It’s not often that Serious Bob is honored in video form. Much thanks to Chris Hartman for expanding “The Love Is Gone (Toast)” to its inevitable depressing conclusion.

“I’m sure there is going to be more than one unpleasant surprise before we’re done…”

I don’t know where that sample came from, because if I did, and if I could get it cleared, I would want to start every Serious Bob album with it. Because the process of making anything Serious Bob is a series of serious surprises, some pleasant, some un.

Jesus Was A Jew will probably be the thing that Serious Bob is remembered for, should we be remembered at all.

I don’t remember so much how the song came about, but I know we took a break after recording the “yeah, you know it’s true/Jesus was a Jew” callback. I think we went to go eat something, since we were teenagers and in need of constant sustenance. I was sitting with Tai and Elliott and someone said: “Does everyone else have Jesus Was A Jew stuck in their head?”

We all did.

I’m not sure if this is a formula for “hit making” and in the other albums I’ve produced or been involved with, the song that the band likes the best isn’t always the one that would best serve as a “single.”

The good thing about choosing Jesus Was A Jew to play over and over again, is that it was catchy as all get-out, ridiculously simple to play and incorporated everyone on a specialized instrument (Tai on mandolin, Elliott holding down the 3 chords, me on harmonica accidentally executing my only successful note bend for the next 5 years).

Something about pointing out the simple fact that Jesus was, actually, a Jew seemed to resonate with our sophomoric audience, who mostly took our demos because they were free.

Jesus Was A Jew will always be easy to fall back into, and I’m pretty sure I could still sing it and do the hand motions in my sleep.

download link “Jesus Was A Jew” by Serious Bob off Serious Bob (Demo)

 
As the Serous Bob Retrospective continues, I present a cleaned-up version of the Serious Bob demo. The ZIP file, accessed by clicking the cover at the bottom of the post includes all 10 original tracks, the black cover, and is the first of the Serious Bob reissue downloads that will eventually form a set of 10 “discs.”

This is disc one. Enjoy!

The official Serious Bob History says this about the demo:

During the final semester of High School, Tai was working on an Independent Project for Mr. DuFresne, the music teacher at Monarch High School. It was a loops-based dance album that preceded his work with Serious Bob. Eventually, Tai brought in Da7e and cellist/DJ Keith Dickerhoffe (who would go on to play the cello on “This Place”) to help with a few tracks. During the process, Tai and Da7e developed simple production skills. Armed with a few simple chord progressions, a few computer programs, a mic, a 1⁄4” to 1/8” adapter, and a mattress up against the bedroom door (for soundproofing), Serious Bob produced the Self-Titled Demo.

The idea to distribute the EP was spurred on by the recent mass sale of fellow Monarch High School band Unsung. Unsung had made their own copies of their demo and sold them to students in the halls for $10, recouping their recording costs. Serious Bob incurred minimal recording costs, and the three members knew that more people would listen to a free CD than buy something from a band they had never heard of. Thus, Serious Bob’s policy of giving away their music for FREE was born.

 
The EP also outlined several other Serious Bob themes that would repeat in the following years. “HAMAS/FBI” was re-focused to be a political statement about privacy (the band also wrongly thought that the HAMAS scare left over from 9/11 would blow over), “A Modest Proposal” is both literary humor and about cannibalism, “This Place” was the first “serious” song written and displayed Da7e’s love of vocal looping, and “The Serious Adventures of Sancho” introduced both El Macho and Sancho the Mariachi/Crime Fighter/King as well as being the first Bob song to follow one story with an arc and dialogue built into the song. The Demo also features the first SB cover to be recorded, “Sweet Home Alabama.” This cover was never meant to exist, but was a sudden improve during a record take that was tacked on to the end of “The Love is Gone.” Tai thought that the “The Love Is Gone” was too serious for a joke band, and asked that Da7e make some sort of humorous apology at the end of the track. Unfortunately for apologies, Elliott happened to be playing “Sweet Home Alabama” in the background. As a result, the Bob has incorporated more songs like “The Love is Gone” over the years. Da7e now explains them as “Pop Parodies” or songs that mirror classic pop structure, but are actually about toast, pie, chili or things besides food.

 
The Demo was recorded before the show at the BBQ, and saw various levels of release. The first version of the Demo can be identified by its CD stamp: cartoons of Da7e, Elliott and Tai with Tai’s phone number as a contact. Later incarnations are missing the phone number.

 
Original cartoons (click to expand):

Click to download the ZIP file!

I’m trying to put a ballpark around when the first version of “The Love Is Gone (Toast)” was first recorded. I know that Serious Bob formed during the first quarter of 2002, that we played the Monarch Senior BBQ that year and decided to record a demo somewhere in there.

The idea for The Self-Titled Demo most likely came from Tai. During the final semester of High School, Tai was working on an Independent Project for Mr. DuFresne, the music teacher at Monarch High School. It was a loops-based dance album that preceded his work with Serious Bob. Eventually, Tai brought in cellist/DJ Keith Dickerhoffe (who would go on to play the cello on “This Place”) to help with a few tracks. I also helped a little, and some of those tracks ended up resurfacing on Valhalla.

