“duets” by rob lynch and friends here’s what I remember: unfortunate mic placement. levels that got way out of hand. lots of laughs. maybe a broken glass or two if mike morrissey was around. trying out instruments we don’t play. bike riding and basketball, even at 20 degrees. sleepovers with horrendous blankets (ali pie). working without the critic. sometimes battling heartache… i love the duets. 1 “body party” (zito/lynch) jim zito on guitar, one note at a time. i played brushes. we both “sang”, on the floor, in the basement. chris cosgrave came over and chimed in...home for xmas. jug of peanut butter pretzels. chris foreman said we should have added “join my party”… 2 “the town it’s said i come from” (lynch) i wrote this jackass lyric after reading “the grapes of wrath” in the tub. i played the whole lot…listen for the one note trumpet, pressed against a bass drum for reverb! rex sings like a champ, even when he’s joking. that’s him yelling nonsense down my hallway during the b section. vocals were recorded just before he left us buffalo folk… i remember a good “relationships” talk. miss ya buddy. 3 “i’ll see you at home” (zito/lynch) nothing is more fun than making up songs with jim. i love that out of tune “reggae” piano he played. my bass part, on my newly acquired ventura, was a direct result of too much lee perry box set. jim and i both played drums…two tracks. danelectro guitar i bought from charlie quill. jim wrote the lyrics. i like “ you dress real nice, i’ve got tailors too”. it turns creepy at the end! again with the dictaphone mic, the floor and the whisper. 4 “christ, i’ll never fall in love again” (lynch) christ was added as not to receive a phone call from bacharach’s people. morrie played bass, but we miked it poorly (of course) and its tough to hear. he played the organ too…we screamed the background vocals as loud as possible. still, that doesn’t hurt as much as the high end from the constant cymbals and shaker! “captian nemo with no medical supplies”. a little break up song i wrote for morrie when things weren’t lookin good. 5 “we are super happy” (hobart/lynch) rex came up with this riff sitting on the edge of my bed, with a huge boom mic making it hard to move. most positive. the “mack truck” (as jim whitford called it) in the middle is the result of a new compressor i bought for 20 bucks, a kingston guitar i bought for 50 bucks and a parade drum morrie gave me. 6 “the breaker” (rozler/lynch) when jo jo rozler comes up to the falls for a summer bike ride up and down the gorge, its constant music jokes, gig stories and sound experiments with doppler effects and flangers. somehow, we save time to talk about the important stuff, like the “gary lewis style” of strident triplets. joe came into the basement, still in workout mode from the ride and played this piano track on the spot, to the sweet sound of the thomas organ’s drum machine. he was then off to gig and i finished up with a super loud floor tom. 7 “open house” (cannon/lynch) chris came over and gave me some bare acoustic guitar tracks to drum along to, for his new album. i liked this one and decided to work over it, some mental offshoot of my drive to yale with grad school intentions. 8 “the boring bather” (zito/lynch) technology! i worked on this in some airport, waiting for a connection to raleigh to visit jim. we liked the background hiss and played it up. suezanne suggested the bath noises, which i gladly added. we came up with the melody while waiting in an unbelievable traffic jam. later on pitchforkmedia.com we read it involved a band on the road and a tragic death. still whispering, but now into a laptop. 9 “poolside and macho” (hanley/lynch) bob came over with this great “beck-like” bass line. we slowed it down and i added the “bottom of the pool” bigsby guitar on my new 135. lots of blue light, lots of amusement. the shaker at the end is lee perry influenced, again, and too loud on purpose. notice the out of tune guitar lead just before the end of the tune, left over from a previous take. 10 “trick or treating alone” (bocek/lynch) sue can come up with a strange tune at the drop of a hat. but when the red light was on, it took a little longer! this was our second tune of the night, recorded in between door knocks from ghosts and goblins. dr. pepper, absolut pepper and full of chocolate bars minis. 11 “you wanted a friend” (pipitone/lynch) somehow, it took mike meldrum to tell me that we had ripped off “sloop john b”! ali played my old parlor guitar called “my buddy”…now lost. it took me 2.000 takes, which explains the conversation at the top. mike morrissey came by at night with cantaloupe and played bass. ali stayed over in the spare room beneath a blanket make of the world’s least comfortable fibers. and it had a poorly drawn tiger on it. 12 “no gig for meldrum” (morrissey/lynch) true story! a happy hour gig with meldrum, called off last minute by the national weather service. morrie on bass and organ, me on drums, creepy vocal and guitar. 13 “the great war” (meldrum) recorded on mike’s beautiful buffalo porch on a windy summer afternoon. you can hear the cars drive by. i love the punk kids that yelled “whoooo” when they heard us playing. perfect timing. perfect song. meldrum’s graceful honesty. i tried to play mike’s mandolin as he sang, played harp and his great old gibsmart. i took it home and added the trem guitar, guitar “bass” and harmony. i adore this tune. a great memory too. 14 “when beckham came to hollywood’ (zito/lynch) tabloid time! did you hear? beckham and cruise made buddies! wow! the grunting is some mutation of david brent’s mannerisms from “the office”. 15 “evergreens and honeybees” (morrissey) a nice song from mike. he played acoustic, great bass and sang. i added a bunch of layers because i wanted to try out doug yeomans red epiphone with the bigsby…which explains the “pedal steel” type stuff…feedback + bigsby = my happiness. 16 “enormous hero” (autobahn) jonathan hughes, kent weber and i performed as autobahn as part of the irving klaws halloween party at the mohawk place. jonathan, of course, came up with the amazing track, and i added vocoder, ridiculous deep voice and ridiculous lyrics. “makes us…”