It's Low Beat Time This is from the inner sleve of "It's Low Beat Time" I found it interesting enough to type out so hopefully you'll find it interesting enough to read. Sorry if there's major type-os.


Welcome to our eighth album (not couting all that other stuff). You might think that recording at five different studios in Seattle, Memphis and Madison was partof a bold icisive plan, concocted over coffee fuled career mapping sessions with our management team and A&R rep. In fact it only occured to us in May that the time for an album had arrived; we then haphazardly book various helter skelter recording dates, in a told panic to get an album out by October, for no concrete or logical resaon. So we'd suddenly find ourselves lugging guitars and cymbals through airports, wandering into studios we'd never seen, armed only with a few perilously uner-rehearesed songs and the notion that somehow our inanity would, in those who find this effort disagreeable, well, we must have done something right. It'd probably be a good idea to just let the music speak for itself, so here's a track-by-track laundering of insights, anecdotes and minutiae on the monumental creation of It's Low Beat Time!.....

Right Here- you got yoru basics right here: Scott- regular guitar, vocals; Kurt- melody guitar; jim- low notes; tad-drum beat, backing vocals. This set up will tend to occur on occasion thoughout the album and you my assume, when appropriate, that it applies to particular tracks without any further notificatoin. Pretty straightforward. Writer: Scott McCaughey. Produced' and mixed by Butch Vig at Smart Studios, Madison, Wisconsin.
Snow White- orginally intended for our hastily abandoned children's album. Kurt-piano; Jim- acoustic guitar; Doug Easley- pedal steel. Writer: McCaughey. Produced by YFF and Doug Easley at Easley Recording Memphis, Tennessee.
Mr. Anothony's Last- please direct specific inquiries concerning lyrical content of this and any other songs on this record to Mr. Robin Gibb (address withheld by request). Butch Vig- harmony vocals. Writer: Kurt Bloch. Produced and mixed by But Vig at Smart.
Whatever You Are-I think we sounded like this in 1985, or maybe it was 1979. Whatever. Scott-organ. Writer: McCaughey. Produced by YFF and Doug Esasley at Easley Recording
Two Headed Fight- we called onec again on Lester Snell to give us this song "organ extra." We'd met Lester when Willie Mitchell called him in to play on three tracks we recorded at Royal earlier in the week. Lester's played weith everybody, but is probably best known as longtime keyboardist/arranger for Isaac Hayes. Kurt- acoustic guitar. Writer: McCaughey. Produced by YFF and Doug Easley at Easley.
a minor bird- the myster word quietly shouted in the middle break is "Cossail". Kurt-piano. Writer: Bloch. Produced & mixed by Butch Vig at Smart.
Faultless - it was very late. Scott-Piano, organ. Butch and Tad- "The Boxer" kick drum. Writer: McCaughey. Produced and mixed by Butch Vig at Smart.
The Crafty Clerk- we really wanted to play tribute to Bert Kaempfert and Esquivel , but this doesn't sound a bit like either! Still it's got "H.I.T." written all over it. Scott-piano, bass; Tad- percussion; Zach Davies- trombone; Maya Johnson- flue, alto sax; Mark Nichols- strings, theremin, clarinet; Richard Peterson- trumpet section (six a new record!); Dan Peters- marimba. Writer: McCaughey. Piano recorded by Kerney Barton at Audio Recording, Seattle. Produced by Scott McCaughey and Conrad Uno at Egg Studios, Seattle.
Low Beat- This song was composed onstage at a horrendous gig in Olympia a few years back. It subsequently became a huge crowd favorite in Portland, Oregon, and we rarely played it elsewhere. Somehow, in the middle of 1992, nine years of Fellows carousing, both glorious and pathetic, suddenly came into focus, and the word and the bird were "It's Low Beat Time". The intro jinge was written by Tad and perfomed by Tad and James Fisher. Otherwise: Lester Snell-organ; Scot, Jim, Tad- handclaps. Writers: Bloch/Hutchison/McCaughey/Sangster. Produced by Willie Mitchell with William Brown at Royal Recording Studio, Memphis, Tennessee.
Love is a Beautiful Thing- we went to Memphis to record with Willie Mitchell, drawn by the amazing Hi records catalog, his work with Al green and Ann Peebles, but most of all stompin' instrumental sides of the '60s like "30-60-90", "Check Me", "Percolatin" etc. We liked this Young Rascals tune also waxed by Wilson Pickett) and so did Willie. William Brown, Grammy-winning engineer of "Shaft" and orginal member of Volt vocal group the Mad Lads, provided backing vocals, engineering expertise and good advise, while Willie whipped us into shape the best he could. Lester Snell- Organ. Writers Cavaliere/Brigati. Produced by Willie Mitchell with William Brown at Royal.
She Sees Color- we can't seem to make a record without at least a slight nod towards the early Who, even if it's just a well-placed acoustic guitar by Kurt in this case. I'm not sure whether that's hip or not. Writer: Bloch. Produced by YFF and Doug Easley at Easley.
Monkey Say- from a two-day marathon session with the A-Bones: Billly Miller, Miriam Linna, Marcus the Carcass- chorus vocals; Bruce Bennett- reverb guitar; Lars Expensen- sax: with Dan Peters marimaba. Writer: McCaughey. Recorded by Kurt, mixed by Scott and Uno at Egg.
99 Girls and She Wont Budge- if the credit "Recorded at Audio Recording, Seattle Washington - engineer Kearney Barton" looks familiar, it's hopefully because you noticed it on Here Are the Sonics, one of the ten best rock n' roll records ever made. That these two songs bear the same credit is no coincidence. We did these live and direct to an old Ampex 2-track and Kearney had no problem helping us get what we were going for, with the VU meters pegged from start to finish. If you think your CD is defective, you're wrong! Writers: 99-Sangster/McCaughey; Budge- McCaughey (by the way just to clear things up a bit the last line in the third verse should be "make yo misteralbe at her own expense").


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