So there we were, in Brad's room, microphone suspended from his ceiling lamp dangling in between the three of us while we banged out tunes on our instruments and sang with the keyboard.

The Derelllicts would get together on Fridays after school, usually stay the night, record an "album" in Brad's room, then go home the next day. That's the way we did it for the first 4 albums. We recorded Officialo Derelllicto! and The Derelllicts Anthology in Brad's room in two to three weekends. After Anthology we moved to my house to try recording a more full band sound. Cramped in this storage closet, we sat down together to write our first full-length song complete with words, bass (which I was in charge of), and a guitar solo (which Jamey was in charge of). The song was based on a MINI of Jamey's called Orange Juice and since it was only 30 seconds and it had good song potential, we chose that to elaborate on. Writing a full-length song was a bit tedious in the way how at times we couldn't agree, but in the end, it made us feel like a real band and not just a bunch of guys having fun with no real goal. These sessions were called "The Lost Sessions" because that's what they are...lost. I can not find the recordings anywhere except for the Orange Juice demos. I can remember Brad singing a song about JFG coffee and eating it out of the canister, Jamey singing a song about a dog named Fodo (and I distinctly remember this line "Fodo was a nasty dog"), and I can recall myself singing a song about an air-conditioner repairman. So we left the sessions feeling confident with what we had done with Orange Juice.

The summer before their junior year, 1997, Brad and Jared went on vacations with both their families. Jared and Brad wanted to film a Beatles' A Hard Days Night parody during the trip. So they became The Manchesters, Reginald and Damian (I think those were the names), two British pop stars going on vacation trying to save the world from an evil scientist, who's name eludes me at the moment, his bumbling assistant, and his Unhappiness Ray. Jared had composed about 3 or 4 songs that would have been sung by The Manchesters and there is a tape of some of the demos. The film started out in Jared's house and bits and pieces of it were filmed at a resort in Myrtle Beach, N.C. where Jared's family were staying on vacation. Also while at this resort, they also made an experimental film called "The Woods" which included an excellent chase scene all over the resort property. Incidently when we filmed the chase scene at night, some of the residents heard up clattering about amongst the stairs and called the hotel police who reprimanded us 'til we went back to our rooms. We of course snuck back out afterwards, completed filming, and ran across the golf course when the cops came back. Some of the other highlights of the film were Brad's Yan Can Cook parody, Boardwalk Confessionals (it was very windy that day), The Sea Creature (made out of Brad's sock), and the Jeff Goldblum song. The only Manchesters scenes that were filmed at the resort were some pertaining to the Unhappiness Ray, Brad making Ramen noodles without the Ramen, and a bathroom scene which ended with an explosion of shaving cream. All the footage for "The Manchesters" and "The Woods" is somewhere at Brad's house.

The second vacation destination was when Jared went with Brad's family to Landrum and Charleston, S.C. The boys packed up Brad's keyboard and melodica piano, a tape recorder, a microphone, a notebook of songs by The Beatles and They Might Be Giants, and Jared's 12-string guitar and headed for a Howard Johnson hotel. Brad and I intended on doing a "live" sort of album with "two-thirds Derelllicts". We set base camp in the hotel room's bathroom, which was quite cramped I must say. There was a sink joined with the toilet, a towel rack on the wall, and the bath tub. Here's how we recorded: Brad sat on either the sink or toilet while I sat in or on the tub, the tape recorder was plugged into the wall with the microphone cable suspended from a hook on the back of the bathroom door while the mic itself was dangling from the towel rack. We made do. Whenever the light was turned on the fan would turn on too so in all the recordings you can hear a whirring in the background. As for the songs themselves, I don' t believe we recorded any new or old Derelllicts numbers. The tapes contain us playing and singing songs by The Beatles and They Might Be Giants. A much more vivid account of the Charleston trip can be heard on the tapes themselves for we dictated everything for nostalgia's sake. Brad got a nasty sunburn and I broke a guitar string.

Written June 9 and July 7, 2002