Serious Bob’s third, and thusfar final, album is one that I’m really proud of. I will take the mantle of being the only one proud of it, because Tai has - several times - described “I’m Going Off Into The Dark Woods To Investigate Alone” as the only properly mixed album. Yes, I could be pithy and point out that he’s the one who mixed that album and I mixed the other two, but he’s sort of right. Sort of.

Here’s what the History Of The Bob has to say:

Unable to stop themselves from recording material, summer and winter 2005 saw all five members of Serious Bob re-uniting to work on a new album, one that would prove to be their best sounding to date. Still using the USB mic, that had served them well, in conjunction with a direct-plug adaptor like ones used during the Demo Sessions, the Bob updated their recording process, banging out multiple tracks a day.

Setting up in Da7e’s basement, Da7e would work with once musician at a time as the others wrote songs in Da7e’s bedroom down the hall. Keeping a constant rotation between new songs and open session files, the recording process went smoothly. Although mainly mixed and produced by Da7e in New York, there was a long period in between the initial sessions and the final release of One State, Two State, Red State, Blue State (named after the horrible elections of 2004 that continue to haunt Serious Bob) in 2006. This time was spent honing the mix and adding parts as much as possible to refine the Serious Bob hybrid sound: part acoustic joke rock and part electric loop/sample based music. A few tracks were cut from the album and have yet to be released, and many alternate versions exist to the tracks on OSTSRSSBS.

The album that was released in 2006 lived up to several Serious Bob album stereotypes. All our albums have 15 tracks. Each one has a “_____ Place, Where I Belong” track. Each one has a song about food.

When Serious Bob died it’s final death, I started taking account of the tracks we had to compile into a project that was never finished, though never abandoned, The Unlistenables, a digital dump of all Serious Bob’s demos and unfinished tracks.

Because OSTSRSBS spent so much time solidifying, and because the theory that a single person can only take, like, 40 minutes of Serious Bob in a row, many tracks were abandoned, pushed into other releases or simply not finished in some sort of way. The first tracks to go while trimming the fat were skits, like “Last Time…” The full (and partially racist) introduction to the album:

Last Time “Last Time…” By Serious Bob

Which, of course, leads into “County Road Five (Freedom),” our chain-gang song Nate and I wrote by slamming a small shovel into a bucket full of rocks. This track was just called “Freedom” on the original release, but I’ve restored it to it’s original length, for better or worse.

“Indie Anna Jones” got added to the tracklist because that demo was always good enough to be on a Serious Bob album.

“You Think You’re Right” was never on the original release because the drum-mixing had some tempo problems and the file mysteriously disappeared, probably locked away on the damn broken hard drive I haven’t fixed since 2007. It’s about the cops and the pope and authority, and it deserves to be heard, because it’s damn catchy and one of Tai’s better song writing efforts.

“Funky Rockafeller Pimpjuice” Is something Nate, Tai and Jason did as sort of a musical skit to follow “Who Makes The Rules,” which was actually a skit. That one just got cut because there was too much “fat” at that point in the album. That track has been restored.

“Famous Women I Can’t Have Sex With” is a song that pisses everyone off. It pisses Tai off for some reason, it pisses me off because I could never get on tune. It pissed Nate off because it was the same riff, looping over and over again. So, one night, Nate and I added a bridge that changed the mood of the song. Tai hated that even more, so it was scrapped. However, now it’s back as “Famous Women I Can’t Have Sex With (Bi-Polar Version).”

“Douchebag Full Of Love (w/skit and drums)” Yeah, that skit was funny. At least I thought it was. But when OSTSRSBS was first released, “Douchebag” didn’t make the cut. Which is sad, because it’s a sweet song. And a song we re-recorded in a version I can’t distribute yet. But, it’s important that this demo see the light of day, as it’s the first song Jess and Jason Frantz are both on.

“Obligatory Cannibalism Song (Gangsta’s Paradise Breakdown)” Has the original breakdown for the song that Jess and I recorded, which Tai said was derivative. He was right and I agreed. However, I think pop parody is okay, and I think we don’t use the tune long enough to get sued. Also, those two melodies work together and in acknowledging it, we take that criticism away from the haters. All the haters.

