Scotch Tape Sex Pot (2000)
probably the most consistently weird GWD cd by quite some distance; this was what happened when gord, tyson and i all decided to smoke a joint on the short-lived bleachers in willistead park in the middle of november. it was freezing outside. i didn’t get high, but that was because i still didn’t know how to inhale properly. back at the house we decided to record ourselves improvising a bunch of random stuff, and this was the result. it’s slightly reminiscent of early papa ghostface in places, but a lot looser and without the instrumental diversity. i don’t really flex my musical muscles here at all, playing only some fender rhodes on the first few tracks and a bit of half-assed acoustic guitar in the middle of one song when tyson thrusts his guitar at me and orders me to play. instead i concentrate on vocal dementia, taking advantage of the chaos and trying on as many different voices as i can come up with. bill clinton is in there briefly, along with al gore, jesse topliffe, a little bit of lou reed, and elmo’s first appearance since “sewer” on SHOEBOX PARADISE. but the majority of the voices are my own creations. gord and tyson contribute their vocal cords as well, making for a twisted communal atmosphere.
some things loosely resemble songs (the dick police, which sounds something like acoustic talking heads on bad drugs, or at least that was what i was going for at the time, spliffs under the bed, wanna woman), while most of the rest is just plain messed up. there are a lot of spoken word passages, and some songs are basically all spoken, like joe’s lice, squirrels and the “stereotypical guy as a wannabe soul-searching poet” detour that is goosebumps. i do a lot of twisted philosophizing, coming up with some pretty bizarre metaphors, and on some songs tyson and i switch back and forth between using the microphone that has a messed up pitch-shifted effect on it, making us sound kind of demonic. it makes tyson’s acoustic guitar sound pretty evil too. gord plays a cool fender rhodes improvisation to kick things off on cirque de shit, which i think was recorded before tyson even showed up.
highlights include the sonic madness that is champagne suicide (with me on kazoo, party whistle, water bottle and maracas, and tyson doing some nice beat boxing at the end), the mock-radio program news [the horrors of impotence] (complete with an inspired holiday-themed commercial break), and burnt, which features a nice moment of spontaneous raw harmonizing between me and tyson. it’s especially interesting to me to hear how a riff that tyson plays in both spliffs under the bed and burnt later became an integral part of a fetal pulp song. i think it might have been “behind closed scars”, though i’m not completely sure. in any case, i’ve developed a real fondness for this cd over the years. it’s sort of like the really inappropriate, socially inept, fucked up child you love almost in spite of yourself. sure, it’s hit-and-miss, and there’s a lot of between song banter that doesn’t really serve any purpose, but there are a ton of unexpected one-liners and lyrical tangents that crack me up every time, and tyson and gord come up with some really cool and interesting musical ideas. it was fun just to sit back, relax and spill my brains for a change, while letting someone else do the musical heavy lifting.
TRACKS:
cirque de shit
doughnut segue
just turned saturday
the dick police
spliffs under the bed
champagne suicide
preparations
funerals are sexy
joe’s lice
squirrels
the news (horrors of impotence)
shit
goosebumps
burnt
indian pipe
the waffle man
wanna woman
politicies
STUFF TO LISTEN TO:
