THE MAKING OF...
BULLSHAT!
What is BULLSHAT! all about? Well, after finishing Lead Foot Lucy in May 2004 and the three-song Dig It EP in August of the same year, I found myself with a couple of new ideas, a lot of leftover tunes, and the urge to "release" old songs that I had written in the late 1980s and early 1990s and a member of Foam Tide. So, I buckled down and recorded some new ideas and old ideas and mashed everything together and came up with two-disc BULLSHAT!.
The first disc is all current recordings, but some of the ideas are old. The first song - Nothingness is totally new and written specifically for BULLSHAT!. The second song (Carol Wayne Day) is also new, but a leftover from the Lead Foot Lucy sessions. Songs 3 and 4 are both covers (Save It For Later was first issued on Dig It) and are very different from the originals. Songs 5 through 8 are variations of songs from my first four CDs, while the last two songs are new recordings of old ideas from the Foam Tide days.
The 10 songs on disc 2 are songs that I wrote and recorded during my time with Foam Tide, recorded between 1988 and 1991 and remastered in 2003-04. There are a lot of cool song ideas on disc 2 and I have borrowed liberally from these in recent years. My favorite tunes on disc 2 are Feu d'artifice and Six Days, which I re-did in 1998 and 2006.
BULLSHAT! is nothing more than a two-disc compilation of a lot of pieces that I had lying around. I guess I felt that I needed to clean up the studio a bit and gather a lot of loose ends together before moving on to a new full-length CD. A friend of mine, who has since passed on, used to use the phrase bullshat a lot and I always thought that it was a funny word.
CD ARTWORK
Nothingness
Carol Wayne Day
Save It For Later*
Linus And Lucy**
Foam Tide (2005 version)
Indigo (remix)
Over Now (acoustic version)
44*** (instrumental mix)
la chitarra
Wreckabilly***
DISC 1
1 -Nothingness
recording for Nothingness began in September 2004 and is based on an old Foam Tide song, Porcelain Bus… I wanted to include at least one totally new song for this CD and this more than fit the bill… because I only gave out a few BULLSHAT! CDs, I also included this song on the 2006 release, Ethereal… the song has a great tone with the lightly distorted baritone Strat pickups… I added the organ at the very end to give it a little extra push… the words speak to the despair of pessimism of a bad relationship…
LYRICS
GEAR--This song features my Boss drum machine - tempo 1991 - in mono, with a flange effect on it… I used my Warmoth Baritone guitar for all the guitar parts except the harmonized solo (black Peavey Wolfgang)… the bass is my ESP Jazz… I used my then-new Casio keyboard for the organ track… 12 total tracks…
2 -Carol Wayne Day
my attempt at a Beach Boys/Brian Wilson Pet Sounds instrumental… I recorded this in April 2003 and it was supposed to be on Lead Foot Lucy… thought it was too strange for that CD… originally titled Brilliant Low… Carol Wayne was a hot Hollywood B-movie blonde/Johnny Carson Tonight Show regular who drowned under mysterious circumstances in 1985… I had a crush on her as a little kid…
GEAR--I used my Kramer Pacer for the strum guitar parts and my Kramer Carrera for the phase guitar and chorus/rotary guitar… I used a real tambourine and shaker for percussion… the toms, timpani, and ride cymbal were played by hand on my Yamaha keyboard… I played the song to a click track and then over-dubbed the percussion… 20 total tracks…
3 -Save It For Later*
a royal pain in the ass! first off, I've always loved this song and intended to do a cover of it for a while… I began laying down tracks for it in mid-2003 for inclusion on Lead Foot Lucy, but it wasn't happening… I got as far as the drum tracks, basic guitar tracks, and about four tracks worth of vocals… that version of the song was quite literal - too literal - and it was missing any "Smithtone-vibe", if such a thing exists… I erased everything and Tim Randolph and I worked up a cover of Zeppelin's Houses Of The Holy (which also had a false start) for Lucy… I do wish, however, I would have kept a copy of my original attempt of Save It For Later - oh well… the version you hear here is definitely different than the original - kind of a jazz version of the song… my intention all along was for Tim to play the solo and he did a bang-up job, although I wasn't too sure about one of the notes he played in the final version… he convinced me it was kosher, so I left it on there… after listening to it a few more times, he was right - as usual… originally on my 2004 Dig It EP CD… LYRICS
GEAR--the two main guitar tracks (left and right) are both from my Gibson Les Paul Special… the bass track is actually made up of four bounced tracks - two from my Jazz bass, one from my PBass, and one from my Epiphone Dot (octaves)… two keyboard tracks played on the Yamaha… I bounced three vocal tracks to make up the main vocals… Tim played the awesome solo on my Charlie Christian guitar… drums courtesy of Boss… 14 total tracks…
4 -Linus And Lucy**
recorded in October 2004 - what a strange cover… I've loved the groove of this Vince Guaraldi tune since I was a kid watching 'Peanuts' and I think I went out of my way to record a freaked-out version of it… the two bass tracks were tough to play, but it turned out very well…
GEAR--I used my ESP Jazz, PBass, and Bronco Bass, as well as my Super Sonic and Fernandes guitars (octaves) for the two bass tracks… the guitar tracks are courtesy of my EBMM EVH Sport and my Hohner… the solo is the Red Devil II with the Super Sonic adding the E-Bow parts… the drums are from my Boss - tempo 123… this song marked the first recording with my then-new Casio keyboard… 18 total tracks…
5 -Foam Tide (2005 version)
