The Birthday Boys

These tracks were taken from audio tapes originally recorded while I was in high school in the early 1990s under less than optimal conditions. Then, for about 20 years they lived in a big rubbermade container in my basement until August 25th 2013 when I found an old walkman I "borrowed" from my friend (Matt Julich) somewhere around 1998 (never returned) and realized I actually had the equipment to record these to digital format.

This is the result, for what it's worth

We borrowed our friend Frank Torres' drum machine on a few of these tracks, you can really tell the difference on those. I think I programmed it most of the time because I used it to knock out a bass line, but Justin did several tracks too. In general, we started with the crappiest of equipment and found ways to come into better equipment over time. You can really tell the varying quality of music based on the quality of equipment we had on hand when the song was made.

The Birthday Boys are (er... were):

  • Michael Langford (bass and electric guitar, drum programming, vocals, keyboards)
  • Justin Rice (keyboards, vocals, drum programming)

Honorable Mentions:

  • Paul Zimmerman: guitar, vocals on I'm Not Cool
  • Josh Doehne: guitar on Knight, bass on What I Want to Say

Oh, some of them have a long lead-in of silence, just be patient.

@TODO: Scan the pile of old photographs I have in a box showing us in action, because who doesn't want to see that???

Birthday Boys (1992-1995):

Tristaline

This was the first of our "music" - done as a birthday present for our friend Tristaline Hall. We were mostly just playing around and, clearly, not taking it very seriously.

  1. Sing Me A Song (lyrics: Justin Rice + Michael Langford)
  2. Hide and Seek (lyrics: Justin Rice + Michael Langford)
  3. Prince and Princess (lyrics: Justin Rice + Michael Langford)
  4. Ghost in the Mall (lyrics: Justin Rice + Michael Langford)
  5. A Team (lyrics: Justin Rice + Michael Langford)
  6. Birthday Song (lyrics: Justin Rice + Michael Langford)

selftitled

The majority of these tracks were recorded in my bedroom. A few were done at Josh Doehne's house or at Justin's but mostly mine while my mom tried hard not to beat us with a stick for making so much noise.

  1. Occupy the World (lyrics: Justin Rice)
  2. Painted Faces (lyrics: Michael Langford)
  3. Morality Speech (lyrics: Michael Langford)
  4. Reality (lyrics: Michael Langford)
  5. Dark Heart (lyrics: Michael Langford) As it happens, this is was the first song we did after Tristaline. It was sort of our reality check, as it were: can we do this for the sake of doing it? Guess the answer was yes.
  6. The Problem for Today (lyrics: Justin Rice)
  7. I'm Not Cool (lyrics: Michael Langford, guest vocals and guitar: Paul Zimmerman) So, to really get this song, you'd have to understand Olympic High School a bit. I didn't spend much time with the Jocks, or the Gangbangers, or the Rockers, but I was friends with most of the Punks and Skaters, nearly all of whom were obnoxiously outspoken Straightedge Vegans, which I was not. This song is a response to all that.
  8. Alice (lyrics: Michael Langford) This was, erm, a book report... technically. Also, I think it was written with the Tristaline songs, but not included with them since it was for a report - we threw it in here just to include it)
  9. Television Nightmares (lyrics: Michael Langford) The Unsolved Mysteries was TOTAL luck, we just flipped the TV on and that's just what happened to be on. Crazy, huh?)
  10. Faded Pictures (lyrics: Michael Langford) As I recall, this song was about a girl I met up in Alaska. I know. Mushy...
  11. Sugar River (lyrics: Justin Rice) This song is really weird...
  12. The Game Is Tied (lyrics: Justin Rice)
  13. Skyward (lyrics: don't remember, sounds like Michael Langford though) By the way, that little bass solo around the 6:15 mark happened because the keyboard came unplugged and I had to fill while Justin plugged in and got the drum line restarted. It actually worked ok, so we kept it. From a musical perspective, this is probably the best put together song on this album.

interruption

We got a little crazy on this one. We got access to the Olympic High School recording studio*, so we have a couple high end keyboards, an 8-track recorder, and a mixer. Much higher quality and sorta makes up for our overall lack of talent. Also different here is that many of these tracks show me playing keyboards along with Justin. This was done after I'd gone to college and was back home on summer break (hence the name "interruption", so a lot of the lyrics I wrote were influenced by people or experiences I was having my freshman year in college.

* Not all of these were done in the studio, by the way... you can tell the difference

  1. Hypocritical (Lyrics: Michael Langford) This song always struck me as a funny little dichotomy. It's peppy and fun, but about how much of a jackass whoever it was I was pissed at was. Makes me think of smiling at someone and slaping them in the face. Also, no bass guitar, I was playing the bassline on the keyboard.
  2. Interested In Me (Lyrics: Justin Rice). One of my personal favorites. No bass on this one, I was playing the baseline on a keyboard, while Justin was singing and dealing with the other keyboard parts.
  3. The Minutes that Count (Lyrics: Justin Rice).
  4. What I Want to Say (Lyrics: Michael Langford) This was a bit of turnabout. I was playing guitar (was Josh's white fender strat I think) and Josh Doehne on my bass. No keyboard on this one.
  5. Spell (Lyrics: Justin Rice) Listening to this song, I'm reminded of how brutal I was to my poor fingers. Playing sliding chords on a bass is sorta like taking sand paper to your fingers. I had good calluses then, now I'd only have nubs left.
  6. Old Times (Lyrics: Michael Langford)
  7. Leap of Faith (Lyrics: Michael Langford)
  8. Journey (Lyrics by: Michael Langford)
  9. Knight (Lyrics by: Justin Rice) - Experimenting with a distortion effect on the bass.
  10. Fact and Opinion (Lyrics by: Justin Rice)
  11. Mirror Images (Lyrics by: Michael Langford) This one is a bit interesting in that I was playing chords on the bass pretty much the whole time. The ambient minor key melody and use of various audio effects give this song a very unique sound.
  12. Take the Time (Lyrics by: Justin Rice) This is, easily, the best song we ever did. Josh Doehne was a guest producer on this one. There was no bass on this one, I was playing the "bass" keyboard along with that constant piston sound (no, that wasn't a digital loop, it was manually played in real-time. Digial looping is for the weak! hahaha), Justin played the melody and sang.

instrumental

These are unfinished tracks. Not sure exactly when they were made but probably toward the end of summer in 1995.

  1. Funky
  2. Funky (Version 2) (i guess since we made the first one up as we went along, we decided to give it another try?)
  3. Ethereal
  4. Take 99
  5. Take 99 and One
  6. Take 99 and Two (we musta really liked do this one. I seem to recall it made my fingers bleed)
  7. WhatayaWannaPlay (we were, literally, just making crap up as we went along... which is mostly how we did things anyway, but this happened to record us doing it...)
  8. Last I think this was the last thing ever recorded.