"Tinfoil Thoths: Songs from the Globe of Fegs" was compiled by Rex Broome in 2004. (back to fegBands)

 

1  Status Unknown (Dolph Chaney)

2  Jennifer (Lazerlove5)

3  She Doesn’t Need to Say What’s on Her Mind (James Dignan)

4  Fort Ashby (Rainland)

5  Dark Matter (The New Moon)

6  Lullaby for Two (Michael Wells)

7  Lawns & Industry (Monkey Typing Pool)

8  Touch You Natalie Jane (Popsicle Thieves)

9  Second Chance (tlr3)

10  Rope of Days (Mike Runion)

11  Om Mani Padme Hung (Ki Society)

12  Five Was the Time (Blatzman & Friends)

13  Roger the Robot (Greg Shell)

14  Carrier Pigeon (Michael Godwin)

15  Gliding (Brian Nupp)

16  Badger Skull Tableau (Blind Mathew Brady)

17  The Perfume Makers (Rectifier) 

18  Bagfoot Run (Rex Broome & His Living Room Demons)

19  I Know the Felt of Judas (James Dignan)

20  Oscar (The New Moon)

21  What I Like About Puke (The Shit Together Band)

22  Gong (Ki Society)

 

Solicited and Compiled by Rex Broome.

 

All songs copyright the respective songwriters and musicians.

 

Special thanks to:

Woj for holding it all together; Bayard for the links and support,  Natalie Jacobs for the title,  Glen Uber for the beer,  Megan Mellbye and my children for tolerating me in “compilation mode”

 

All these artists ended up on this record because of Robyn Hitchcock.

 

Support fegmusic!  Many of these artists have music available for purchase.  You can find their work by visiting the websites listed.

 

 

 


Status Unknown (Dolph Chaney)

Performed by Dolph Chaney

Dolph Chaney: Vocals, Acoustic Guitar, E-bow Guitar

Syntrillium, Inc.: Random Bell Sounds

 

Pithy gesangkraftenmeister Dolph Chaney's guitar playing, songwriting, and recording career is now 17 years old, which means it's too young to get screwed but old enough to drive on its own.  After fronting or co-fronting ("siding"?) Noyzez, Magis, Gordian Knot, Shed, and Port Radium, Dolph has settled on recording with few occasional co-conspirators.  His 20-odd projects include RIPPLES,  INFINITY DOGS, and the 1998 CD self-release NEW BIRD RISE, which won stirring reviews from within the uberindie home taper circuit.  Currently, he's working on getting drunk.  But, he remains committed to making the finest, most artful pop music you'll never hear on the radio, though the latter part of that goal may just get thwarted yet if the dance craze "Phil The Salmon" catches on...

 

Rex notes: Early in the process of compiling this collection, I’d sent out an e-mail to the various prospective contributors asking for progress reports on their efforts. I listed the various tracks I had in hand and those in transit, and at the end listed Dolph Cheney as “status unknown.  Dolph almost immediately mailed me back:  It's official -- I'm going to write a song called "Status Unknown," and that will be my contribution.  :)  Seriously.”  Within a day he had done so, and within a week I received this little gem in the mail.  It felt like the perfect way to kick off the record.  Dolph also notes that the random bell noises are provided by the trial version of Cool Edit Pro's Studio Plug-In.  The software apparently liked the song so much that it wanted to play along.

 

For more Dolph Chaney:

users.rcn.com/dolphmusic/dolphmusic

 

 

Jennifer (Brian Nupp)

Performed by Lazerlove5:

Drums: Joseph Brewer

Bass: Jeff Drudge

Vocals and Guitar: Brian Nupp

Ripping Guitar Leads: Juan Ramirez

Guitar Leads: Mike Safran

 

Brian says:

Jennifer was recorded live in my living room for the basic tracks with

overdubs done later. We recorded it quick because one of us was going to

Japan and we wanted to leave it there with Mr. Hachioji. I wrote the song

about a girl I was obsessed with who went from being a girl I never met,

but admired, to being my roommate. This song, in another mix, will be a

track on the forthcoming Lazerlove5 album, Flicker Mask.

 

For more Lazerlove5:

Lazerlove5.com

 

 

 

She Doesn’t Need to Say What’s on Her Mind (James Dignan)

Performed by James Dignan

 

James says:

 

For many years I have written and performed my own music. I play guitar mainly, but also bass, keyboards and diverse other instruments.  During the late 1980s and early 1990s I was in various bands: the Kaftans, the Moomins, Preemptive Sheep, and the Beaker People. Finally, in the mid 1990s I summoned up the courage to go solo, and have been performing solo since that time.

