YOUR LIP IS ON FIRE (I'LL STOMP IT OUT)

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 early live-to-two-track recording via the home stereo I had at the time. Which had two little mic inputs on the front.

Ian C Stewart "Your Lip's on Fire (I'll Stomp it Out)" MP3

I continued recording in that manner... with the two little mic inputs until I got my first four track in August 1989. During which time I recorded many tens of hours of horrible fake songs, many of which will probably appear here in the coming weeks & days. Warned.

Comments

Unknown Samarkand track circa 1999-2000

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.

THESE CHORDS ARE LIKE FAMILY TO ME

Ian C Stewart "These Chords are like Family to Me" MP3 From the 2003 made-to-be-made-not-made-to-be-heard album I Don't Know Why You Think I Won't Kill You .... this is the last song. This was the beginning of my dabbling with intentional randomness in songwriting. The lyrics for the whole album were compiled from albums by other artists that I enjoyed a lot, such as Adrian Belew's Twang Bar King , The Cure's Pornography , Voivod Nothingface , Mercyful Fate Melissa etc. I wrote out entire lines of their phrases and chopped them together. I think at the time I described it as 'sad psychedelic love songs about satan' overall, which is really being too generous. The music was also randomly chosen from tablature found on t'interwebs for favorite songs of mine. In general I played the chords in reverse order to the original songs but I can still kind of tell in a couple of places what the songs were. The titles were my own, obviously. Although I did cho...

EXGIRLFRIEND

SAMARKAND FRENZY WEEK, DAY THREE Samarkand "Exgirlfriend" MP3 This song is from the limited release cassette Sensitive , which was issued in a handpainted edition of 10 in January 1993. Naturally. Sensitive was 60 minutes of almost entirely brand new material, only one or two songs were recycled. It was recorded during what I thought would be my winter break from Berklee in 1992. Of course that turned out to be my permanent break from Berklee in 1992 since the cash had completely run out for my tuition. All the songs were recorded on a borrowed 4-track, possibly Ray's Porta 05. I also had my uncle's massive Carvin PA, Sennheiser mics & Ludwig drums in my basement. All of which feature prominently on this here release, along with the brand new Zoom 9002 effects. Which was an amazing combination at the time, I really felt like the boundaries were down on the equipment end of things for the first time. "Exgirlfriend" is a riff recycled from Domestik Quarrel...

Ian C Stewart Archive of Sound

Search This Blog