This was my first major production, and for the longest time, my baby. Two sides of a 38-minute long instrumental album, basically.
I recorded Bad Vibes in July 1989, using my then-new Swingstar kit, my even-newer Yahama VSS-30 voice sampling keyboard, and a good friend's wealth of home studio goodies. Mike Weaver lent me his Fostex 4-tracker, microphones, bass guitar, Flying V, numerous effects pedals, cables, patches, etc. I took a couple weeks of leave, and jumped into it.
I created most of it on the spot, by improvising a drum part and then building a song around it. For the most part the writing is uniquely mine, but in one spot it's a little too derivative--starting at fourteen and a half minutes into the first track/"side," Iron Butterfly's In-a-Gadda-da-Vida seeps through. Incredibly, or not, it took me many years to realize (or, face) this fact.
The random non-musical "scenes" were me + actual sounds from my neighborhood (cat, construction workers, rain storm). Having a recorder handy during the Headline News story about The Last Temptation of Christ was luck.
I recorded Bad Vibes in July 1989, using my then-new Swingstar kit, my even-newer Yahama VSS-30 voice sampling keyboard, and a good friend's wealth of home studio goodies. Mike Weaver lent me his Fostex 4-tracker, microphones, bass guitar, Flying V, numerous effects pedals, cables, patches, etc. I took a couple weeks of leave, and jumped into it.
I created most of it on the spot, by improvising a drum part and then building a song around it. For the most part the writing is uniquely mine, but in one spot it's a little too derivative--starting at fourteen and a half minutes into the first track/"side," Iron Butterfly's In-a-Gadda-da-Vida seeps through. Incredibly, or not, it took me many years to realize (or, face) this fact.
The random non-musical "scenes" were me + actual sounds from my neighborhood (cat, construction workers, rain storm). Having a recorder handy during the Headline News story about The Last Temptation of Christ was luck.
© 1989 Phil Thompson. All rights reserved.
Bad Vibes (1989)
The movie snippets are from The Running Man, No Time For Sergeants, and Blade Runner. Obviously these reflect my cinematic tastes (the last two are still among my favorites; the first I used because I just had to have that Schwarzenegger line, and apparently didn't have a copy of The Terminator at my disposal).
For each of the handful of copies I made my friends and family, I made a cassette insert. And, as usual, I kept around the worst examples of these for myself (as you can see here). When BV turned 10, I created CD artwork for it (also seen here), and had a local print shop help me create the grand "reissue" of bad Vibes on CD.
At one point I even tried to teach myself how to read/write music, so that I could put the thing on paper. What you see below is about as far as I got, totaling less than 30 seconds' worth. Gladly, years later I confirmed my efforts were mostly correct.
For a 23-year old punk from the Redneck Riviera, I didn't do too shabby here. Made copies for friends and family, most of whom genuinely seemed to love it. It's the only album the copyright of which I registered with the Library of Congress (learning, in the process, about the difference between between © and ℗ ).
For each of the handful of copies I made my friends and family, I made a cassette insert. And, as usual, I kept around the worst examples of these for myself (as you can see here). When BV turned 10, I created CD artwork for it (also seen here), and had a local print shop help me create the grand "reissue" of bad Vibes on CD.
At one point I even tried to teach myself how to read/write music, so that I could put the thing on paper. What you see below is about as far as I got, totaling less than 30 seconds' worth. Gladly, years later I confirmed my efforts were mostly correct.
For a 23-year old punk from the Redneck Riviera, I didn't do too shabby here. Made copies for friends and family, most of whom genuinely seemed to love it. It's the only album the copyright of which I registered with the Library of Congress (learning, in the process, about the difference between between © and ℗ ).