 

She Doesn’t Need to Say What’s on Her Mind is James Dignan as Gene Clark.  If I could get this one to work properly, it would be a goodie.  It's for Alice, and was written after listening to waaay too much of the Byrds. With any luck both songs - in more polished versions – will someday appear on my unfinished "His Monster's Voice" album.

 

James is a resident of Dunedin, New Zealand, but y’all knew that.

 

For more James Dignan:

home.intranet.org/~miche/jamesdignan/homepage.html

 

 

Fort Ashby (Broome/Eckstrom)

Performed by Rainland:

Rex Broome: Vocals, Guitars, Bass

Bradley Cain: Vocals, Keys, Programming

Charlie Eckstrom: Guitar

Produced by Bradley Cain

For Esther Rexrode

 

Rex, Bradley and Charlie formed the nucleus of Rainland in 2002.  All three members have collaborated in different combinations on many musical projects and other misdeeds since the late ‘80’s, but this marks the first time all of them have worked together.  It is still unclear who actually plays what role in the “band”; all that’s known for certain is that nobody plays the drums and only one member claims to play the banjo.  Rainland’s remarkably unpopular name derives from a misheard Bob Dylan lyric.

 

Fort Ashby is a small town in the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia where, since time immemorial, the Mineral County Fair has been held in a field adjacent to Rex’s grandmother’s backyard.  Most of this song is set in 1977.

 

For more Rainland:

rainland.org

 

 

 

Dark Matter (Matt Sewell)

Performed by The New Moon:

Matt Sewell: Vocals, Guitar

Ian Nixon: Bass, Vocals

Matt Cornelius: Drums

From the EP The New Moon:

 

Matt says:

The band slowly congealed over several months at Sparky's Flying Circus club at Joe Ryan (legendary Cowley Road landlord)'s Half Moon. The New Moon was the only half-decent name I (or anyone else for that matter) could think of, referencing, as it does The Waltz of the New Moon, a song by The Incredible String Band.  The music is written by me, though arranged by the band... I have played music with and without bands since 1989, though with a gap of perhaps 2 years where I didn't do anything (really). I started playing acoustic clubs in 1997. Ian Nixon (bass) is a very well preserved punk from back in the day, regularly featuring on the wireless here in Britain during 1978 when he was in punk band The No.  Matt Cornelius is the youngest.  Toronto's loss is our gain... this is his first ever band.  The EP was recorded in Sept 2002 at Jimmy Hetherington's bedroom studio, which he calls R House. All the twiddling of equipment was done by him with advice from the band. It should be noted that the drums are very quiet because the Boy Cornelius had to stand up to play as Jimmy was unable to find a seat suitably lacking in squeak.

 

Dark Matter is about the 75% of the universe that is not illuminated and features me and Ian on harmonies. It's also my first *ever* guitar solo (which may explain the ropiness of it).

 

 

Lullaby for Two (Michael Wells)

Performed by Michael Wells

Inspiration: from my children

Guitar: by Yamaha

Strings: by Elixer

Cricket in the garage where I recorded: by the grace of God quiet during the final take of this song

 

Michael says:

 

Someone very wise once said, “A work of art is never truly completed, it is only abandoned.”  Herewith find enclosed my offering for the “Original Feggy Songs Compilation”, which while debatable as to being art is now certainly being abandoned (by me): Lullaby for Two, inspired by, and written for, my children.  It is NOT, as the CDDB would have you believe, “I Never Promised You a Rose Garden” by Billy Joe Royal.

 

 

Lawns and Industry (Jeffrey Norman)

Performed by Monkey Typing Pool

Recorded sometime between 1981 and 1983

DFW’ed in 2003*

 

Jeffrey says:

The recording methods are so lo-fi that the sound quality of early Guided by Voices recordings would make Steely Dan’s engineers jealous by comparison.  Anyway: specifically, I had a cheapo microphone (the sort of thing one bought in the late seventies for recording family home movies or something).  Multiple tracks were achieved by recording one track onto a medium-fi standard cassette deck with crappily azimuth’d Dolby, then playing back the recording over a pair of cheap college dorm-room speakers while recording onto a second cheap cassette deck.  The second cassette player ran fast—so every track found me retuning my guitar. 

