And it was over and done...but not exactly. Jamey left for Texas after recording. I believe it was in mid-June. Brad and myself weren't really doing much of anything. We'd been hanging out a lot at his home in Johnson City and decided to record a bit while we were over there.

Recording with Brad proved to be not as easy as it was when recording It's Over and Done. We kept on being interrupted by the telephone and people coming over to visit. When we did finally get by ourselves to make a noise, we really didn't know where to go. The whole process was a bit exhausted, but it did yield fantastically creative instrumentals. To give ourselves some grounding we picked up one of Brad's many books to find inspiration. We happened upon a book of the 20th Century illustrating each year's events by newspaper clippings. So we started thumbing through and found some strange articles from 1900 to 1910. We decided to do a concept album based on those 10 years because no one really knows what went on. Things started happening around 1914 with WWI, but that's beside the point. Brad and myself recorded a few numbers for the concept album and instead of focusing on 10 years, we decided to pick the year 1903 since it's so much more obscure.

Jamey around this time, maybe August, was hiking the Appalachian trail with some friends, but ran out of money halfway. Luckily the trail runs through Upper East Tennessee and he phoned us up to let us know he'd be in and wanted to record. I believe I was the most hesitant about recording again; not because we might not sound good or that I didn't want to. It stemmed from working with Brad from the getgo. The whole process of making music this time round seemed like trudging through wet cement. It always felt like interest was waning as soon as we started to compose. This was definitely made apparent when Jamey arrived. We tossed the idea of "1903" off him and he seemed fairly gungho about it. We recorded in the same setting as It's Over and Done. We did some tracks for "1903" but Jamey soon lost interest and wanted to play what he wanted. We obliged but the whole process again was like cracking a set of billiard balls. We all scattered to do what we wanted to do. After the recording sessions and listening to the tapes, I thought everything sounded awful and disjointed. I called the sessions and subsequent album Mentally Retarded which is a bit harsh now that I think about it. We did some really great music on that album but the process seemed so much more disjointed than It's Over and Done.

But were we through? God no, but Mentally Retarded was the last true album we all three worked on together. What could possibly be left for The Derelllicts exploit?

Written October 9, 2002