“What Did You Learn? (Drums)” Ah Elliott’s War Song. No one ever liked my drums that I put at the climactic part of this song. There is GREAT instrument work on this track, it just never made the cut because we couldn’t get it to sound like it’s potential.

“The Cockfighting Adventures Of Sancho” The Sancho sequel about Cockfighting. We always thought it needed drums. It turns out that we just wanted it to have drums, it doesn’t need it at all.

So, yeah, here’s the album with these restored pieces. It makes the album a little too long, and some jokes drag on, but this gives a hint of how much work we did for OSTSRSBS.

Enjoy it. I do bi-monthly. Click the REDESIGNED cover to download the 101MB ZIP file.

I held a little Tweet Off because I felt like releasing something today for a download. Something musical.

Mostly because I’ve been thinking of a certain release a lot…hmmmm…

Anyway. Perpetual Motion Machine Gun was one of my favorite Serious Bob album names that never got used. I think Elliott came up with it. So I made this song, and I wanted to call it Perpetual Motion Machine Gun.

Pretty much the end of the story, except that this song was originally slated to appear on The Bright Side of Death, before it ended up on Out Of Insight, Out Of Mind.

To people who have no idea what I’m talking about: you don’t know it, but you’re lucky.

link “Perpetual Motion Machine Gun” by Citizen Nowhere

[There's so much I've already written about I'm Going Off Into The Dark Woods To Investigate Alone that I think I'll just leave it up to the official History of Serious Bob to clear up a lot of the time line...]

Jason, Nate and the Exposure! Battle of the Bands

After an unexpected and relatively disproportionate positive response from the 10 people who heard the Serious Bob demo, Da7e, Tai, and Elliott continued to record material after their first show at Monarch High School. They amassed a few songs before Tai and Elliott left Louisville to attend college at UNC (where they would record “Robot Song” and “Everything I Needed To Know I Learned From Serious Bob”). These were what Da7e calls The Cupid Sessions because he was hell-bent of lampooning “the end of love.” A few songs from The Cupid Sessions were transferred to Dark Woods (“The Park in Which Bacon Speaks,” “Kings of Yourkshire,” “Serial Killer,” and “Settle the Score”).
Serious Bob lay dormant as Tai and Elliott went to college while Da7e finished up at Monarch High School. However, before the second semester could end, Tai got a phone call.

Da7e says:

“Ty got a call from Concerts First who asked if his band wanted to play at a Battle Of The Bands at the Ogden Theater. I remember the response was immediately a full-steam-ahead sort of reaction. We had to get Nate and Jason together and teach them a whole bunch of songs in time for this huge gig. Then when we got there we noticed it was all punk and metal bands. That freaked us out a little because we were very obviously not fitting in with the other acts (some of them were really good). Then Ty remembered that he had signed up My Friend Matt, the punk band Nate and himself had been members of - not Serious Bob - for the Battle Of The Bands. So as soon as we all realized that had happened, we went out on stage with the goal just to put on the best possible show we could, and we weren’t in it to win anymore.”

Nate Patterson was a long-time friend of all the members of Serious Bob, and had frequently asked to join the band as a bassist. He was frequently rejected and told that Serious Bob was all-acoustic. Nate later purchased an acoustic bass to help his argument. Nate’s bass skills were never questioned, as he had tried out to be a bassist for the band VOID in 1999 (at the time, Tai was their lead guitarist). Nate and Da7e competed for the open position and though it eventually went to Da7e, Nate kept at the bass. Jason Frantz was the brother of long-time friend/collaborator Jess Frantz, as well as being the drummer for the theatrical metal band Turoke. Both musicians received the call, and the full-lineup of Serious Bob practiced the material for weeks in preparation for the Battle of the Bands.

By what any member will tell you was a stroke of luck. Serious Bob won the Battle of the Bands and was given free recording time at Time Capsule Studios in Denver.

Tai says:

“When we first got on stage we thought we were going to get our asses kicked, but somehow we won. And that was one of our greatest moments. A moment I know I will never forget.”

