time is moving forward in the alternate reality...
at
midnight, it will be 17 years and 242 days ago that i finished my first
demo recordings, in the basement of an upper middle class suburb of
ottawa, canada called "sawmill creek".
my dad had built
me a recording studio in the basement, and put a drum kit along with a
bass and a 4-track recorder in there. i think he had plans to use it
himself, and the idea of building it for me was basically a ploy to get
it past the wife. that happened more than once before i turned 20...
...but
i also think he was hoping i'd stop sitting in my room by myself with
my guitar. i'd been playing for around five years at that point, working
on a combination of original songwriting, semi-formal blues training
and informally teaching myself how to play the alternative rock of the
period. people didn't really interest me. it was a bit of a problem, one
that's only gotten worse as i've aged. if he could build a studio with
some gears, maybe i'd meet some friends and start a band...
the
thing is, that isn't how i interpreted it. my favourite artists at the
time were billy corgan and trent reznor, so it just sort of struck me as
natural to lay the parts down myself. bass is very intuitive for a
guitarist, and keyboards are intuitive for everybody, but a big part of
this demo is about me teaching myself how to play drums - and at times
it's quite obvious, although i should temper that with an explanation
that the drum parts are quite purposefully off-kilter in many places.
what
can you say about a 17.5 year old demo written by a 15 year-old?
there's a few interesting moments on the disc, which i've pulled out as
highlights and uploaded to youtube. the bulk of it, however, is exactly
what it is - an exceedingly awkward and mildly ostracized teenager
working out various day-to-day issues that only a teenager can really
understand, while displaying overwhelming influence from overwhelming
influences. hey, at least i wasn't writing "mmmmbop". this isn't as
polished as frogstomp, but it's arguably more interesting and certainly
more original. if i could go back in time, i'd take the influences off
my sleeves just a little.
i've come to understand what i
was doing as a part of the then contemporary emo-punk movement, albeit
on the fringes of it, as it existed in disconnected basements across
north america. i had no understanding of that at the time. i'd guess
most people a part of it didn't either. it's been defined in a
revisionist manner.
i stopped recording for a little
while after this. it's partly because i was naive, and was expecting
some kind of response, but it's mostly because i was grounded for a
substantial period in early 1997. i've cut out a period of 66 days, and
will consequently start pushing tracks from the second tape demo
(recorded in the same place) on the 29th of october. over this period,
i'll be cycling the 11 tracks from the first demo that i have up on
youtube in 6 day periods (with boogeyman consisting of three tracks from
this demo, and teenage jesus consisting of two), but i will not be
posting those updates here.
so, this is the last
youtube switch update for a bit over two months. the song i'm working on
has been slow, but i'd be lying if i'd say i wasn't expecting that. in
two months, though, i should hopefully have plowed through from the
summer of 2001 to sometime in 2003.
http://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/inri-cassette-demo-1
