I was gonna check in on this thread and say "Fifty views and no comments, tough room"... lolz.
"I'm not getting in that car with him!" "That's no way to talk, Dad." There was a dumb dog name dumb."
Thanks for the dirty grooves, those were mine. Guitarists draped their work around the bass after the fact.
As you will have noted, IMC is the way we played more than anything else. Musicians ranged in skills with me the most unskilled (not counting the singer/keyboardist ) Our following was overtly enthusiastic about our abnormalities or thoroughly hated our existence. which is a tribute in its own right to be so polarizing. We gigged around coffeehouses, record and bookstores and the like for awhile.
The singer wrote most lyrics. I wrote most of the underyling grooves ala' the bass. We were the only two consistent members over 5yrs together with over 50 various wanderers stopping by at practices. There were 7 or 8 regulars including two frippian guitar virtuosos. The main drummer was tight, but most times we had a percussion stand made of tin cans tied to milk crates and various other pieces of metal and such The various guitarists layered over what we did as they saw fit. We jammed tunes out in the basement, listened back and pulled themes and songs out of the mess. There are some 150 horus of master tapes with 70 or so having been cut into 'albums'. Of those, we had a dozen albums + 2 studio sessions and one or two live tapes.
Macho was played on my fakenbacker with a pick and I wish I knew what fuzz pedal. Dumb dog was played on my self-defretted fender precision-turned-swiss cheese bass. Both basses ran through a 2x10 mesa boogie, but I couldn't tell you the model or wattage. Everything on that album is one of those two basses. The Cryptofurnace/Strawberry protocol stuff is all Cheese bass.
These days, the lead singer is in Poland and performing in the exact same style with skilled musicians backing him. He's more performance artist and that is the big draw for his crowds. it's weird, it's different, it's not corporate. Its not normal. That's the hook.
Me, I stopped with bands 20yrs ago, noodled alone most of it, just back getting into writing with new basses and a pair of Circuit Rhythms and Tracks. I dunno if I'd want to be in a 'regular, normal' band.
For whatever one thinks of the quality of play, writing or skills demonstrated, above all IMC was FUN. Our audiences had fun. We had fun. That was the most important thing. (And we got some fairly heavy riffs throughout, especially the crypotfurnace work.)