Da7e says:

“[After we heard we won], it was such a rush. I signed peoples flesh and pants and stuff that I threw out into the crowd. We sat around for while talking to everyone, and then I went to go collect the DAT. The sound guy said we should stick around because we were in the running to win. That floored all of us. The fact that we won still floors all of us. I remember giving everyone big hugs. It was the Ogden show that convinced us that we should keep this thing going. In a way, Serious Bob was really born.”

Time Capsule Sessions

The guys quickly transitioned into their first major studio experience (Tai and Da7e had previously recorded in a studio for VOID’s 3 song demo). It was decided that only a handful of tracks would be given the full studio treatment and – if the song had appeared on the demo previously – a title upgrade. “The FBI Song” became “FBI,” “The Serious Adventures of Sancho” was now “The Mysterious Adventures of Sancho,” “Jesus Was a Jew” became “Jesus Was a Jew (BAC Version).” Some tracks kept their demo names such as “The Love is Gone” and “Robot Song.” However, before the band could return to the studio for full mixing and mastering, Time Capsule deleted their analog reel, leaving the band with only the rough mixes for their album (that’s why Jason’s stick-click can be heard on all Time Capsule tracks).

Recording Dark Woods and The Live Period

Frustrated, but not down, Tai, Da7e, Elliott and Nate pillaged the best songs from The Cupid Sessions and completed I’m Going Off Into The Dark Woods To Investigate Alone in Tai’s basement with Tai acting as the producer.
During this period, Serious Bob played occasional live shows at Battles of Bands, small get-togethers, open-air malls and several open-mic nights at Boulder’s former coffee house Penny Lane. The advantage of working as an “acoustic band” was the ability to play anywhere at any time.

While the album was being mixed, Tai and Da7e were called back up to Greeley to work on a restoration project: making and old house look new enough for Tai and BOBfriend Phil Ruwitch to live in. During this period, another BOBfriend named Alexis Jackson, who has seen Serious Bob at the Exposure! Battle of the Bands, proposed that Serious Bob make the road trip to Montrose, Colorado to play a live show at a local venue she would rent out. Tai and Da7e agreed that if she could get the space, the Bob would come.
Dark Woods was sent out to be duplicated, and Serious Bob loaded all their equipment into Tai’s car and Da7e’s purple van, driving to Montrose to play what would be their last show for several years. BOBfriend Chris Mulford (who had played bass in Da7e’s first band ESEN) came along to mix the sound.

Tai, Elliott and Da7e rejoice in their newest effort.

In Montrose, Serious Bob played to an exclusive crowd, playing a full set of material, giving out signed baby heads and later drinking with the audience, Alexis and BOBfriend Amy.

When the album came back, Serious Bob briefly and foolishly departed from their FREE music philosophy and charged a handful of people money for Dark Woods. That was quickly ended as more and more copies were given away for FREE to people that had supported Serious Bob since its inception.

So there you go, that’s the history, for the most part. Enjoy Serious Bob’s first real effort, and still one of our best: I’m Going Off Into The Dark Woods To Investigate Alone. The ZIP file includes all the tracks, the cover, the tray art AND the insert art for those of you unlucky enough to miss out on the physical release. It was years ago, so I don’t blame you.

Click the cover to begin your download!

Click to download ZIP File

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)

Serious Bob is Tai Hart, Elliott Goldbaum, Da7e Gonzales, Nate Patterson and Jason Frantz.

We made three albums, two live recordings, one demo, two eps, one collection of B-sides and one as-yet-unreleased recording of our “classic” songs. Since we all moved to different states, we have not played live, and my inability to maintain an organized Serious Bob website partially gave birth to this blog.

Over the next however-long, I’ll be re-posting the Serious Bob catalog, both in packaged album ZIP files and musing on individual tracks.

All those posts will be linked here, forming the Serious Bob Retrospective.

Highlights:

• “The FBI Song“
• “The Love Is Gone“
• “Jesus Was A Jew“

EPs:

• Serious Bob (Demo)

Albums

• I’m Gong Off Into The Dark Woods To Investigate Alone

Tags:

• Retrospective
• Serious Bob

 
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