Ian C Stewart Archive of Sound

Emerson, Lilly and Quaffer "ELQ Theme 1" MP3 This was recorded in fall 1990. My drum set was combined with Elliot's. He had a bunch of drums including some Ludwig concert toms and a huge Zildjian Swish cymbal that was like a china on steroids. Plus I think Ihad a few trashy old bits like a horrid old high hat, snare & bass drum, origin unknown. This recording begins with me doddering my way around the entire kit & back. I think there were three entire kits going at the same time, plus one or two sawblades. After my drum kit exploration begins, Michael gets situated on the bass. He wastes no time in slapping the shit out of Macho Man, aka my old Peavey bass. Then you hear Raymond firing up his shitty old Bonpoopi organ, run through my flanger pedal.

Ian C Stewart "For Free" MP3 This is from the last regularly-scheduled mixdown tape of my career. July/August 1995. So late in the game that the tape doesn't even have a title. The songs would've gone on to comprise the follow-up to Samarkand In Bursts , which was apparently abandoned in the face of audience apathy! You punks!! There wasn't really an emo option at the time, but that's basically where I was with music. I was too heavily invested, emotionally. The only difference between my lyrics and diaries at the time was that one of them rhymed & was funny. The other, not so much. But, in 1995, it made no difference. I thought I was doing good work, musically, and no one was taking notice. It was pissing me off & the fact that I was working nights & probably could've used some perspective was lost on me. So I ran my music thang into the ground & started a zine pretty much at the same time. Ironically perhaps (after how many bad reviews I/...

most of The Uncultured, April 1988 me, Michael Million, Jeff Sampson, Mark Ward Ian, Mike & Ray "Physical Love Song" MP3 The first time I jammed with Michael Million & Raymond Lilly....February 20, 1988... we came up with a handful of feedbacky, riffy punk rock anthems. They had already been playing together for a while by the time I stepped onto the scene. They had one terrifyingly enthusiastic & catchy song, sensitively referred to as the Anti-abortion Song. Politically incorrect from the word go. Those guys were a year ahead of me in high school & they represented the future. Up to that point, every time I tried to jam with anyone it was usually in a heavy metal capacity. Iron Maiden, Queensryche, KISS inluenced. Raymond & Michael liked metal but had weird haircuts & Suicidal Tendencies logos on their jackets. Scary. And I loved the fact that even though it was just the two of them, Ray singing & Michael playing this awesome, weird, fake Randy ...

Handpainted cover art there. Nice Radio Shack brand cassette, eh? Ian C Stewart "Joy" MP3 What They Lack is kind of the simultaneous prototype of Euphoria Suicide and Conspiring Myths . Two of my first 'albums'. Except in mixdown album form. The mixdown album was usually for my consumption only & the best pieces would be compiled onto proper albums. That was my system. "Joy" is the oddball track in that it's not a dirge, it's not about being dumped or killing anyone, it's just a super simple pop song. Which has never come easily for me. And even at its most raucous, "Joy" is still kind of a dirge. A funky dirge with chirpy keyboards but a dirge all the same. The music was recycled for Star*Pillow a few years later & given hornier lyrics & titled "Oh Cathy." As in Oh, Cathy Dennis, please step off my tip for you are giving it a mighty chafe . Type of thing. Very mature. "Joy" was about an actual girl nam...

October-November 1991 Group Emission mixdown album Ian C Stewart "King of the Circular Trail" MP3 This is the pinnacle of pretentious teenage bollox, I don't know how else to say it. Just looking at the handwriting on the j-card, the random vocabulary words copied from a back issue of National Geographic and the 100 minutes of frankly questionable material, this tape was an object lesson on how to be a creepy, self-involved tosser. Which is one reason it's been in the closet with all the other bad tapes for the past 16 years. Just to clarify, today's song is titled "Circular Train In 3" but the lyrics & music are "King of the Circular Trail," so that's what I'm going to call this thing. For the sake of clarity, not that it matters much now. I have no idea what the lyrics are! I'm king of the circular trail Take you where I want and I'll leave you to fail I'm master of this lifestyle With my own point of view It's pr...

