______________D-LOAD mp3 by clicking HERE
Did I just invent the slang “d-load” or has that been done? I have to assume I did not… because I think any idea you ever have has already been thought of. Using that logic, when you have an idea, you better act quick.
Ok, I just googled “d-load” and a bunch of “download” related sites came up. And it is in urban dictionary but has not yet been defined.
But anyway, here is a track called “Loose Booty” from one of my legendary but not legendary high school bands, Fresh Ground. This was 9th grade and a little bit of 10th grade, so what is that - 15 / 16 years old? This is actually pretty embarrassing stuff for me. Mostly because of the lyrical content, or lack of.
Around this time, I was heavily influenced by the Breeders and the Beastie Boys. And I think it shows, if you listen to this track. I had no idea what I was doing lyrically, I just had a general idea of what I wanted to sound like, hence the distorted vocals. I had nothing to say, I didn’t even know what it meant to “have something to day”. Often times, I was just making up words, because I didn’t know how else to rhyme. At one point, I say “I had a dream that I really hate it / but it ain’t true, so we desicate it”.
Desicate? Well, I just discovered that “desicate” is an alternate spelling of “desiccate”, which is a medical term verb that means to dry out thoroughly or to preserve (foods) by removing the moisture. It can also be an adjective to mean lacking spirit or animation.
Also, desacate (desacatar) is a Spanish verb meaning disobey, be disrespectful to, have no respect for.
So maybe I made more sense than I give myself credit for.
My friend Skully played the drums, and in this early track, you can hear his distinctive sound of energetic playing and dense fills. He just recently joined the pretty well-known band Razorlight. (I hope it is ok to share this information. Skully, if you are reading this, let me know!) I assume Razorlight is bigger over in England than here in the states, but I used to like their song “Golden Touch”.
My good friend Joe was on bass. Today he works for the art gallery / dealer PaceWildenstein. And since I am giving it all up above them, I will also include that I work here.
We played a few shows in Long Island, mostly at this one dive bar called The Right Track Inn, where I remember them saying, The Ramones had used to play at a lot. I couldn’t find much, but they do have a Right Track Inn myspace group page.
The band name, Fresh Ground, was taken from seeing the phrase all over Dunkin’ Donuts, we spent a lot of time hanging out there as teenagers. The title “Loose Booty” was from a George Clinton and the Funkadelics song, which I didn’t realize back in the day, but it is a song about snorting heroin and how stupid that is. Lyrics here.
Sly & the Family Stone also did a song called Loose Booty, but its lyrics are about dancing and having a good time. According to Urban Dictionary, there are five different definitions.
The “guitar solo” that I do after the second chorus (the chorus has no words), was something that I ripped off from my older brother - something he had played and then I “recontextualized it”, and put it in my song. At the time, since I was a beginner, it was a difficult riff for me to play. I thought it was the coolest and most impressive part of the song, but sadly I always knew that I was not responsible for writing it.
I used a lot of wah pedal back in those days. Or at least that was the joke, it was my trade mark. Everything needed more wah.
We recorded this song in Skully’s basement, where his step-father also ran a part-time business selling model robots & dinosaurs imported from Japan. We recorded it live on a four track and then I over-dubbed the vocals. Back in these days, you only had your band’s music on cassette tape. Getting a CD copy of your music was VERY expensive.
This was probably our most popular song. I think some of the older musician’s in our town’s tiny music scene were making fun of the song for its simplicity, but they also really liked it at the same time. It was our weird hit song.
Oh the good old days… we would go skateboarding in the Keyfood parking lot and then go play music in the basement. We had acne and braces and we wore wool caps and baggy ripped jeans (it was the grunge era).
I think I have said everything I wanted to say about this song. I hope you enjoy it - just one of the many pleasures plucked from my disorganized archive of old, unlabeled cassette tapes.
Oh yeah, p.s. - the image used at the beginning of this post was from a google image search for “Loose Booty”, which among many things, brought me to some art collective or show of the same name.