I wanted to put a different version of one song from each of my CDs on BULLSHAT! and songs 5-8 are on this CD to do just that… originally on my 1998 man makes plans and God laughs CD… before that, is an extremely similar version was on Foam Tide's 1988 tape, Bovine Madness (Veni, Vidi, Veni)… completely re-did the song with and added some organ… has kind of a surfing tone to it… might be my favorite song on the CD…
GEAR--I used my Super Sonic for the left guitar and my CLMT and Mondial for the right guitar… my Bronco, Jazzy, and Duo-Sonic (octaves) for the bass (the Duo-Sonic was the main guitar used back in 1998)… solo'd on my blue Charvel EVH Custom on the main solo and the end E-Bow piece… stereo Boss Dr. Rhythm drums… I also added two tracks of percussion… 12 total tracks…
6 -Indigo (remix)
this song didn't turn out as well as I would have liked it… I loved the instrumental on 11 expressions of me (2000), so I thought I could take those tracks and use them as basic tracks for a new version with vocals, but ran into phasing problems… I cut off the intro from the original version… the lyrics are about Rosemary Kennedy (JFK's younger sister) who was savagely lobotomized in 1941 at age 23… two tracks (left and right) are the original instrumental and then I used the other six tracks for vocals… I will never try to record vocals over a pre-mastered recording again… similar to my experience on You're Part Of It off of Lead Foot Lucy (2004)…
LYRICS
GEAR--refer to the Making of 11 expressions of me for the gear used on the instrumental… I recorded six tracks of vocals over the original 14 instrumental tracks (mastered down to two)… I turned off the Behringer effects during the final mixdown… 20 (6+14) total tracks…
7 -Over Now (acoustic version)
I decided to do an acoustic version of this song off of bikini (2002)… super easy and fun to do… recorded to a click track and then added hand percussion over that… another way to sleaze a version of this song on a CD… used the same lyrics but added a harmony in the chorus no found on the original 2002 version… an acoustic version of probably my best original… LYRICS
GEAR--the left guitar is two tracks of my old Dean acoustic (before it got smashed) and the right guitars are my Mondial and Purina (piezo pickups)… Bronco bass x2… played the solo on my Schecter (piezo)… played a real kettle and tambourine and my "shake"… no keyboards… three tracks of vocals… 14 total tracks…
8 -44*** (instrumental version)
I wrote the basic tracks for 44 on my bass in August 2003 and then laid down four tracks of drums (two left, two right) which really made it sound cool… I was going to make it an instrumental, but there seemed to be an obvious melody line in there, so I threw in two lines on the original… Tim Randolph came through big on lead guitar, really capturing the tone and texture I was looking for… you can tell that it's a guitar, but his bends and trem work give it an certain weirdness that I couldn't even begin to describe to him - didn't need to, he just got it… the title? that's the murder weapon… for BULLSHAT!, this is the exact same song from Lead Foot Lucy (2004), but with ALL of Tim's guitar and NONE of my vocals…
GEAR--major drums (4 separate tracks!) from my Boss Dr. Rhythm… I also have six tracks of bass going on (PBass x4, Hohner guitar [octave-up] and Yamaha keyboard), and six keyboard tracks (Yamaha)… Tim used my Charvel for the awesome guitar track, recorded on December 5, 2003… four vocal tracks from the original were left out in this mix… 18 (22-4) total tracks…
9 -la chitarra
a goofy EVH-inspired instrumental that I originally wrote and recorded back in 1991… the original version of this song (from 1991) is on disc 2 of BULLSHAT!… was to be included on a Foam Tide tape, The Electric Squirrel that never saw the light of day… original title back the was 5911, but I used that title for a different song on my 1998 man makes plans and God laughs… original version begins with the phone ringing in the house I grew up in…
GEAR--I used five different guitars on this tune - Kramer Circus, Hamer, Mondial, Yamaha nylon, and Super Sonic… played everything to a click and then erased it… I threw this together way too fast for BULLSHAT!… the original version on disc 2 has more fire - this one sounds too processed… 9 total tracks…
10 -Wreckabilly***
Tim Randolph stars on this song - and he named it, too… put this song together super fast when Tim was around in April 2004… song is based on a Foam Tide song for The Electric Squirrel, Destruct-O-Ball (never completed)… the tracks I had Tim play over in April 2004 were so bad that after Tim played his leads, I re-recorded the background and this is what came out…
Tim did a super job with the start/stop late in the song - a one-take "guess" on his part that ended up timing in perfectly…
GEAR--my guitar part is a doubling of my Kramer Neptune and DeArmond guitars… my Bronco, Jazzy, and PBass make up the four bass tracks… two Yamaha keyboard tracks and some shake percussion… Tim played the solo on my natural Charvel guitar… stereo Boss Dr. Rhythm drums… 12 total tracks…
DISC 2
All of the songs on disc 2 were written and recorded by D.Smith as a member of Foam Tide between 1988 and 1991. Songs 1 and 2 are from Foam Tide's 1990 tape, committment to annoying behavior. Songs 3 through 6 are from the 1988 tape, Bovine Madness, and songs 7 through 10 are from the never-released The Electric Squirrel sessions. Unfortunately, specific recording notes are no longer available for any of these 10 songs. For more information, refer to the CD insert song liner notes and the Foam Tide liner notes, as well as the Foam Tide page. Gear used during this time included Kramer and Ibanez guitars, Fender and Rickenbacker basses, Yamaha and Oberheim keyboards, a Boss drum machine, Shure microphones, Fender and Yamaha guitar amplifiers, and a Fostex 4-track cassette recorder.
* written by The English Beat 1982
** written by Guaraldi 1964
*** written by D.Smith/T.Randolph 2004
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