HERE'S WHERE THE STRINGS COME IN (Merge, 1995)

Jon: We had vacated the Calvander homestead right before the 'Foolish' tour began and when we returned we began looking for a new place to practice. We moved our gear into the house of Squirrel Nut Zipper trumpet player Stacey Guess where we shared a room (it was actually the size of a large bedroom) with the Zippers for several months and got down to putting songs together for the album that would become 'Strings'. Belly had approached us in March about opening for them on their 'King' tour. We thought it might be fun (well, parts were!) and a good chance to play some new songs live so we accepted. The songs we road tested were "Silver Leaf", "Eastern Terminal", "Hyper Enough" and probably "Blue Flowers". As most of you know we eventually left the tour for various reasons relating to treatment we received from a couple members of the band's touring personnel. Strangely enough it was just around this time that we decided to record our new album at Boston's Fort Apache studios which was owned in part by Belly's manager. After an interminably long drive home from Denver, Colorado we resumed working on new songs.

Man, I still cannot believe how small that room was! There's a picture of it in the archives section of this site-you'll get the idea. We worked in earnest through the rest of April. "Animated Airplanes " working title was "Connells", then it became "Westerberg". It didn't become "AA" 'til the week we left for Boston. One thing about Superchunk that may be a little different than other bands is that we write the music for the songs first. Laura, Jim and I have absolutely no idea what the melody of the songs is going to be until Mac sings them in the studio, that is unless we happen to play the song live before we record. We usually only try out five or six songs on the road though. This 'no melody' approach has it's good and bad points as you can imagine. I like being surprised by what Mac comes up with when recording but I also regret some parts I've played because they can sometimes interfere with a vocal line. I brought in my new four-track recorder during the last week of rehearsals and recorded most of the songs. This allows you to figure out what songs you're completely fucking up and gives you an opportunity to figure out a way to not fuck them up before you get to the fucking studio. Sadly, I dropped that very four-track machine on my foot as we were loading our gear out after our final run through of the songs. My toe swelled up to twice its normal size and I realized I was in trouble as it was on my 'bass drum foot' and we were leaving the next day.

Throughout the drive up to Boston I could be seen trying to figure out a way to painlessly put on and wear a shoe. I stuffed wads of cotton in my shoe to act as a buffer between my swollen toe and the material. I gave up as we pulled into Cambridge. We were put up in an apartment just down the street from the studio we partied that first night with Gang Green (or was it Buffalo Tom?).

We met our co-producer Wally Gagel the next day and began recording. First song cut was "Iron On". My foot held up okay (I just rocked through the pain with the help of a tried and true folk medicine called beer). There is a howl that is clearly audible throughout the entire song. I labored under the impression that it was my snare drum that was causing the noise for two years until I heard the exact same sound emanating from Jim's guitar amp when we were recording "Burn Last Sunday" for 'Indoor Living'. That kid is always trying to screw me. Recording this record was very much the opposite of making 'Foolish'. We had a good six or so days to record and four or five to mix, this allowed us the option of doing songs over again if we weren't satisfied with the rhythm tracks (what a novel idea). The weather was great, nothing but sunshine and warm temps in Boston that May. Good times all around. I remember we went to see the film 'Exotica' in Cambridge one night and I threw up because the movie was too dirty for me.

In retrospect I feel that this is our best sounding record.

Some fun facts: The song that ends the record, "Certain Stars", has never been attempted live. Same with the only outtake from the album, "Fader Rules". Mac dabbled quite extensively on the keys this time out. I ate a footlong turkey and egg hoagie at 4:00 am after going to see a friend's band on Landsdowne. This was the record that was supposed to propel us into the big time·what went wrong? I think a quote from a 'cutting edge' commercial radio station program director best sums it up: "if Superchunk are so good why aren't they on a major label?" To you my good man.