Pure Mayhem Tape (aka Anything for a Rhyme) wasn't the first batch of songs I ever wrote. But it was the first time I actually organized my new songs into an album format. And perhaps more importantly it was the first time I ever made tapes of my songs for other people to listen to. your lip is on fire I'll stomp it out your lip is on fire my own piss is worth more than you I think I was writing & recording little made-up ditties as far back as 1985. Maybe before that even? Pure Mayhem predates all multitrack recording for me. Most of side one was done with a mono cassette recorder. It sounds like the Casio PT-3 keyboard was propped up, facing the recorder's built-in condenser mic, with the guitar amp facing from the other direction. And I was probably standing over the whole shebang, vocalizing down to the mic. All the volume levels had to be manually worked out beforehand, otherwise, you get a recording like this one. One element dominates. Side two features some ea...

Ian C Stewart "Morality (alt verse)" MP3 This was the last 4-track mixdown tape before my Tascam Porta 05 gave up the ghost. Also the last before I left for Berklee, I guess. Devilcake had dissolved, my other musical concerns were winding down, such as drumming with Earwig. Before I left Ohio I still wanted to start another band. A 'techno' band called Dislocation, featuring me, Todd and Jeff - the two Devilcake keyboard players. Jeff had an amazing synth that made its way to my house somehow. The tones were incredible & I was determined to lay the groundwork for us to have a band that made danceable, probably dark, um, techno industrial whatever music. Unfortunately of course it never came to pass, but I still managed to record a bunch of Dislocation "themes". Oh yeah & "Mortality" was one of the first things I/we wrote for the 'band.' I guess the whole thing was a precursor to Samarkand because we jammed a few times in my basement...

Ian C Stewart "Happy to Fall" MP3 The overactive drum machine programming & boomy vocal mic tell the whole story. August 1991 again....Mixdown album Lessons in Enormity and Severity . The lyrics and title were accidentally borrowed from Ian McCulloch's song "Proud to Fall," which I was aware of but wasn't a huge fan of. If that makes sense. Of course I love Ian McCulloch's solo stuff now, but was ambivalent at first. Typically self absorbed lyrics & moany vocals. Still, not an abysmal effort at making a pop song. The lyrics were probably a reflection of my feeling at the time that all my fiends were f'ing off to college & I was still in Ohio, still working at Subway, still recording crappy fake pop songs in the basement & not becoming a rock star. Waaaaaah! there's no one else I can trust with my tears no one else to discuss my fears and now you're gone

Ian C Stewart "Accountability" MP3 Hah, remember those Maxell Capsule tapes? Nice. This mixdown album.... laughingly titled Mama .... which came from one of the XTC live-on-radio 1989 acoustic recordings. At the very very end of one of the songs, Andy Partridge sang "mama," for no apparent reason. Maybe he was trying to tack on a Led Zeppelin-esque effect. Whatever, it was funny as hell at the time & I made it my goal to finish every song on this tape the same way.... anyway, this album features an early appearance by the Boss DR-550 drum machine that I got in August 1991. Mama was the first or second batch of recordings. That's also the time just after Evil Bread disbanded. I answered a Drummer Wanted flier & jammed a few times with a nice but directionless trio of older musicians. The guitarist left all his gear at my place, as was the custom at the time. So between jam sessions I spent hours (no, really) upon hours experimenting with his e-bow (well.....

This mixdown album.... 4-Track Fallout 96-97 was my last 4-track cassette action ever. After my Porta 05 studio locked up at Berklee in fall 1992, I didn't replace it right away. Eventually I upgraded to the Tascam 488 cassette 8-track and never looked back. In 1996 & 97 we were recording the Irreligion stuff & I guess my 8-track migrated over to Ray so he could do the vocals. & his Porta 05 came my way. Fascinating, no? Star*Pillow "Were I Tom Araya" MP3 I love the everything-in-mono smallness of this recording. The drums & keyboard were done with the trusty SK-5 sampler. I sampled my snare & kick drums, apparently. And the keyboard sound is probably a sample of a guitar harmonic. Or was it a flute sample from the first Cathedral album? I forget now. The bass is one of the first appearances of my Fender Bass VI, which I acquired from elderly instruments for $750, a total steal. Sure, the Bass VI was just a reissue, but it was still a prized possessi...

