Corn Syrup On The Tracks

REJECT: track-by-track

I had a rubber stamp made to create the cover art — that was my level of dedication.

Taking the time to talk about art has convinced me to Walk The Walk, as it were, and share some of my own.

I’m going to take a track-by-track look at the self-produced demo tape, REJECT, from the band I was in from 1997-2005(ish), kibosh.

Yes, we stylized our band name in lower case letters, because it was the 90s and capitalization meant self-importance and I needed to let people know that I had self-esteem problems. We had sad-sack songs, and I had to let people know I was a serious artist with depression and not a sell-out!

Our one sticker design we had made as a band. A line over the “I” to indicate pronunciation.

At the time, these were the main songs that we had for the first couple of years. We did some covers too, but you’re not supposed to record those without permission, or whatever. Only a handful of these were mainstays throughout the life of the band — a couple were just album tracks that never got to see a stage.

Again, case is important. Upper and lower meant something, it wasn’t something I took lightly.

I recorded these songs on a Fostex cassette four-track I bought used from one of the guitar shops in town: Modern Guitar. My preferred place to buy strings¹, and the same place I bought my Boss DS-1 and FZ-3² you’ll hear on some of these tracks.

Will this be an exercise in self-indulgent navel gazing? Possibly...? I mean, how good could songs that I wrote before I turned 20 be? Well, this isn’t about me trying to sell anyone in my band — the time for that passed 20 years ago. This is mostly just an excuse to write something so it’s not a whole month between my regular posts.

So, you’ll be getting to hear the songs, read the lyrics, and then I’ll share my thoughts. I have a lofty plan to digitally remix and remaster the whole thing, but I need to upgrade my ancient 13 year-old computer, first — it’s started crashing when I’m working in GarageBand (also part of the reason why I can’t bring Better Band out of mothballs just yet).

There’s no compression or studio wizardry³ on this bad boy. Just a couple Radio Shack microphones that I bought on a credit card, and was going to return within the 30 day return window (but then forgot), no sound baffling on drums tracked halfway in a bedroom closet and guitars in a garage, and vocals recorded too close to the microphone with no pop filter (and one song where I had a cold).

And away we go...

1. Pure nickel wound, not nickel-plated steel. They have a better feel and warmer tone, to me.

2. Kinda wish I’d held onto this one, especially looking at the prices they’re going for now.

3. Perhaps some analog slight-of-hand, though...