FOOLISH (Merge, 1994)

Jon: We wrote the songs in the same damp basement as we wrote On The Mouth. This would have been the late summer-early fall-fall of 1993. I really don't remember playing these songs live too many times before we toured our way out to Minnesota to record. I'm pretty sure "The First Part" was the first song we came up with. I remember referring to "Like A Fool" on my song tally list as "Polvo" and "Why Do You have To Put A Date·" as "Message In A Bottle" (don't ask). Superchunk has never been terribly prolific but in this case we did actually have a good amount of songs written by the time we left (this would,I feel, hurt us when it came time to record). Brian Paulson had been recommended to us as a producer by tourmates Unrest. The deciding factor for me was his work on Uncle Tupelo's soon to be released Anodyne. That and his much talked about talent for making the "world's greatest Smores".

Following the "let's try 'em out on the road then record 'em" philosophy that worked so well with On The Mouth, we piled in the van ( with soundman Joe Hickey and T-shirt mistress Claire Ashby) and proceeded to rock our way out to the frozen northern mid-west. Although I usually have a pretty good memory when it comes to these things, I cannot recall many of the towns we played besides Milwaukee, Chicago (Lounge Ax where we met Mr. Pauslon for the first time) and Minneapolis (7th Street Entry). I remember being completely exhausted after the final show in Minneapolis and thinking, "we have to get up tomorrow @ 8:00 am and drop Joe off at the airport and start working on the record·.and it's 2:00 am now!" Note to self: never play a show the night before starting a record.

Pachyderm studios is located about 40 miles outside of the twin cities in Cannon Falls, MN. The studio is situated in the woods and has living quarters next door. I remember being impressed by the size of the room that we would be recording in but being a little worried about how far away from the rest of the band I would be situated. I like to be able to see the others if possible. We got sounds pretty quickly and started recording. I remember hearing the playback of "Why Do You Have To Put A Date·", the first song we recorded and not being able to tell what was going on. The volume was incredibly loud and it just sounded like a huge blur. I asked Brian what he thought of the take and he said that it slowed down at the end. I remember someone saying "it's fine, let's keep going" and thinking 'well it's really not that great but we do have 16 more songs to record in 4 days so we better keep moving'. That pretty much sums up what the rest of the session was like for me. I feel that we sacrificed a little in the quality department so we could have more songs on tape. I should mention that the previous owner of the DW brass snare drum I used for this record was Jim Sonefield of Hootie and the Blowfish. How you like them apples? This was also the last album Mac used his red Gibson (not sure of the model). He now plays a Gibson Marauder that he pieced together after it was smashed by Paul Stanley at a show in Biloxi in 1978 on Kiss' Love Gun tour.