 

*DFW’d = Digitally Fucked With

 

About Lawns and Industry:

 

It came about through a sort of formal challenge I set myself.  First, I came up with a rather unlikely chord sequence-- I may have used some sort of randomizing device to do so.  Then my goal was to write a melody that made the chords make sense together.  I decided to do something different with the vocal harmony… so I basically turned the first line upside down (if the main melody went up a whole step, the harmony went down a whole step, and so on).  The lyrics come from a sign greeting people as they enter a lower-middle-class suburb, West Allis, Wisconsin, which was next door to the one I grew up in.  It read CITY OF HOMES AND INDUSTRY; I changed it and did this sort of suburban/industrial thing.  I think the idea of first abstracting the familiar then personalizing the abstract was stolen from David Byrne or somebody (before he didn’t write the Book of Love).

 

For more Jeffrey Norman (musings, not music):

spanghew.blogspot.com

 

 

 

Touch You Natalie Jane (Brian Huddell)

Performed by Popsicle Thieves

 

Brian says:

You might remember that I threatened to record a song called Fuck You Natalie Jane and send it to you.  Well, I made good on the first part of that threat, but I could never get used to hearing myself singing those words, especially in a world that still has my grandmother in it, not to mention my 5-year-old.  I've added this to the long list of Reasons I'll Never Be a Rock Star.  I scrapped that, and started re-recording it from scratch with different words.

 

I have never met or spoken with anyone named Natalie Jane, but if I did I’m sure she would be perfectly nice.  Recorded entirely on a Windows XP PC, per Satan’s instructions.

 

 

 

 

Second Chance (Thomas Rodebaugh)

Performed by tlr3

 

tlr3: Thwarted in french horn playing by braces, the young tlr3 made a deal with his dad: He would concede to his father’s wish that he take piano lessons, in exchange for the purchase of a keyboard. Almost immediately, he began to compose original compositions, so simple and repetitive at the time that his piano teacher, kindly, compared them to Philip Glass (whom, she had to admit, she didn’t really like). He still uses that wheezing old Yamaha as a sequencer, but supplements it with the latest technology and his attempts at singing.  tlr3 doesn’t tour or do shows (although he once played a set to a small lounge, his back to the audience because no one could figure out how to move the piano—songs included “I Wanna Destroy You”.  When asked what he would do with his spare time (if he gets it), he replied, “Less work. More play!”

 

About Second Chance:

Comment: “What, in fact, does this song mean?” –John Hale

Gearhead info: Recorded to Tascam Portastudio 788; effects are through its internal engines. Keyboards are a new cheap Yamaha, an old expensive Yamaha, Alesis nanosynth. Drum machine Boss Dr. Rhythm.  Back-up vocals were processed through a very expensive satellite filter. Via cell phone.

 

For more tlr3:

www.mp3.com/tlr3

www.mp3.com/automaton

 

 

Rope of Days (Mike Runion)

Mike Runion: Guitar, Vocals, Percussion

From the EP Dust Me

 

Mike Runion, long-time feg and Virtual Cone Museum curator, finally tackled more than the three chords he'd learned in college and started playing live music locally in Brevard County, Florida in the late 90's.  While uncomfortably entrenched within the patchouli-laced hippy Florida Folk scene, Mike's songwriting style lies more in the urban folk of the 60's and the Athens, GA-based college-rock of the 80's and 90's.  He's mostly a solo acoustic performer, but don't call him a singer/songwriter...he hates that!  When he's not helping launch Space Shuttles, you'll find Mike playing Central Florida piers and coffeeshops every other weekend or so. 

 

Mike on Rope Of Days:

During a recent Leonard Cohen phase I went though (happens about every 7 years), I decided to pick up and read his 1966 novel "Beautiful Losers".  About two thirds of the way through the book, buried in a particularly descriptive paragraph, was the phrase "rope of days", and it just sort of leaped out at me as a wickedly good clump of words.  I originally sang the song with the closing verse going "...sliding down this silly rope of days / a leonard cohen phrase...", holding "Leonaaaaaaard" in place of "Sillyyyyyy".  Didn't work especially well, and it soon morphed into a "let's coin a phrase tonight", a buried reference to REM's "Talk About The Passion".  As for what the song is about, who knows?  Perhaps a bit of expressed angst at a failing relationship, and the desire to slip off into dreamland where everything is still ok.  It's basically in B, and I like the way it ends on that G# (the sixth?).

