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TRACKLISTING 1. Region 2. Listen Ray 3. Copper March 4. Island Remedy 5. Birthington 6. The Right Number 7. Re-John 8. Shoof 9. Zam Zamf 10. Sicilian Defense 11. Ratamacue 12. Fs-ch |
All songs recorded using Joey's 17-bit audio technology
Produced by Mike Gordon
Recorded April 2, 1972 - April 3, 1998 by Joey Arkenstat
Compiled/Recorded in 2003 by Jared Slomoff
Mixed in one take by Malcolm Burn
Mastered in one take by Fred Kevorkian at Absolute Audio
Photography by David Barron (oxygengroup.com)
Pose by Simon Dasher
Art and Design by slow Hearth studio
Puppies and Cream by Julia Mordaunt
Musicianers
Joey Arkenstat - Bass and Vocals
Barry Rosenhouse - Drums
Silvia Sierra - Vocals
Andrew Vladek - Vocals
Mike Gordon - Vocals, Shofar
Jared Slomoff - Vocals, Guitars, Keyboards, Treatments
Larry Campbell - Pedal Steel, Fiddle
The idea of Bane originally stemmed from recordings Joey had created of old car horns and the wing patterns of various butterflies and insects. The album was to be simple.
Simple it did not stay. Joey began feverishly transcribing the moves of 14 famous Icelandic Checker Masters. Using his special method, he applied parts of their games as bass lines moving diagonally across the fret board. In case things weren't confusing enough, he attempted to cram 12 country waltzes into the mix as well. Between 1972 and 1984, the album shifted from a couple of cool ideas to a melange of far too many concepts.
Flash forward to 1995: Arkenstat was invited to a party in the Hollywood Hills where the honorary guest was RCA Music Group's Clive Davis. As the evening progressed, Joey approached Clive and asked if he'd be willing to take a listen a few seconds of one of the demos he had been working on over the past few years. Davis, who had "heard" of Joey, agreed. The two stumbled into a room, accidentally interrupting two Hollywood heavyweights having sex on the floor.
Davis listened to the album fragments and immediately suggested that Joey find a producer who would be willing to attach her name to the project, and finish the album as quickly as possible for release on RCA Records.
While Arkenstat disagreed that a producer makes the album ("a good sound engineer is the lifeblood of a record"), Arkenstat knew he needed someone who could fine tune the album - to fully realize the visceral qualities; the instinctive sounds.
Calls began to clog the lines at the Copper Mind Agency.
A huge fan of the sound of ABBA's 1981 album The Visitors, Arkenstat had his people go to great lengths to track down its engineer Michael B. Tretow.
After two years of frustration, Joey gave up; not just on Tretow, but of the album itself.
In 2002, Joey appeared in "Rising Low" a bass documentary. After the film was released, Joey received a call from director (and Phish drummer) Mike Gordon. Arkenstat's appearance in the film stirred much intrigue.
Joey felt this would be a good chance to speak with younger musicians (he had already spoken with Beastie Boys' Michael Diamond) to talk about the kind of mixing engineers that were out there. Gordon recommended Malcom Burn, an engineer who had worked many times with Daniel Lanois.
Joey didn't know if Gordon was a real musician or filmmaker -- "I'll admit that I wasn't familiar with Mike as a musician" -- but after a few phone conversations and a chance to hear some of Gordon's work, Joey decided to approach Gordon to produce the album, which at that time was titled Puppies and Cream. Besides, Arkenstat felt it couldn't hurt for some of Gordon's own fans to be exposed to the album.
Gordon was flattered. Ultimately too busy at the time to produce the album, he was still curious to hear a few tracks. Joey's vicsous yet alluring bass lines must have impressed him as Gordon decided to jump on board.
Early on, Gordon questioned some of Arkenstat's crisscrossing musical directions. "You've got wild bass lines and great field recordings, why do you need the 12 country waltzes?" asked Gordon. "Let's simplify." As a producer, he wanted the album to acquire focus and let it be what it originally was: an insane angular music adventure; a crazy and ultimately mind-blowing cluster of bass lines; a wilder bass album than any released by Jaco Pastorious or Stanley Clarke.
Unfortunately, after hearing some of the tapes, RCA decided this wasn't the project for them. Arkenstat was introduced by Gordon to the people at Ropeadope, who had released his own solo album. In the mean time, Mike suggested that some Pedal Steel be added, and recruited Bob Dylan's pedal steel player. Gordon himself added a few notes of his own.
Joey had the radical idea of overdubbing the musicians, with each performing the entire album in a single take. Most of the musicians reported having incredibly cathartic experiences in doing this.
Bane is not for the faint of heart. Don't expect simple songs but rather a relentless wild ride (what other album repeats the line "he lives in the region" over 1,200 times?).
The album is crazy; it's a million notes, but it boils down to one thing: copper.
You've witnessed a new pattern of culture.
As famed poet Robert Lowell said about parts of the album, "Bane is a collision: not just of sounds, but of other sounds."