I think this was the 1st or 2nd track we did for this record. It was either this first, She Owns Me second, or vice-versa.
Between this and Right On Time and Another Yesterday (which were later in the process), you can see how we sort of evolved and came into our stride as producers. Those other songs definitely have a different feel, partly because of the live drums. But to me that’s cool because that gives us some variety on the record.
I played all these synth tracks on this and did some MIDI sequencing and drum programming. I did the synth solo in the bridge, and Larry played a guitar solo and they kinda play off each other, and I remember that being a happy accident.
I remember this image of standing in front of this keyboard that belonged to Rock Romano, having it on a keyboard stand in the control room, and Larry and Tamara sitting there in the guest chairs. I’m not entirely sure it was Tamara, or if anyone else was really there besides Larry. The thing I remember liking about doing this record is the sense of community around it. There was more community around the recording of this than of Cult Of Nice even. In case you hadn’t gleaned, we did this record almost immedietly after doing Cult Of Nice, in fact I think they maybe even overlapped a lot. So the “team” around it was basically the same team. There was me of course, and Larry, and Tamara, and Justine (Larry’s wife), and some other people. There was Rebecca, and old old friend of Larry’s and Tamara’s who I’ve mentioned before, and Kara, who was a friend of Rebecca’s, and occassionally this old friend of Larry’s from Boston (I think) called Sebastian. Oh and Darrel (I wonder how to spell his name), who was the most ingenious worker of metal and maker of metal furniture and also of construction in general, really anything to do with building, mechanics, physical shapes, things and stuffs. He was older than all of us. He used to work for AJ Foyt or something crazy and had invented some shit that basically revolutionized auto racing without ever really being credited for it, and then drummed out of the business by his wife (who was EX wife by the time I met him). At least that’s the story as best I know it.
Darrel built (with me as assistant!) the incredible aluminum speaker stands/rack mount units that I had in the Houston studios and the Oakland studio. It was incredible to watch him do stuff like that.
Anyway these and maybe even the occasional other person were always around. They’d be in Rock’s studio listening to us track or mix, and they’d come to me and Tamara’s house/my little studio to listen to tracks and give us feedback.
Sebastian had years before created a label around a certain techno artist on the East Coast, and through sheer being unafraid and just pretending he was three different people and not knowing he couldn’t do it, he made the thing a huge success. Then two things happened: 1) they snorted all the profits and 2) they put this artist on stage in front of 3000 people for his first performance, and it turned out the artist had lied: he had no performance experience and he froze. It was ridiculous, apparently.
We wanted Sebastian to help blow Third Option up like that, but in the end, nothing much happened. That was one of the times I learned (again) how you can’t really retain a person of that calibur without any money or promise of it. Maybe if we’d caught him in his drug-addled days when he was doing that other artist, but by then, he had turned it all around, had a high paying real job, kids, etc.
Anyway Larry’s record was really fun to do not only because of the great collaborative energy me and Larry had, but because of that community around it. Also, I was doing somebody other than myself a service, and that was really neat.