All Her Favorite Fruit

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Technical details:
Ingus – vocal, acoustic guitar [1996]
Thermos – bass [1997], synth drums and strings [2010]

Ingus:
In 1989, two years before I met Matt Ratza and we hung out and wrote His Eternal Rest together, cementing the band that would become Burnt Toast, I saw Camper Van Beethoven perform on Rich Hall’s Onion World, a long-forgotten show on The Comedy Channel (now Comedy Central).  They played When I Win The Lottery and Axe Murderer Song.  While AMS was extremely difficult to find in those days (it was later re-released to my glee on their b-sides comp, Camper Vantiquities), I found Pictures of Matchstick Men on cassette and immediately snapped it up.  I was in love.  I still am.

One of the songs on that cassette (I’d end up going through no fewer than 5 copies of the tape, each wearing out from overuse in a cheap car stereo) that particularly caught my ear was this one – a weird tale of unrequited love gone rather stalker-y, which seems from verse to verse to jump backward through past lives in a David Lynch meets Dracula sort of way, each time obsessing over the same taken woman.  That may not have been what David Lowery intended, but I thought the concept and the melody were both incredible.

In 1996, after finishing State of Bliss, Thom wanted to do a solo album.  Which prompted me to want to do a solo album.  Which in turn caused Louis to tell us the tale of Kiss issuing 4 solo albums at once, (Ace’s was exceptionally good, and Gene’s isn’t bad.  Paul’s is terrible.  I don’t think I ever listened to Peter’s) and we knew we had a plan.  We’ll put out 3 solo tapes, wrap em in cardstock (this was still the heyday of the ‘cassingle’) and sell em for 3 bucks.

Since this was also still the heyday of copying tapes in Louis’ mom’s living room, cutting out j-cards and labels, hand applying the labels and melting seran wrap around them with a hair-dryer, we instead opted for one cassette featuring solo versions of cover songs by all three of us.  We also end up playing on a lot of each others songs.  We’re so not Kiss, but if we were, I’d like to be Vinny.

This is the first song from that tape.

Thermos:
When we first recorded these, most of the songs Ingus and I recorded were essentially still solo – just us and our acoustic guitars.  Louis, since he couldn’t really play anything other than drums at the time, enlisted us for his tracks.  While reminiscing with Louis about this compilation, he mentioned that he probably didn’t have any interest in learning our songs, which would explain the lack of drums on the initial 1996 release.

I’ve never been one to leave well enough alone, so a few weeks back, I decided to start “remixing” all of our cover songs from that period.  I fed the original 4-tracks into my computer and added some additional production.  I removed all the horrendous, extraneous delays and reverbs in which the old mixes swam, boosted some levels here and there, and re-EQ’d the lot.  In ‘97, when I re-did the bass parts for Basement Bliss, I added bass and drums to this track.  However, my drumkit at the time had no snare, so i just pounded on the toms, cymbals, and bass drum.  And it sounded about as good as you would think.  Seeing as how this was the first track to see additional production back then, I found it fitting to start with it again with this go-’round.  I kept the bass from ‘97, but the drums are new, as are the string samples.  I’m pretty happy with the results.

I’ve said it before, and I’m sure to say it again, but adding instrumentation to recordings with no click track is difficult – and occasionally frustrating.

When we originally released this cassette, I believe we had listed credits for each track (who played what, etc.), so I’m adding that information to these posts.

Louis:

The suggestion of us all doing solo tracks on the same album was a desperate attempt by me to keep the band together.  I figured that we would all work on each others tracks (which is what I always thought Kiss should’ve done back in the day), keeping the band dynamic intact…but Mat and Thom weren’t down.

I had actually forgotten about this…I kind of wish it had stayed that way.  This is my least favorite thing Burnt Toast ever did.  I don’t think I’ve ever even listened to it all the way through, ‘cuz it still bums me out.

This is the beginning of the end.  We did a bunch of stuff after, but it was never the same.