On March 7, 2000, Quit The Breathin' spent 1 day and $100 recording 8 songs with Matt Harrington in the studio above the late Sea-Sea's in Moosic, PA.
Todd:
I remember playing easy friend like 86 times for that goth engineer dude. I think the coolest memory of that record for me was walkin into the dorms and hearing people playing it loud! Good times ....lots of good times!!
Ed:
I recall an abundance of caffeine and cigarettes, a dusty room, and
endless takes of “Easy Friend”. Otherwise, a lasting regret of not
redoing the vocals on “Re-Write” is all that’s really left. And the
recordings, of course.
What is a bit more vivid are random traces of putting the CD’s
together. Each one lovingly hand-crafted by the four of us for the
adoring public.
Real D.I.Y shit ‘cause that’s what punk bands do, right?
Discs were burned on my long-forgotten external CD burner that worked
every third time. Based on Greg art, I laid out the inserts. Then,
much to the dismay of students doing actual school work, taking up the
art building’s color printer to run 11” x 17” sheets containing said
inserts. X-acto-a-thons at the Madonna hall front desk, where Greg and
I worked and Todd and Mal lived. Cut, fold, insert, repeat.
The first 118 were the elements of the Periodic Table. I remember
having a cardboard rectangle to keep the element box uniform from disc
to disc. Some lucky soul out there has number 26/Fe with “Iron helps
us play” etched on their disc.
Amazingly enough we sold all of those and made another 50 and then
another 50 after that. Between those profits and Todd yelling, “$5
t-shirts!,” to a bunch of 12 year olds, who gladly handed their
allowance over, where the hell is all that money?
Greg:
This was the first time I had ever recorded with a band before, and despite a few bumps here and there I think we did a great job. Especially since I had a cold that day. There was a wonky vocal set-up where the backing track was coming out of a stereo. It had to be played loud enough so whoever was singing could hear it, but not so loud that the mics would pick it up (Hey, what do you want for $100?) Sick or not, lots of cigarettes. Box of Cocoa Puffs on a floor tom. Going outside while Mal did vocals. Goth Matt not so goth on his day off. Still super proud of the line "On the Hudson with my X-Ray specs / And in lawn chairs on New Jersey Decks", which was basically me saying "What would Tom Habetz write?" Also "You gotta retreat to win". Truer now than it ever was.
Mal:
RE:"The EPICEST CD of ALL TIME!"-Kanye West
The one thing I remember most of all about that CD is listening to it in the car after recording it about 100-200 times and just saying, "this thing sounds fuckin awesome!"
We elected not to autotune the vocals so rappers in the future would have something to mask their lack of talent. I remember trying to record vocals and feeling weird that I wasn't holding my guitar. Easy Friend felt like some voodoo hex had been put on us. I think we tried it 50 times...that $100 American was worth way more then. My brother told me one of his friends in Austin, TX thinks "Rocketship" is the greatest song ever. They're still sellin' this cd (#37) online at netsoundsmusic.com for $5.09. I Bet it has that "Nice Price" sticker on it.