Arg! Headache! Focus!

Ok. So, “The Love Is Gone” is the song that convinced me Elliott was a good guitar player. Serious Bob wasn’t initially about being good at your instruments, it was more about Elliott, Tai and I having fun. But, “The Love Is Gone” was a beautiful and I marred it with my vocals and Fisher Price Bongos. It would take Serious Bob multiple versions of the song to make it sound like I always heard it.

Download link“The Love Is Gone (Demo)” by Serious Bob off Serious Bob (Demo)

This particular version was recorded during one long recording session in Tai’s bedroom on Columbine CT in Louisville, Colorado. Tai’s parents kept telling us to keep it down because it was late, so we eventually stripped Tai’s mattress and propped it up against the door so we could record at the volumes needed to get a good signal off the vocal mic we had jerry-rigged with a 1/4″-1/8″ adaptor plugged into Tai’s computer.

When I finished the harmonica solo and Tai did his mandolin part, Tai decided that this song was “too serious” to be on the Serious Bob demo unless I apologized for it being “not funny.” I didn’t necessarily agree (we use Toast as a love metaphor, and that’s pretty silly), but he sat me on his mattress-less bed and told me to record an apology.

Luckily, Elliott was bored and learning guitar, so he was playing “Sweet Home Alabama” in the background and I burst out laughing. That lead to a delirious “cover” of “Sweet Home Alabama” that we eventually covered live in Montrose, Colorado over a year later.

download link “The Love Is Gone” Live In Montrose off No Morals, No Problem: A Web Album.

download link “Sweet Home Alabama (Encore)” Live In Montrose off No Morals, No Problem: A Web Album.

The most commonly referenced version of “The Love Is Gone” is “The Love Is Gone (Toast)” off Serious Bob’s real debut: I’m Going Off Into The Dark Woods To Investigate Alone. It was recorded at Time Capsule Studios in Denver. They deleted most of our tracks before we could fully mix them, but “The Love Is Gone” is pretty hard to fuck up from a mixing standpoint. Everything gets louder and more complex on its own, Nate’s bass adds another layer of beauty and Jason managed to transition between bongos and a full kit very effortlessly. A few things were added in Tai’s basement, like the slightly-distorted echos “I love my toast,” and “I miss you toast.”

From left to right: Da7e (me), Elliott, Tai, Nate, and Jason. The microphone isn't plugged in.

download link “The Love Is Gone (Toast)” by Serious Bob off I’m Going Off Into The Dark Woods To Investigate Alone.

That’s what everyone will always consider Toast to be; that version right there. But it still didn’t sound as grand as I originally heard in my head when Elliott played his little ditty for the first time in early 2002. That would take four years to realize, until - in 2006 - the Bob did some New York sessions for an album that still hangs in the balance. Produced by Josh Silberberg, the mystery Serious Bob album featured remakes of some of our more lo-fi and “popular” songs. The one song to come out of that session mastered was the new version of Toast, in all it’s pop glory, which lead me to alter the parentheses once again and name it “The Love Is Gone (Pop Anthem).”

download link “The Love Is Gone (Pop Anthem)” by Serious Bob

The irony being that Sally Jessie Raphael was cancelled long before this version was recorded.

Elliott got to add some organ to this, and I got to make up nonsense “da-da-da-da-duh-da”s. I’ve always thought of Toast as so poppy that it was, in the end a “pop parody.” Everyone can have a big, sweeping song about losing your love, but ours ends up being more about toast.

It was also the first of many food-obsessed tracks, but that’s a whole ‘nother post.

Christopher Sweeney, the Theater Director and friend of the band, encouraged Elliott, Tai and myself to play at the Monarch Senior BBQ in May 2002. We eventually decided on the name Serious Bob, and registered to play a four song setlist as one of the opening acts. The first song was “Skin” which has remained basically the same since it’s inception in the hallways of Monarch, where the band was born. It was followed up by a politically-themed cover of “Stay Together for the Kids” by Blink 182, but instead of the normal verses, I ad-libbed about the Bush Administration and the horrors it would inflict upon our generation. The third song was a Beatles cover: “In My Life,” performed solo by Elliott. The set-closer was “Where is My Mind” a Pixies cover, where Tai and Elliott played the same guitar at the same time as Elliott sung, and I screamed the keyboard part from the back of the stage.

At the end of the set, the mood was mostly congratulatory for the two Seniors. The closing act of the night was Turoke, the band that still features drummer Jason Frantz, who would join Serious Bob the next year as part of the full-lineup.

Weeks before the show, Elliott, Tai and I spent a few hours playing instruments and making up song lyrics in Tai’s basement. One of the songs started to take a definite form, andwe recorded it using a simple mini-tape recorder, placed on a table in the middle of the room. The song was called “HAMAS/FBI.” Although the original recording was lost, this was the birth of the Self-Titled Demo.

The resulting track, announcing Serious Bob’s existence to the world, opened up the Self-Titled Demo.