 

For more Mike Runion:

home.palmnet.net/~mrrunion

Om Mani Padme Hung (Dudich/Dudich/Sonam/Gyatso)

Performed by Ki Society:

David and Luther Dudich

 

Luther says: 

After our old band, the Number Nine Line, pulled into its last stop (after recording "Only the Stones Remain" for the Glass Flesh 2 CD), the writing core of that band lay dormant for several years.  Recently, through modern technology, it has become possible for people to transcend the limitations of ordinary rock and roll settings, and create innovative new arrangements to break through the boundaries of consciousness... Oh wait a second, that's the liner notes to the 13th Floor Elevators first album.  Let me start again:

 

The writing core of the Number Nine Line, who happened to be born within 5 minutes of each other, decided to start creating music again.  The tracks on this CD reflect our new directions.

 

About Om Mani Padme Hung:

Ki Society is currently working on a project of ambient/ down-tempo remixes of Buddhist chants, working with the monks and nuns of the Tibetan Meditation Center in Frederick Maryland.  This track from the upcoming "Prayer Flags: Drikung Music vol. 1" features Lama Sonam and Rinchen Gyatso.  There is a full album, most of which features the voice of Khenchen Konchog Gyaltshen Rinpoche, who is a well-known teacher, translator, and author in Buddhist circles.

 

For more Ki Society:

http://www.drikungtmc.org/drikung_music.htm

 

 

Five Was the Time (Nesmith/Santos/Sieve)

Performed by Blatzman & Friends:

David “BlatzmanSantos: Vocals

Jonathan Nesmith & Mark Sieve: All the rest

 

David “BlatzmanSantos was the frontman for both Peace & Vegetable Rights and There Goes Bill, the latter of which also featured fellow feg Rex Broome.  Here he is joined by longtime collaborators Mark Sieve and Jonathan Nesmith.  Yes, Nesmith is indeed the son of a Monkee.

 

Five Was the Time may or may not be a preview of Blatzman’s long-awaited solo debut, since starting which he has moved from Los Angeles to Phoenix, AZ and back, in addition to getting married and fathering two children.

 

 

Roger the Robot (Shell)

Performed by Greg Shell

 

Greg on Roger the Robot:

If robots ever start having sex and filming porn again, they will probably use background music like this. The song was created with Rebirth 2.0 and recorded with Voyetra DOP.

 

 

 

Carrier Pigeon (Michael Godwin)

Performed by Michael Godwin:

Fender Stratocaster, Hofner violin bass, Dr Rhythm unit.

Recorded on a TEAC Portastudio, Lyncombe Hill, Bath,sometime in the 1980s.

Remixed specially on a Yamaha Portastudio, Midford Road, Bath, 2003.

 

Guitarist Michael "Smoking Fingers" Godwin, the Duane Doberman of the Bath

music scene, has played with countless short-lived bands in Bath,

Warminster and Bristol, including (in the seventies) the notorious Rocky

Ricketts and the Jet Pilots of Jive. His songs show influences from

Lloyd Alexander to Peter Perrett, Bill Harkleroad to Benny the Ball. "I

done my time playing E, A and D"" he told our representative "and I

figured the moment was ripe for moving on to C sharp minor".

 

Michael on Carrier Pigeon:

This song is about the importance of adequate communications technology in

times of crisis.

 

 

Gliding (Brian Nupp)

Performed by Brian Nupp

 

Brian Nupp, the mastermind behind Lazerlove5, offers up this slightly more experimental outing under his own name… an exclusive to this project (until he decides otherwise).

 

Brian on Gliding:

 

This one is a complete ad lib. It's a tribute to my pal Mike (who plays guitar on Lazerlove5’s Jennifer). Mike is sort of a Beefheart fan.

 

For more Brian Nupp:

Lazerlove5.com

 

 

Badger Skull Tableau (Scott Hunter McCleary)

Performed by Blind Mathew Brady

Blind Mathew Brady is entirely the work of the extremely myopic and remarkably unphotogenic Scott Hunter McCleary.

From the album Belling the Minotaur (1480kHz-004)

 

Badger Skull Tableau was created using and original microcomposition fed through a granular synthesis engine (the incredible th0nk_0+2 developed by Arjen van der Schoot).  The results were then assembled into the final pieces and mixed in Pro Tools.  Because of the unpredictable nature of the granular synthesis, the resulting sequence only vaguely resembled the original microcomposition, but th0nk never fails to provide a rich sonic pallet from which to work.

 

For ambient Fegs everywhere.

