A SKEWED AND PROBABLY INACCURATE RECOUNTING OF THE DASHING MARBLES RECORDINGS FROM 1989 TO 1995
By Russ Forster
It’s been nearly 30 years so time fogs the mind but here’s how I remember the eccentric origins and jagged history of DASHING MARBLES:
Sometime in the Spring of 1989 my Wicker Park (Chicago) apartment at the time had one of its 3 bedrooms inhabited by a BIG BLACK obsessed suburban kid (from Wheaton, IL if memory serves me right) named Bill Thomas. He wanted desperately to be part of the nascent Chicago “Underground Rock Scene”, and had somehow connected with a mutual friend named Jeanette (AKA Joey) to record some of her songs written in the days when she was in Phoenix, AZ hanging out with the JODY FOSTER’S ARMY (JFA) crowd.
Bill was excited to be recording in the home studio of his hero Steve Albini, but I could tell from his stories of spending days trying to program Albini’s Roland drum machine from scratch that the project wasn’t going all that well.
It sounded also like Steve was no great fan of Bill’s and was not impressed with his lack of preparation, which wasn’t surprising given Steve’s renowned allergy to wide-eyed sycophants and flakes. So it was no great surprise when I heard that the project got canned after several barely productive sessions.
But Joey was and is not a person to give up easily, and I recall being invited to visit her Ravenswood apartment to hear some skeletal “demo” tapes of her songs. I found myself intrigued by the musical sketches she played for me. At the time, the band I was playing with was going through major changes that would ultimately prove fatal, and I was in a mood to collaborate in new and different ways than I’d ever considered before.
So I came up with a plan that now seems a bit crazy and naive. Rather than go back to Albini’s half-baked as Bill did, I would buy an Alesis HR-16 drum machine (a bit over $300 at the time) and teach myself to program it and then record and mix 5 songs in a couple of days.
Steve was only charging $150 a day at the time (an incredible deal, especially since Steve would work for 10 hours of that day if you were willing to not waste his time). I would play bass and rhythm/lead guitar and sing background vocals as well, and Joey would sing all the lead vocals.
Joey didn’t reject my idea out of hand, so I scraped up the cash for that digital rhythm-keeper and got to work. I had played drums in a band called FUDGETUNNEL (not to be confused with the Nottingham, UK band that nicked the name with my blessing) and had always found that my percussive concepts tended to outstrip my ability to perform them.
But now I had a tool to help me circumvent my lack of physical coordination, and I was a quick learner of the quirks and capabilities of late ’80s technology. Within a few weeks, I had the basic percussion parts for 5 songs programmed, and Joey and I practiced the songs until they felt pretty darned solid.
We booked the studio time and pushed Steve to the limits to get all the instrumental tracks recorded on the first day of recorded and ready for vocals and mix down on day 2. I don’t remember much down time during those two intense days, but I do recall one moment in Steve’s kitchen becoming familiar with his views about billiards and encased meats The latter interest involved equipment in his kitchen to make DIY sausages out of any starting meat. I remember laughing a lot and being amazed at his views on engineering and microphones and analog algorithms.
It was a demanding but fun couple of days, and it dispelled any of the rumors I’d heard that Steve was hard to work with and humorless. Both Joey and I were happy with the results, which a friend described as sounding like a “weird version of the B-52s.” I took that comment as an insult at the time but actually have reevaluated it as reasonable (if faint) praise.
Joey’s lyrics and performances make the songs stand out as far more than minimalist new-wave workouts, in my opinion. They caught the ear of Riot Grrl and BIKINI KILL co-founder Kathleen Hannah who made several of the songs from the ensuing 4-song 7” EP (entitled “Wo Wo Wo”) staples of mix tapes she made for friends and fellow travellers for several years in the early ’90s.
And even notoriously music-picky Steve Albini promised he would buy a copy when it was released (a promise I held him to at a FLOUR/ARCWELDER/BRICK LAYER CAKE performance in Detroit in 1991). He handed over the $2.50 with a sly smile; I think he knew I knew he would keep his word.
I moved to Detroit, MI soon after releasing the EP and that geographical shift made it unlikely that we would ever follow up on that 1-shot release (although one song from the EP entitled “In The Name Of The Lord” was re-recorded for a compilation LP called Achtung Chicago in 1990 and did not turn out nearly as well as the original).
But in 1995, I was back and forth between Detroit and Chicago quite a bit working on film projects and the like, so I found myself back in Joey’s kitchen (now close to Uptown) working on a bunch of new songs to record.