During the original improv that eventually became The FBI Song, the Bush Administration was restricting civil liberties in the wake of 9/11. The smarter and future versions of us would later look back on this as the root cause for the song. Realistically, we were just making music because two of us knew guitar, and I could make up simple rhymes, given the tempo wasn’t too robust.

Download link “The FBI Song” by Serious Bob off Serious Bob (Demo)

[NOTE: Contained Within is the final version of "As Long As She Stays Kind," updated from the previous post]

Elliott and I danced around each other in high school for a very long while until we were both thrown into Monarch High School Theater and found our niche. I don’t know why Elliott was so into theater, and it was too early for me to know that the rest of my life (thus far only a few years, but no big obstacles on the horizon) would be dedicated to making stories that help people escape from the real, experience something new, etc.

Elliott and I grew closer over through theater and finally through Serious Bob.

Though The Bob deserves some credit for our friendship, the one memory that springs to mind when I think of Elliott and I personally was the one time he got to direct me in a one act play. It was called “Actor’s Nightmare” and he allowed me to play the lead as if it was just Dave Gonzales who had wandered onto the stage. This left many small-town-high-school-theater goers singing my acting praises. After I was cast in another one act and my lack of true acting ability was revealed, everyone kind of shut up about it.

So thanks, Elliott, for spurring a brief period of acting by allowing me to not act at all.

The Doric Order is what Elliott started calling himself when I spent years mixing Serious Bob’s third album. They were some pretty catchy home-recorded tunes that still live on, in my mind, for being honest Elliott.
Before any of the tracks that will later be posted here as “The Doric Order Demos,” Elliott would just plop down in whatever room we were all in and play us a song.

Damn, if I don’t miss that.

More importantly, every Doric Order song was about Elliott: Elliott’s love for (his soon-to-be wife) Kate, the strange relationship between Elliott’s step-mom and Elliott himself, there was even a song he wrote for me when I tried to quit Serious Bob after a heavy depression, a Citizen Nowhere album and months of getting nowhere on Serious Bob III.

Now, Elliott would like to make a career out of music.

I hate my own voice when I hear it played back, and a lot of Elliott’s vocal mixing here sounds like he might have the same fear. I’m assuming this is something that could be corrected with a little vocal training and hours in the booth (or, more frequently, a room with a mattress up against the door). Regardless, I am going to assume this is not finished and will not post it for download until I get the thumbs up.

But press play and fall in love with Elliott and Kate. It’s hard not to.

 Download link “As Long As She Stays Kind” - Elliott Goldbaum

Here’s the skinny: There are two versions of this album available. The MP3 version, featuring the cartoon me looking over a mob of people as a giant blue hand crushes smokestacks marked with The Gentleman and the moody, green digital smoke-themed AIFF version.

MP3 - smaller ZIP file, ripped CD quality.
AIFF - bigger ZIP file, awesome quality, moodier cover

Got it?

I knew I said I’d get this out by October, and I’m obviously several days late. But, my sixth album of wacky demos went through some changes in the few weeks I spent “mastering” them. Songs were added cut, designs were changed, the end of October loomed.

Oh, and I produced some stuff in there.

The good thing is that, for awhile, Brillhart/Gonzales is going to eat some time so I won’t feel compelled to work on that 45 minute binary-based instrumental album.

Click the images to Download.

In the spirit of new content, this is a big day. The reality is that in these tough economic time, starting a business has put a strain on my finances. I need to monetize my hobbies, or cut out the ones that aren’t worth additional time or monetary investment.

But until then, it’s been nice sharing with most of you.

Elliott shot me a few text messages yesterday about Valhalla, which he seemed to enjoy, though there are volume issues from track to track. I was aware that it might be an issue, but neglected to do anything about it. Just know these things: everything is set to boost its volume by 100% when you load it into iTunes. The insturmental tracks DO NOT need to be increased, but most things with vocals do. It boils down to the difference between Reason’s mastering and GarageBand’s normalizing.

It seems both needlessly authentic and horribly stupid to use GarageBand for vocals, but my laptop can’t run all the programs I use and still take ProTools (Celtex, Adobe Creative Suite, Final Draft, iLife, Swich, Various converters and encoders, CyberDuck, etc.)

None of this matters, except that Valhalla’s release date just happened because Jess and I have been fucking around with recording. I was smoking a cigarette with Jess out back of the Lashly house and said: “I think I’ll release Valhalla today.” Jess laughed, then we came back in and listened to some of the shit we’ve been recording.

Download the full album in MP3 quality by clicking the above image.

Download the full vector piece by CLICKING HERE.

Download the full cover HERE.

Mirrors & Masks covers the first four Citizen Nowhere albums whose purpose was to give me a musical outlet during college that was different than this blog, which strangely has the same years of operation of Citizen Nowhere.

The tracks are in no particular order, though this is the order that I have been listening to them in, followed with a short description of each one and why it was included in the overall mix.

Tracks were EXCLUDED because they sucked, were 7 minutes long or ended up being foolish in one way or another.
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