Lest this thing become a museum for all things 1988.... here's a nu track I slapped together this past Sunday, June 17, 2007. Ian C Stewart "Rocked Out Fake Pitch Wheel Ordeal" MP3 On the ole Proteus (old = circa 1991) synth there's a preset called "ZoundTrax," which conveniently sounds very similar to my ole (old = circa 1985) Casio PT-3 micro keyboard. Which had this cheesy selection of chords on the left side, since the keyboard itself could only cope with one note at a time. The chords sound kind of like a pipe organ, but also not. Back in the mid 1990s I embraced the PT's garish tones & overall uselessness for a series of 808 State and Ultramarine influenced 'ambient techno' songs, that later became the Samarkand album Pitch Wheel . That's when I found out that when I applied the harmonizer effect (adding a tone a 5th higher, I think it was) to the organ chords, it reminded me of " Pacific ," one of my favorite-ever 808 S...

I've been meaning to get some recordings of my drumming up here. Finally, this tape appeared... Collision Course , from August 1990. There's a surprisingly high amount of good ideas on this otherwise overlong 90 minute tape. "Bobby Sabbath (in two parts)" was a song with a mission. Or something. The first thing you notice on the drums is the 1960s-sounding spring reverb, courtesy of the old 1960s PA head we had. I say "we" since any piece of gear that Michael, Ray or I owned got passed around in a big circle. We spent many hours, many entire weekends in the basement, jamming, recording, writing, hanging out, bullsh!tting, playing ChumpBall(tm). Drumming-wise, I made a lot of headway once I was able to start playing every day. This recording features a rare attempt by me at playing a drum solo. Something I would not attempt now. The bass line was stolen from a Michele' song that was popular at the time. But I thought it was a Bobby Brown song. The guitar ...

Morgue Shadow Pale by Comparison In 1993 I invented a genre I called vampire rap. Vampire rap came about after watching Bram Stoker's Dracula too many times & listening to Straight Outta Compton too many times. It seemed like a simple enough idea to swap the gangster imagery in hiphop for vampire imagery. Instead of hating the police, hating the clergy. & replacing Eazy-E with Rozz Williams...... MC Ghoul & the Morgue Shadow "I'm a Necro" MP3 This project remains unfinished. The 'band' name has changed several times. It started as Pasty Chumps, then changed to Pasty Chimps. Then Morgue Chimps, then Ghouly F'ing Whatever ... & I think "Morgue Shadow" was the name we used that time Todd & I opened for Devilcake at Apollo's. We went on first, with the drum machine, he played bass, I played guitar & sang a few songs.

Ian C Stewart "Industrial Desert" MP3 Aggressive New Age was a genre I invented in 1989/90. Combining odd guitar tunings & flanged cymbals, it was space music for the future. I thought. I recorded a bunch of stuff in this style but I'll save the rest for another time. Or never. Drums = Casio SK-5 swing beat, backward clean guitar, forward guitars & one track of bass. Interesting.

Ian C Stewart "Until 91" MP3 Even though I had a girlfriend, I wrote the occasional song about other girls. "Until 91" was one such thing. It was recorded on my brand new Tascam Porta 05 4-track. That thing was my pride & joy. I used it more or less constantly until it gave up the ghost in 1992. "Until 91" adheres to the strict 4 tracks/no overdubs idea, maybe I hadn't learned how to overdub by that point. My first Casio keyboard supplied the drums. It was a PT-something. Uhhhh, clean guitar = Jaguar. Fretless bass = Michael's black Ibanez, last seen onstage with Raymond & Devilcake in 1992. I'm not sure where the funky folky vibe comes from. Satan? You came into my life bringing mucho confusion I didn't know if you were real or just an illusion I thought I was happy as I screamed in pain You turned around and left as you came me drumming with XYCHQ!?, January 1989 This was my first gig playing drums. It was horrible, I was horrible...

Ian C Stewart "New Doom" MP3 from the mixdown album This One Ain't Got No Title, I'm Titled Out ., from April-May 1992. Most of the other stuff on this tape is badly recorded, badly mixed, badly conceived, badly written proto grunge goth industrial bleah. But there are a couple of strange highlights, like this one, "New Doom". The music is oddly sophisticated for the time & for my prevailing lack of sophistication. It sounds kind of like Prefab Sprout's "Jesse James Bolero" now, even though I didn't hear that until about five years ago. The music is just the one bass line, pretty much. The entire song is sped up, I'm not sure why. Maybe just to exaggerate the humorous vibe. The lyrics are the funniest part, though. I think. Because they're very heavily influenced by Swans. Very dark & ominous. Not at all chirpy & snappy like the music. you'll get told someone will scold him while conditioning me now I can't go I...

