History of Clue Phone
Sunday, February 9th, 2025 05:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
snoozefestaudio |
28F and clear tonight, going down to 17F.
I'm adding City Hall to my list of destinations tomorrow, because I need to find out what the deal is with the parking garage.
Back in August, I paid it up to the end of December, but no new bill came in January... or so far in February.
My card still works to get me in and out, but I need to make sure it stays that way.
So, tomorrow's gonna be; Emissions & registration, Building & Grounds office for W2s and employee portal, then City Hall to clear up the parking garage mystery, and then to Fernano's office to tell him I'm up for a 1BR, whenever one comes available.
It's all gonna hinge on me being up early, which will be a challenge!.. given that I slept until 5PM yesterday, and 3PM today!
Yesterday I did the dynamics for, Magic Monday, and, Live it Fast.
So that's seven songs done, and six to go.
I put the, Milky Way crickets under, Bed in the Suburbs last Sunday night, and it's sounding good, but the dynamics need to be gone over a second time. The verse parts are a little too quiet.
I'm also jonesing to hear sound effects on other songs, and thinking about going through the old cassette tapes to find some.
Magic Monday definitely needs winter crows at the beginning and end... because the song is bookended by a little poem about crows. And then a train horn in the distance would be good in the middle of the song.
Live it Fast can use cicadas, and I have a good take of cicadas already, from Snoozefest.
Other songs will require me to get out and do more field recording.
Our Cold Feet needs downtown morning birds at the end, which I won't be able to get until spring, after the songbirds come back.
Closer to You is gonna require a visit to the trolley museum in Elgin, and they also don't open up again until spring.
Colleen said last week that she may be in town in May, so maybe we can get Brian, Karen, and Max, and all go to the trolley museum together.
That was one of Dad's favorite places to go with the grandkids, through the 90s and 2000s.
I need the sound of the trolley whistle, and the car riding the rails, or pulling up and stopping... bells, whatever I can get!
Maybe if everything goes my way, I'll already be in a 1BR by the time it all goes down, in May.
And then Colleen wants to load up her car with stuff from the storage unit, and take it back to Connecticut... so maybe we can get Brian to take some stuff too, and I'll get my own stuff out, and into the new apartment.
We'd finally be able to say that Dad & Mom's deaths were fully resolved and in the past... once the stuff in that storage unit's been distributed out into the family, and I'm in a 1BR, with my journals and other belongings on site.
Colleen also said that Celina & Jill, who did get a courthouse wedding a few weeks ago, probably won't be doing the big, official wedding this year, afterall.
They had been planning something for October, but apparently they got a puppy?.. and I guess planning a big event would get in the way of raising it and establishing balance in the new household.
But that's fine with me, because I dunno that I'm quite ready to travel, in 2025.
I'm using up a lot of PTO here at the start of the year, dealing with the car... and if I move, that's gonna take up even more.
I did my normal Sunday errand run today, as the sun was going down.
Went to get gas & smokes at the BP, then beer from Randall Liquors, then groceries from Aldi.
Everything's put away, and in a while I'm gonna shave, shower, and do the laundry.
I'm finally, just today, feeling a little winter-weary.
But I guess that's about right, going into the 2nd week of February.
I didn't think I'd care this year, but... I gotta sit right in front of this damn window, whenever I'm at the desk so... dealing with the cold draft is starting to get old.
I'm all clean & shiny, and the laundry's washed, dried, and put away.
I just got done doing the dynamics for, Clue Phone.
I got a little teary listening to the result!
It was challenge enough, a year ago, just to transcribe Bri's guitars, and Dave's drums, into the piano roll... with only a shitty cassette recording to go by!
But it's really come a long way in a year!.. especially after the Christmas break revamp to the panning and the strumming of the guitar strings.
Now, with the dynamics, it's sounding so great!.. and I get teary because I never thought I'd have such a good version of this old, beloved song!
I think it was late spring of 1991.
Publik Nuisance had broken up over a year before, and I'd been writing solo songs for a while, to perform at Clyde's Open Stage, in DeKalb.
I was hanging out in the back room with my friend Jeff, who was home from college for the summer... maybe Chris was there too... or Robin... can't remember.
But in the course of conversation, Jeff said, "Hello?.. Clue phone?.. It's for you!"
And I thought it was a great idea for a song!
