Thursday, February 4, 2010

Any Questions? - Secret (Live)


This video is from the very first Any Questions? live performance back in 1990. Since it's Ttam Troll Plays Bass Week on the blog, I felt compelled to include at least one video and this happens to be the only Any Questions? performance where I played any bass.

The song is called Secret (aka Pocket of Sucrets) and was originally released on our Illegitimate Release 1990 cassette. You can be the judge but, when I listen to this song, it reminds me of a cowboy galloping on the range. That image is quite disturbing to me since Any Questions? is known for our uncompromising "Hypermedia Industrial Death" music. Images of bloodied corpses, cybernetic organisms, and post-nuclear landscapes are more akin to our music than an image of a cowboy galloping on the range. Maybe that's why I stopped playing bass in Any Questions?. MC2P4 also delivers a rare vocal performance in this song. It's certainly not one of our better performances and the audio mix is very poor but it is nonetheless humorously entertaining.

This performance took place in Valley Forge, PA at the Park Ridge Hotel at the wedding reception to celebrate the marriage of Scott and Jackey McConnell. That's right, Any Questions? were a wedding band for one day.

Special thanks go to Michael E Lightkep - House Mix, Kurt Smith - Light Operator, Steve Olsen - Follow Camera and Post Edit, and Matt Skirpan - Neo Nazi Cam for helping us to pull off this first live performance.

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Remembering Miranda

Today would have been my littlest friend's 18th birthday.  Though she plays at Rainbow Bridge now, I know she'd still love to hear me sing her favorite little song...

It's February number two
Happy Birthday from me to you
Happy Birthday Miranda!

Any Questions? - Follow


We start off Floating Fish Studios Ttam Troll Plays Bass Week with one of my favorite early Any Questions? songs. This unrelenting aggressive track is full of angst about the human condition, a cynical view of society, and the youthful frustrations of trying to change it all. This song was written and recorded at Der Palast des Goldes in March 1990 and features two blistering bass solos.

After I wrote and sequenced the music for this track, MC2P4 joined me in the studio and we recorded several live takes with him adding keyboard accents and backing vocals as I screamed lead vocals and played live bass. The end result is a great mixture of cold synthesized sound with harsh human aggression that we've rarely matched since.

Rather than trying relay how I was feeling at the time I wrote the lyrics to this song, I'll simply share the words with you. My mental and emotional state will become quite apparent.

I'm living in waste
I try to break free
I'm trying to get out to make you see
This is not how life should be
Living in this sympathy

Follow me, talk to me
I'll try to show you the way
Follow me, talk to me
I'll try to show you the way
The way

I'm tired of this, I'm tired of this
I want to get away
I'm tired of this, I'm tired of this
Oh just go away

People always telling me
That I'm not OK
Living in their glass houses
Letting life slip by
Watching their bank accounts
Grow above their heads
Waiting for the day
Their spouse is dead
Is dead
Waiting for the day
Their spouse is dead
Is dead

Dead (repeat)

I guess I had some issues. Here's the track. Enjoy!

Monday, February 1, 2010

Ttam Troll Plays Bass Week!

It's Ttam Troll Plays Bass Week here on the Floating Fish Studios Blog. Some recent blog posts (Brian "Who" Black and Jesus Christ Superstar) reminded me of other classic, rare and/or unreleased recordings that feature my bass playing in the FFS Vaults. What makes these recordings rare and "special" is that I essentially gave up bass playing back in 1990 after I began composing and programming electronic music entirely with synthesizers, samplers, drum machines, and computers. Several years later, I dusted off my basses and other stringed instruments and have used them sporadically since but never with the same driving intensity that you'll hear in the songs featured this week.

Join me as I revisit some of these classic recordings. Let the assault of low end frequencies begin!