I remember starting with an obscure BOB MARLEY & THE WAILERS tune called “Nice Time” that we effectively drained any reggae from for our straightforward pop version. From there was a song about Joey’s very rambunctious daughter Mya, a sarcastic song about shopping, a song with a chorus completely in French, a punk song about driving, and a few other odd and appealing ditties.
We got the songs in shape pretty quickly, and then I booked time at King Size recording studio with engineering and mixing to be done by Dave Trumfio (later of the mighty new-wave pop destructo outfit The PULSARS) and Mike Hagler. I brought in members of the Detroit dreampop band GODZUKI and some of their friends to make weird electronic noises and other sounds for some of the recordings just for fun.
The studio had been involved with recordings by the likes of BARBARA MANNING, STUART MOXHAM and other challenging underground pop artists so I felt in very good hands. The sessions were a little less rushed and a little more expensive, but the results were pretty pleasing in the end. Mr. Trumfio got very excited during one mixing session and panned all the instruments following the pattern of the first RAMONES record for maximum pop-punk appeal. It might not have been the ultimate mix for that particular tune, but it was a noble experiment nonetheless.
The process was fun, but Joey and I didn’t really know what to do with the product. I had a poorly conceived idea that I could take a DAT tape to Olympia, WA with me and that our #1 fan Kathleen Hannah would get us an immediate deal with Kill Rock Stars Records or the like, but I ended up only meeting her once at a party for a few minutes and being too shy to talk shop, and then I got distracted by other concerns and left the DAT tape to sit and bake in the back of my poorly ventilated van.
I spiraled back to Detroit at some point and tried to convince a local label there to put out a few of the songs on a 7” EP, but that plan fell apart as well despite my very creative concept for packaging that involved transparency sheets and various fasteners and other office supplies. Momentum faded and the songs languished for nearly 25 years unheard by more than a few friends and interested parties.
So now the master tapes have passed into the 21st Century a bit the worse for wear but almost certainly salvageable. Joey reached out to me in 2018 with much enthusiasm about getting a DASHING MARBLES website together and making the 13 songs we recorded available to interested internet bypassers in a digital way, and despite my tendency to lose good ideas to distraction, I got motivated enough to book time at Electrical Audio in Chicago, IL to remix the original master tapes and make the songs spiffier than ever.
It’s full circle back to the recording world of Steve Albini, the owner and operator of said recording studio, although he will not be the engineer this time around. Fingers crossed the tapes and their fragile emulsions are stabilized by some expert “baking” and the July mixdown sessions deliver some good music to this very website!
Russ Forster
San Francisco, CA
June 2019
Sometime in the Spring of 1989 my Wicker Park (Chicago) apartment at the time had one of its 3 bedrooms inhabited by a BIG BLACK obsessed suburban kid (from Wheaton, IL if memory serves me right) named Bill Thomas. He wanted desperately to be part of the nascent Chicago “Underground Rock Scene”, and had somehow connected with a mutual friend named Jeanette (AKA Joey) to record some of her songs written in the days when she was in Phoenix, AZ hanging out with the JODY FOSTER’S ARMY (JFA) crowd.
Bill was excited to be recording in the home studio of his hero Steve Albini, but I could tell from his stories of spending days trying to program Albini’s Roland drum machine from scratch that the project wasn’t going all that well.
It sounded also like Steve was no great fan of Bill’s and was not impressed with his lack of preparation, which wasn’t surprising given Steve’s renowned allergy to wide-eyed sycophants and flakes. So it was no great surprise when I heard that the project got canned after several barely productive sessions.
But Joey was and is not a person to give up easily, and I recall being invited to visit her Ravenswood apartment to hear some skeletal “demo” tapes of her songs. I found myself intrigued by the musical sketches she played for me. At the time, the band I was playing with was going through major changes that would ultimately prove fatal, and I was in a mood to collaborate in new and different ways than I’d ever considered before.
So I came up with a plan that now seems a bit crazy and naive. Rather than go back to Albini’s half-baked as Bill did, I would buy an Alesis HR-16 drum machine (a bit over $300 at the time) and teach myself to program it and then record and mix 5 songs in a couple of days.
Steve was only charging $150 a day at the time (an incredible deal, especially since Steve would work for 10 hours of that day if you were willing to not waste his time). I would play bass and rhythm/lead guitar and sing background vocals as well, and Joey would sing all the lead vocals.
Joey didn’t reject my idea out of hand, so I scraped up the cash for that digital rhythm-keeper and got to work. I had played drums in a band called FUDGETUNNEL (not to be confused with the Nottingham, UK band that nicked the name with my blessing) and had always found that my percussive concepts tended to outstrip my ability to perform them.