The second season of Twin Peaks was just coming to an end, and it was the theme music for that show that inspired the chord progression that I'd use.
The song wasn't about anybody... it was just a three-minute elaboration on Jeff's core concept... about picking up the clue phone.
So the lyrics were kinda snarky, but the music was weirdly zen, and hypnotic.
"i hear a ringing
What could it be?
That's the clue phone
it's for you
and i'm seeing leaflets
falling from the sky
that's the clue plane
dropping by
its for you
pick it up
get a grip
is that a lightbulb in your head?
we're waiting
anytime
anytime now, would be fine
do you hear a whistle
coming down the line?
that's the clue train
take a ride
cuz somewhere along that journey
you'll find a clue
don't come back until you do
[interlude]
so if yer thinking maybe
you might've missed
the obvious
oh, the forest for the trees
you're catching on
you're finally catching on
so if you hear a ringing
in your ear
that's the clue phone
it's for you...
pick it up!
pick it up!
pick it up!"
It was a fun little novelty song... something new to play at the open stage... and a little different from the previous stuff.
But a year later, in the summer of 1992, I joined Brian's new band, as their bass player, and Clue Phone, was the first song we learned together.
And Brian's guitar line for that song!.. oh my god!.. so brilliant!
It just elevated it, into the astral plane, or something!
Dave's drums were also great!.. and it was this perfect gem, for us as a trio to play!
This was happening in this period where weed was everywhere!
It was the peak of weed prohibition, in Aurora, which was a central distribution hub for all the illegal drugs coming in from south of the border.
It meant a lot of gang activity in town, but it also meant very stoned band practices.
And that weed contributed to the trippy vibe of Clue Phone.
It was always a favorite of ours to play, and a favorite of the crowds at the little dive bars we played.
In the fall of 1993, we were one of several bands being recorded and produced by, Dag Nab It Studios... a little start-up in Batavia, hoping to launch music careers.
Clue Phone was one of the six songs we recorded there, before they went bankrupt and fell to ruin, over the winter of 93/94.
But, Dag Nab It did fail, because the engineers were just local drunks like us, and so that demo recording of Clue Phone is pretty shitty!
I finally bought a cassette 4-track recorder in 1996, but by that point, the band was fading away.
We only practiced once in a blue moon, and we weren't very tight anymore.
We did make one big push, in late 1997, to practice every Saturday and Sunday in some garage, to get tight enough to record a half-decent demo with the 4-track.
And we were getting some good results, but then Brian found out that Karen was pregnant with Max, and he kinda spiraled.
He started drinking too much, and skipping practice, and finally we had a drunken brawl on New Year's Eve, where I quit the band.
A few years later, I had a digital 8-track recorder, and began recording again, but Clue Phone wasn't on the agenda.
I'd written a lot of newer stuff by then, that I was more interested in producing.
Over the winter of 01/02, I did manage to get Brian out to my apartment in Naperville, several weekends in a row, to record together.
We worked on six of his songs, and six of mine.
And we did record, Eight Dollar Heart, which was kind of the sister-song to Clue Phone.
$8.00 Heart was written around the same time as, Clue Phone, but had a different vibe to it.
They were both three-minute buzz songs, that featured Bri & I harmonizing together, and it was also a fan favorite.
I'd go on to record three albums with that Boss BR8, between 2003 and early 2008, when it finally died.
But Clue Phone wasn't on any of them... I guess because I knew I'd never be able to play Bri's guitar part, or get him back to play it himself.
I called it quits with music in 2009, and moved on to other things.
But long about 2017, living upstairs at Dad's house, I wanted to make a Pokemon Go channel on YouTube... for which I needed background music.
I had a tiny little Boss BR-mini... a pocket sized, digital 4-track, that recorded to and SD card.
So I bought a cheep little keyboard, and started making some really rough tracks, with simple, built-in beats that didn't change, and that keyboard being the only instrument.
I wasn't super serious about it, and the Pokemon Go YouTube channel didn't last very long.
But somehow it got me thinking about Clue Phone again... and I thought I might do a weird little version of it with that rinky-dink setup.
But, to my shock, I relized that I did not have a single version of Clue Phone, in the drawer full of CDRs I had with me upstairs!
So, I had to go down into the basement... which was where all my old tapes and journals were hiding... with all the other junk other family members had left behind over the years... and the cobwebs... and the musty mold smell.
I had to wait until Dad was awake, of course, to get down there.
