insights into 115 songs, and you can find the first eight of them on our first album, "High Up In The Ground", along with a bonus insight that we've had more recently: "William Golding is a moron". But enough about our arch-nemesis. We won that battle in 1993, it's just that people whose salaries are paid by our taxes continue to force children to read his books. So those are the circumstances that have shaped our lives. But even though we've gone through so much together, we've each reacted to it differently, so that our musical styles are very different. You can hear it: Lemonhead pays close attention to every note that the listener hears, and Rubbahead just pounds on the synth and writes from the heart. We think the combination is explosive, and we think you'll agree. If you don't, you're wrong. You probably like William Golding, too. Bastard. NEW MUSIC --------- WIN: We won a ham radio by sending a postcard to Ham Radios, Intl. You can too! But that's not what I want to write about here. Whilst listening to people have CB-sex on our ham radio, we encountered some strange noises like someone sliding a greasy finger around a wine glass, or maybe a lightning storm on the other side of the world. It was cool, so we started the reel-to-reel going. Meanwhile, a Marching Mariachi band went by our window, playing a song that Lemonhead had written for them a week earlier. A little tape slicing and splicing, and this wonderful bit of "found art" was album-ready! ARG: Our mother knitted us each an Argyle Gargoyle to sit on our heads when we went to sleep, and the memories of it inspired this song! R.F. IS BACK ------------ Remember when we said Robert Froese was killed when he was run over by that Calimari Firebird F7? Well, I had a dream a couple of nights ago that me and Rubbahead were watching the Thriller video (we do that a lot in both real life and my dreams) for inspiration, and we were also both in the video. This time through, I noticed that one of the zombies trying to rip my throat out was good ol' R.F., and he wasn't trying to rip my throat out, he was just crying for help! I woke up with a cold sweat, and I woke up Rubbahead and he suggested that we go dig him up to make sure he was dead. Now Rubbahead's had some dumb ideas in the past, but when he suggested this, I just knew we had to do it. So we hopped the gate of the local cemetary, with our digging implements in hand, and got to work. When we reached his coffin, the lid opened by itself, and there was R.F.! "Boy, am I glad to see you guys!" he said! It turned out that he survived because the cemetary sprinklers are always on way too high, and there was a lot of seepage down to his level, and by eating the worms that you always hear are infesting corpses in graveyards -- you could say he really turned the tables on those worms, who probably figured he was food! We nursed him back to health and now we have a tax free tape-op, cause he can't get other employment being dead and all. He's also writing music in his spare time, and some of it's good enough to go on the new album! We'll let you know how it goes! Unfortunately, the time spent caring for R.F. is time we couldn't spend on the new album, so it's pushed back even further. CLASSICS -------- FF6: This is the ingenious piece by The Desperate Monkey -- the catchy pop riff it opens with shows him to be a true master of melody, the bassline and dance "middle eight" that it segues to is excellent and very dancable, and the hammer-swingin' barrel-springin' bassline that closes the song is a true stroke of genius. MOU: To commemorate Robert Froese's return, you should check out this classic that he was involved with. We developed a software suite that allows us to have conversations with hobbits and world leaders. The first personality we coded in was Bilbo Baggins, and the other was Mao Tse Tung. Unfortunately, the hard workers at Systran haven't yet put Chinese or Hobbit support into Babelfish yet, so we provided the Mao personality with a drum kit and recorded what he played. R.F. remixed the track and he coaxed Lemonhead into recording his voice for the first time to provide the intro. THI: She lopped off my theis! Actually, this song was inspired by the writing of Jim Theis. He has a way with the written word than noone else can match. Vocals in the verses, an haunting melodies in the chorus... also, there's an awesome synth solo over the verses towards the end. Check it out ... if ya dare! FOND FAREWELLS -------------- And so it goes. Another week in the life. It wasn't our most productive... hell, it doesn't seem that we made any progress at all, but at least we probably won't be seeing the same problems again.