But now I had a tool to help me circumvent my lack of physical coordination, and I was a quick learner of the quirks and capabilities of late ’80s technology. Within a few weeks, I had the basic percussion parts for 5 songs programmed, and Joey and I practiced the songs until they felt pretty darned solid.
We booked the studio time and pushed Steve to the limits to get all the instrumental tracks recorded on the first day of recorded and ready for vocals and mix down on day 2. I don’t remember much down time during those two intense days, but I do recall one moment in Steve’s kitchen becoming familiar with his views about billiards and encased meats The latter interest involved equipment in his kitchen to make DIY sausages out of any starting meat. I remember laughing a lot and being amazed at his views on engineering and microphones and analog algorithms.
It was a demanding but fun couple of days, and it dispelled any of the rumors I’d heard that Steve was hard to work with and humorless. Both Joey and I were happy with the results, which a friend described as sounding like a “weird version of the B-52s.” I took that comment as an insult at the time but actually have reevaluated it as reasonable (if faint) praise.
Joey’s lyrics and performances make the songs stand out as far more than minimalist new-wave workouts, in my opinion. They caught the ear of Riot Grrl and BIKINI KILL co-founder Kathleen Hannah who made several of the songs from the ensuing 4-song 7” EP (entitled “Wo Wo Wo”) staples of mix tapes she made for friends and fellow travellers for several years in the early ’90s.
And even notoriously music-picky Steve Albini promised he would buy a copy when it was released (a promise I held him to at a FLOUR/ARCWELDER/BRICK LAYER CAKE performance in Detroit in 1991). He handed over the $2.50 with a sly smile; I think he knew I knew he would keep his word.
I moved to Detroit, MI soon after releasing the EP and that geographical shift made it unlikely that we would ever follow up on that 1-shot release (although one song from the EP entitled “In The Name Of The Lord” was re-recorded for a compilation LP called Achtung Chicago in 1990 and did not turn out nearly as well as the original).
But in 1995, I was back and forth between Detroit and Chicago quite a bit working on film projects and the like, so I found myself back in Joey’s kitchen (now close to Uptown) working on a bunch of new songs to record.
I remember starting with an obscure BOB MARLEY & THE WAILERS tune called “Nice Time” that we effectively drained any reggae from for our straightforward pop version. From there was a song about Joey’s very rambunctious daughter Mya, a sarcastic song about shopping, a song with a chorus completely in French, a punk song about driving, and a few other odd and appealing ditties.
We got the songs in shape pretty quickly, and then I booked time at King Size recording studio with engineering and mixing to be done by Dave Trumfio (later of the mighty new-wave pop destructo outfit The PULSARS) and Mike Hagler. I brought in members of the Detroit dreampop band GODZUKI and some of their friends to make weird electronic noises and other sounds for some of the recordings just for fun.
The studio had been involved with recordings by the likes of BARBARA MANNING, STUART MOXHAM and other challenging underground pop artists so I felt in very good hands. The sessions were a little less rushed and a little more expensive, but the results were pretty pleasing in the end. Mr. Trumfio got very excited during one mixing session and panned all the instruments following the pattern of the first RAMONES record for maximum pop-punk appeal. It might not have been the ultimate mix for that particular tune, but it was a noble experiment nonetheless.
The process was fun, but Joey and I didn’t really know what to do with the product. I had a poorly conceived idea that I could take a DAT tape to Olympia, WA with me and that our #1 fan Kathleen Hannah would get us an immediate deal with Kill Rock Stars Records or the like, but I ended up only meeting her once at a party for a few minutes and being too shy to talk shop, and then I got distracted by other concerns and left the DAT tape to sit and bake in the back of my poorly ventilated van.
I spiraled back to Detroit at some point and tried to convince a local label there to put out a few of the songs on a 7” EP, but that plan fell apart as well despite my very creative concept for packaging that involved transparency sheets and various fasteners and other office supplies. Momentum faded and the songs languished for nearly 25 years unheard by more than a few friends and interested parties.
So now the master tapes have passed into the 21st Century a bit the worse for wear but almost certainly salvageable. Joey reached out to me in 2018 with much enthusiasm about getting a DASHING MARBLES website together and making the 13 songs we recorded available to interested internet bypassers in a digital way, and despite my tendency to lose good ideas to distraction, I got motivated enough to book time at Electrical Audio in Chicago, IL to remix the original master tapes and make the songs spiffier than ever.
It’s full circle back to the recording world of Steve Albini, the owner and operator of said recording studio, although he will not be the engineer this time around. Fingers crossed the tapes and their fragile emulsions are stabilized by some expert “baking” and the July mixdown sessions deliver some good music to this very website!
Russ Forster
San Francisco, CA
June 2019
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