IRRELIGION MYSTERY SONG

Irreligion "Mystery Song" MP3

I'd love to tell you everything about this gothic funk jam but um I have no idea. Maybe it's a cover? Whatever it is, it perfectly encapsulates I think where we wanted to go with the whole funk-goth thing we were about at the time.

Ray's singing, I'm on guitar, Michael is slapping the Macho aka playing bass, Elliott on drums.

I think if we had been about 20% more serious, we could've taken Irreligion out of the basement, onto a stage somewhere. But in the end it just wound up being a brief stop along the way, between XYCHQ and Evil Bread. A strange but necessary part of the transition.

This was recorded on Christine The Death Box in my basement, sometime in mid/late 1990. Beyond that.... I have no clue. I mean, it still has its unique mutated charm to me. It's still an exciting sound that we were messing around with.

I don't know what the lyrics are.... maybe something from Ray's notebook. Or possibly mine? Or maybe this is a really obscure T Rex cover?

Michael found "irreligion" in the dictionary. It was a sweet name. It's probably the one musical regret of all of our lives that we never got to play this stuff live. Ah well. I suppose it could still happen.........

We loved Christian Death's "Only Theatre of Pain" album most of all but also Power Station, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Soundgarden, Voivod, Faith No More. We didn't discover Cocteau Twins or Dead Can Dance for another six months, so it was always metallic, atonal, ghouly and/or groovy with Irreligion.

Comments

Darrin said…

Man... you used expensive tapes in the day. I was all about quantity (imagine that) so I usually would get the 3 for $1.00 tapes. In later years I would 'splurge' and get the cheepo yellow memorex's that cost just under a dollar each.

Now, I don't feel so bad about my thriftiness since all those tapes are in the basement collecting dust. Seriously, I can't think of what would motivate me to listen to 24/7 Spyz or Child's Play or XYZ or most of the other tapes I made copies of, other than curiosity itself.

Dorm Wall Clutter 1 1992 = Very Nice. :)

July 26, 2007 at 10:16 AM

Ian Stewart said…

Yeah, the nice tapes were a xmas present. I too usually bought the cheapest ones in existence.

July 26, 2007 at 5:20 PM

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...

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