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.
