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ACCOUNTABILITY



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... what else can you do with an e-bow if you're not Bill Nelson) & his amazing rack-mounted effects unit. The guitar tones he had were (& still are) very sexy.

Most of the stuff I recorded was experimental, heavy on the tribal drum machine & jarringly incongruous beats. Michael's Samick 5-string bass, which had a distinctly nasal kind of tone.


I can't be held accountable for anything I do
I still something something over you

Comments

reincheque said…
Thee Magic Roundabout, how well I remember it. Like two years ago at the XTC convention walking home to my hotel after eating my first chopsticks Chinese meal, only to take the wrong exit off the roundabout and finding myself halfway to Marlborough. Waited about an hour for a taxi. That's Saturday night in Swindon for yer. I may have ingested some intoxicating liquor on the night - I can't swear that I didn't...

...oh, and Burford, I got attacked by a swan there about ten years ago. Nearly stood on some ducklings in my efforts to escape. Not all it's quacked up to be...

Regards,


djp

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