 

For more Blind Mathew Brady:

1480kHz.com

The Perfume Makers (Lyrics: M. Simpson, Music - H. Simpson, S. Oram)

Performed by Rectifier:

J Greenwood - Vocals

GP - Bass, Vocals

Deph Priest - Guitars

FL - Keys & Drum Programming

Arranged - Deph Priest

Engineered, Mixed & Produced by GP & Deph Priest

Aug 2002-Oct 2003 at Silly Scotsman Studios, CA

For Murray & Scott with apologies

 

Rectifier kind of evolved into the present configuration over the last year or so from a bunch of varied personalities with a few key things in common.  (Band fact - all members of the band wear a size 10.5 shoe except FL who doesn't wear any.)

 

J Greenwood: Front man.  No previous experience fronting a band but likes the attention it gets him.  Bit of a poseur.

GP:  El Presidente, numero uno, the head honcho, etc.  Writes pretty much everything.  Has more than enough ego for the whole band combined.

Deph Priest:  A rock legend in his own mind.  Very few opinions as long as he gets to make noise.  Helps with some of the music writing and arranging.

FL: No opinions.  Does exactly what he's told.

 

The Perfume Makers is kind of a cover from an old band of GPs and fairly self explanatory.  Seems like it's basically just a song about doomed love.  We assume "the perfume makers" is a metaphor for the romance industry (movies, cosmetics, glossy mags, etc.) who sell simplistic images of the perfect love with only money in mind, but the original was written in less than 5 minutes one afternoon in 1986 and Murray doesn't like to talk about his lyrics.

 

Contact Rectifier:

rectifierband@yahoo.com


 

BONUS EP:  The Country Feg Jamboree

 

Bagfoot Run (Rex Broome)

Performed by Rex Broome & His Living Room Demons

Rex Broome:  Guitar, Bass, Banjo That Makes Pete Buck Sound Like Bela Fleck in Comparison, Miserable Whine, High Lonesome Miserable Whine, Higher Lonesomer Quite Miserable Indeed Whine

Miranda Broome:  Yee-hah’s and Such

The Guy from the Charlatans:  Drum Loop

From the album-length thingy March – April 2002

 

They were originally Living Room Demos, but a telling typo turned them into Demons, and so they have remained.  After a long layoff, I’d started playing and singing again to entertain my daughter, and in Spring ‘02 I decided the time had come to exorcise (see?) all of the songs that had been rattling around in my head for years.  I bashed out eleven of them in as quick and lo-fi a manner as digital technology would allow. Rainland, which started up a few months later, will probably end up inheriting the tunes and recording them “properly”, but I still like these gnarled little monsters for what they are.  Sort of.

 

Bagfoot Run, like Fort Ashby, is a song about a small town in West Virginia, although most of the “action” takes place in Maryland.  It’s a train song.  There’s a lyrical goof in this recording, and it muddies the intention of the whole song.  The deal is, if you’re me, and you’re gonna dare to record three part harmonies, you’re gonna need a fair amount of beer.  And once you have that beer, you start to think it would be slightly funny to sing “lonesome homo blues” instead of “lonesome hobo blues”.  But it’s not…it’s just confusing.

 

 

 

I Know the Felt of Judas (James Dignan)

Performed by James Dignan

 

James returns to extend the Country Feg Jamboree kicked off on the previous tune.  About I Know the Felt of Judas, he says:

 

I Know the Felt of Judas was inspired by Viv Lyon and several other Fegmaniax messing around with Altavista's Babelfish translation engine and one of Robyn Hitchcock's lyrics. I took one line as the title and ran with it.  It’s pretty much a working demo, although I think that Felt of Judas is probably about as good as I can get it, wonky harmonica and all. Wish I had access to a lap-steel... Sadly, Johnny Cash will never record it.

 

 

 

 

Oscar (Matt Sewell)

Performed by The New Moon

From the EP The New Moon

 

Matt says:

Oscar is based on a true story of a bi-locating cat. Or two very similar looking cats. The local music paper said about Oscar that it was standard folk pop that could have been written by any one of a million people... grrr… I had to bite my fingers not to email them and ask how many songs they receive per week about bi-locating cats in 11/8…!

 

Rex notes:  Okay, it’s not country at all, but such are the vagaries of putting these types of compilations together.

 

 

What I Like About Puke

Performed by The Shit Together Band

 

Rex says:

Make of this one… what you will.

 

 

Gong (Dudich/Dudich)

Performed by Ki Society:

David and Luther Dudich

 

Rex:

A brief and appropriate way to bring these proceedings to a hold… and also a sort of apologia to Ki Society for my editing job on Om Mani Padme Hung.