Product Of A Confused Mind is a jam-packed 90 minute cassette, stuffed with all manner of boooolsh!t!, good and bad. Most of it makes me cringe but it was fun to make & really kind of sums up my personality at the time. I guess. Writing & recording were my primary obsessions. Editing or, y'know, engineering recordings were not. Ian C Stewart "Not Really What I'm Looking For" MP3 Let's see... there's the Synsonics toy drum machine keeping time. Slapped bass, of course. Casio SK-5 sampling keyboard for that melody thing & probably the percussive scream. Lyrics.... uh, I was a senior in high school, so. Who knows. I think they ggo something like nudge don't budge don't push me aside lost my keys can you give me a ride I didn't have a car any way I just drove my keys around all day Here's another family photo, circa March 1992. Warlock, Jaguar.... Macho Man. This is before Macho met his demise at the comic store, obviously. KEEP OFF SH...

Ian C Stewart - Pathetic MP3 from the mixdown album Works In Progress 91 mixed down around January 25, 1991... This pretentious, coy song dates from that spastic period of compulsive "creativity" just after xmas 1990. I got a new Casio Tonebank keyboard for xmas & its tones are featured on this track, along with clean guitar (probably the Jaguar) and slapped fretless bass (definitely Michael's Ibanez). The lyrics are the typical smeh of post adolescence. I wouldn't say I've grown out of this type of songwriting but it's probably not a coincidence that I didn't write too many more things in this vein. Here's a rare shot of Samarkand onstage... summer 1993. That's Jeff Sampson, me, and Brian Lewis. One of our few gigs... this one was at Freakin' Pizza.

Judging by the drum & bass loop I'd say this recording predates any PC multitracking attempts. I was definitely in the zone with the guitar, though. It sounds like an old Cure riff that was abandoned at birth. Maybe it was, who knows. Ian C Stewart - 1999-2000 Unknown Samarkand Track MP3 The other side of the cassette is labeled CLUB AUTO NARRATION SOURCE. My Tokai and BC Rich guitars, circa summer 1987. Posed seductively on my bedroom floor.... in the basement.... Speaking of basements, anyone who came over to my house to jam from 1989 onwards would've had this low-hanging ceiling light to contend with. By contend with I mean leave skin and hair cells upon. The number of times I and everyone else smashed our heads on that thing was quite funny, thinking back.

Star*Pillow was me doing fake Ween before I knew what Ween was. It was going to be an EP, I think... all acoustic ballads with lyrics about suicide. Eventually I slapped together a few 'humorous' (cracked me up anyway) ditties & bang, a side project was born. Star*Pillow - Working for the Government MP3 Star*Pillow - Old Crusty The Gym Shirt MP3 Star*Pillow - Ace of Spades MP3 Star*Pillow - Oh Cathy MP3 Star*Pillow - Hooker Man It's not as funny as I remember.

from the mixdown 'album' As Isn't "One More Thing to Make You Stupid". MP3 The drums & most of the melodic stuff was done with the old Casio SK-5 sampling keyboard. I sampled my drum set, which is why the snare sounds so pingy & pungent. The bass line was played on the keyboard & I think there are two tracks of distorted guitar. The mixdown was boomy & peaky, which was due to my misunderstanding at the time that everything needed to have lots of bass to be punchy. Derf.

This is the autobiographical music blog I've always wanted. This will probably involve TMI whenever possible followed by long lulls. Audience-wise, I don't know who other than me would be interested in any of this. But, then again, why shouldn't people like it? I officially declare the question of Who It's All For to be.... NOT MY PROBLEM! I'll be encoding & uploading appropriate (& inappropriate) music-stuffs from my entire life. It'll probably be a random assortment of whatever I have on hand at the time. Probably not chronological. Or even any kind of logical... again.... NOT MY PROBLEM! Unapologetically, perhaps inexplicably self-obsessed. Explaining things that don't need to be explained & not even mentioning the best stuff. Just like I do. Today, I call this blog..... LUCKY CEMETERY because.... it makes me laugh but it's subject to change.