In the dim of a lone, naked lightbulb, I dug through my tasket of tapes to find those demo-tapes from, Dag Nab It Studios.
Back upstairs, I finally digitized it.
But hearing it again, after so many years, made me realize it was too good of a song to turn into some dumb little synth instrumental.
As I said, the DNI recording was pretty shit, so I found myself wanting to do it justice, but... I knew there was no way for me to do it, at the moment.
That whole little recording lark with the BR-mini was over by early 2018, and my thoughts went more to field recording of crickets with the S8... which lead me to realize the back yard was way too overgrown... so I started trying to clean it up!
That lead to bigger home improvement projects over 2019, 20, and 21...
Clue Phone, and music in general, went all the way back into hibernation, in my brain... like it had been before 2017... and was totally forgotten again.
Dad died in January of 2023, and in April, I took out the huge PNC loan to continue those home improvement projects... with the main focus being back to the back yard.
I'd been working full time at Cloud, but went back to part time for the summer, in order to tackle the hurculean task of the back yard.
But there wasn't much for me to do after dark, and so, I got it into my head to start digitizing old tape journals from the 1990s... thinking I could throw together some fun outtakes to put online, and get a few likes.
But those old journal tapes had little clips of me writing songs!
Forgotten songs!... but good songs!
And on a rainy Tuesday at Cloud, I got the idea into my head that I should buy some new recording equipment with the PNC money!
Why not?
By fall of 2023, I was resolved to record a new album... of old, forgotten songs.
And Clue Phone was at the top of the list!
However, the impending family reunion, and burial of Dad's urn put that off until November.
And then, flipping Dad's old room into the new studio room put it off again, until the end of December.
It wasn't until January of 2024, that I sat in that new studio... Dad's old bedroom, yes!.. but MY old bedroom before that!.. and played that old, Dag Nab It version of Clue Phone over the speakers... hunched over the keyboard... hashing out the bass line, in the piano roll of FL Studio.
The drums came next, and then, as I said, the big challenge was the guitar!
By the spring of 2024, I was listening to all the going versions of the new recordings, every night at Cloud... back to full time again.
My bluetooth speaker hung off the handle of my janitor cart, and played in the empty grade school after hours, as I pulled garbage from the classrooms, or cleaned the bathrooms.
Some songs had only bass and drums... others had guitars and other instrumentation.
I'd take mental notes about things that needed tweaking.
And Clue PHone was one of those that was coming along GREAT, but still had it's different issues to hash out.
Would there be time, now that winter was over, and I'd have to get back to the home improvement projects?
The foreclosure & evacuation crises put a dead stop to all recording, at the end of April 2024.
I found myself moving into a little studio apartment, on July 1st.
Of all the things I spent that PNC loan money on... ONLY the recording equipment remained now!
The nice new back yard, all clean and freshly landscaped, with a new firepit, and an oak sapling off in the soutwest corner... all for somebody else!
New shed, full of lawn tools... for somebody else!
Newly transformed cellar, into a workshop, with lighting, a sink, and an exhaust fan... for somebody else!
Some fifty-thousand dollars, all tolled, between cashing out a 401K, and the PNC loan I took out after that money was gone...
And countless hours of work...
Sunk into that property, to make it nice for ME!..
And all I had to show for it now... was those recordings!
$700.00 or so... for the hardware, software, and equipment... out of 50 grand!
But if I hadn't had that idea, on that rainy Tuesday, at Cloud, in the summer of 2023, to spend it?... I'd have NOTHING!
The new album was supposed to be a little lark of a project... just a side thing to occupy myself when there was down time!
Now, here I am, at the start of 2025... and that's THE project!
BUT... I've still got that old, Dag Nab It demo from 1993 with me, here in the flat.
And the current version of Clue Phone is sounding more sensational that I ever could've imagined!
It was a song that time kept sweeping under the rug... over and over... through the decades.
But it was never content to stay forgotten!
None of the songs on, Archeology, were content to stay forgotten, but Clue Phone was always a gem, among gems.
And it's message... can't be ingnored!
Somewhere along that journey, you'll find a clue. Don't come back until you do!
It has been quite a journey, since that day in the back room with Jeff, in 1991... thirty four years ago!
Gotta get sleep, as tomorrow's the big pivotal day!
Just gonna listen to Clue Phone a few times before bed.
°¦}
