Stomock

After Gut Work, we decided to remake Ferdukia, our rock opera epic. We worked on it for a long time and used a couple of different software tools... but we were never together, geographically, during the entire project.

For awhile we used a collaborative recording tool, the name of which I can't remember. It consisted of a web site and a downloadable tool that was an approximation of a 4-track recorder with rudimentary effects. We then moved on to using Cubase. For the most part we would each do our part, then mail back & forth two things: a mix down of the full song and a wav file containing a mix of just the pieces we had added to the song.

This is not that far off from Stomock's origins with the "Tig Machine." That thing required us to record a track on one cassette, then move that cassette from the recording slot into the playing slot, then play it while we recorded the next layer onto another cassette.

The resulting recording remains my favorite Stomock album.

This song, "Life's Such a Joy" was on both versions of Ferdukia. Many of the songs take the perspective of one or the other of the twins (born joined at the Stomock and separated at birth). In this one, the twin the King kept tells how he shucked off his royal life and hit the road with joy and evil devastation.

I wrote this back in July 2005, as should be evident from the lyrics. I won't dissect them.

A quick cover of a song from the glorious Canadian TV show Trailer Park Boys.

By the end of the 90's, the Internet had come along to the point where geographically disparate stomachans could collaborate by trading files. We began to use a now-defunct startup whose name I can't remember. They were an early social media network built around creating music collaboratively. They offered a small, simple multi-track tool that allowed users to download a track, layer another track over it, then upload the results. And so forth. We used that tool for Gut Work, our first new album in seven years, and continued using it through part of the Ferdukia remake.

CDs hold a lot of music... and we had seven years of pent-up stool. So the album's 28 tracks long and includes new songs and a few remakes of songs that had receded into the tape hiss of history. This is one of those.

It's a archetypical Stomock song in that it a) addresses a real person (hi, Anita, wherever you are) b) is built on an extended poop metaphor and c) consists of only a few instruments & no drums. Just add a few handclaps and we'd have it all.

You know what the world really needs? Another version of Another Typical Song.

ATS appeared on Distended, our first EP. It falls in the category of "mean Stomock songs" since it's describing a friend. There are several of these, but that's all I'll say about that.

The original recording may be lost to the ages. I have it on my CD of Noxious Effluvia, but I unwisely put a pretty label on the CD which now renders it unreadable in most CD players. But I let the folks at Apple know about this problem and though they regretfully informed me that they could not build a CD player that would compensate for the label problem, they were able to write a version of GarageBand that runs on the iPod and is ideally suited for recreating that original Stomock sound.

So here's a new version of the song, recorded 25 years after the first version and completed approximately 30 minutes after I first opened the GarageBand app. Let me repay Apple with this endorsement, sure to boost the sales of the iPad2 and make it a best seller against all odds:

Stomock says: "The iPad2 is the New Tig!"

Said dome was conveniently located in Bryan's mom's backyard, where we could hear a neighbor hard at work with his chainsaw. And so can you, thanks to the magic of 4-track tape. Actually, you can hear the chain saw with only one track. Thanks to an Clapton live recording and another of the four tracks, you can hear our imaginary audience. The other two tracks were left free for the use of future generations.

Here's the L-STD version of Railroad, originally from our first album, Noxious Effluvia. Since Mr. Clapton loaned us his audience, we framed this one as a tribute of sorts. It is to the original Railroad as his slow acoustic version was to the original Layla.

If you choose to graph that relationship, the scale of awesome betwixt Railroad & Layla remains constant from version to version.

The only listenable track on SMP is the title track, in which we brag about how awesome we are and how you're not worthy to be our fan(s). The faux brag is a Stomock tradition going back to the days when the first Stomocks dragged themselves out of the primordial swamp to sing an impromptu song about inventing cable TV.

You know we love you, though it seems like we're miles above you.

But that's it. I can't listen to the rest of the album. However, around the same time Bryan (the Right Stomock, for I am always wrong) recorded Ditties from the Tortoiseshell Buttlamp, a solo rock opera more The Vanishing Herds than Stomockian. I've always loved that recording, so here's the fourth track, Welcome Back to the Tortoiseshell Buttlamp.

After A New World Odor we entered the long dark upset of the Stomock. Marked by excess and haste, our output during this period is less than gutacular. First came Bible-Belted Big Blackmail (1992) and its b-side, Half an Ass Beats Nun, then F*** Manifesto (1993), and The Stomock Master Plan (1993). Yes, we had fun making them, but with a few exceptions the songs make for some rough listening.

Exceptions on Bible-Belted include the semi-title song, though only as potential; its remake on Gut Work is our only candidate for a "hit". A dubious candidate, but we'll take what we can get. Other exceptions:

From Bible-Belted:

Evicting Jesus (more for potential and because it should by all rights be a disaster)

Spuds

When Paul & Steve BF Each Other (mainly for obnoxiousness)

From Nun:

Guilty

M-ma (later remade in German as Umlaut. Stay tuned.)

And, finally, "When Christy Breaks Down", which again is better for its potential than for its actuality. Nonetheless, here's the song, which appeared on the later Gut Work album (2000) both as a remake and in this, its original form. On Gut Work it appeared as "Track Name Withheld" since there is an actual Christy and we included this in part to annoy her. Which it did. You'll see why.

Marked as kid-unfriendly with reason...

A New World Odor's 30 tracks mark the end of the early Stomock period and herald much of what was to come in the next ten years. The Right Stomock's growing musical skills were growing while the Left Stomock was getting distracted by graduate school and other distractions. This is the first Stomock album to feature a large number of tracks that do not feature both band members. Here's one of those tracks: "Gilded Noise" by the Right Stomock.

Democracy gets annoyed

when you're young and unemployed.

God speaks to everyone but me.

I see him on TV. What a country.

Aside from the very Right-Stomockian lyrics and effectively spacey echo, it's notable for the glorious bloopy-bloop keyboard. Three sounds dominate the album: that keyboard, the Right Stomock's bass, and a drum machine in a music lab in Iowa City, Iowa.