8-TRACK MISSION FROM HELL

As I mentioned on the BIG BAD WOLF Days page, the recording quality on these tunes is very bad. These, along with More Than a Million, 900, and Sing Me a Song, were the tune selections for the next Big Bad Wolf album, which was going to be called "How Culture Affects Perception". I got the name from a psychology book my then girlfriend, Cindy, was reading. It was the title of one of the chapters, and I though it pretty fitting for an album title. 

What makes these recordings very cool is that they're the only ones we have with Csaba as our drummer. While TJ did a fine job as the original drummer, you can hear the improvement of the band's quality, with Csaba's drumming. He's much more versatile than TJ, and he also forced J to up the anti in order to keep up with him. 

These recordings were the last thing we did as Big Bad Wolf. With in about a week of finishing them, I quit the band and Big Bad Wolf was no more. Billy handled all of the recording, mixing, etc... and for some reason he used a VCR with which to record the tracks. You young kids with all of your computers, and digital recordings... you'll never know the struggles of true basement cassette recordings... lol

For maximum enjoyment of the horrible quality, try using headphones.

WHO YOU KNOW - I actually wrote this tune as a completely separate project. Csaba was a senior in high school at the time (Taylor Allderdice... in Pittsburgh, PA), and had a friend (Alan) who was an honor student, who needed to do a project for a final grade. It had to involve something he wanted to do in his adult life, so he called, and asked how much I would charge to help him write/record a tune. At the time my girlfriend (Cindy) was taking some photography classes at a community college, so she needed film. Well. Alan worked at a Photo Hut, so I made him a deal. 

"Rent a keyboard & a 4-track, get me two rolls of film, and we'll call it even" was the deal I made... lol

Once Alan brought me what he needed, I asked him to get out of the way. I wrote and recorded the tune in a couple of hours in my garage, and Csaba played the drum machine on it, using the keyboard's keys. In the original version, all of the music was done using only one keyboard. I then took the 4-track and the recorded tracks to J's, were Billy tied the 4-track into our mixer, and recorded my vocals, then mixed the tune. Alan got an A on "his" project, and the guys liked the tune so much that it became another BBW song. 

What I loved about "Who You Know" is it got away from our usually more blues-based rock, and more towards dance, which is something I also love. Unfortunately, I only had one cassette of the original recording, and last I knew, Billy "borrowed" it. Haven't seen nor heard it, since.

THE E-JAM - This was Big Bill's favorite BBW song. While we were in the basement rehearsing, Big Bill usually spent his time on the living room couch, watching TV. However... just about every time we rehearsed this tune, he came downstairs to jam to it. I never knew what to name the song, but since it was written in the key if E, we always referred to it as the "e-jam"... and well... the name stuck... lol

ISN'T IT - This song for me was a culmination of my love for Prince's music and doo-wop. "The Beautiful Ones" (Prince & the Revolution - Purple Rain) was absolutely an inspiration, and I'd be a liar if I'd tell you otherwise. That's Mark Suhy playing sax on the tune. I'm not sure exactly how and where Mark and Billy met, but towards our last couple of shows, Mark sat in with us, and he even brought a friend named Joe, who played trombone. We were one trumpet player away from being CHICAGO! lol

DRIVING IN THE RAIN - Sean was the originator of this song. It was one of two  songs I co-wrote with the guys, the other one being "See You No More". I'm not sure if you can tell, but that's not me singing in this recording. That's definitely Sean's voice. My best guess is that Sean re-recorded it in his home studio, a few years after we (BBW) broke up. 

I CAME TO REMIND YOU - Was me having fun with J's Roland S-50. It was a sequencer, which allowed a person to record something and play it back in any key. Kind of like the old $25 Casios... but more expensive and sophisticated. 

WEIRDNESS IS AN ATTRIBUTE - It was something I used to mess around with on my home piano. Every time I played it, Csaba's friends got excited, so I figured "OK... this tune has potential". I introduced it at one of the rehearsals, and once the guys wrote their parts to it, we played it in sound checks, where it also got a great response. Once we started playing it live, it pretty much brought down the house.

The name came from an engineer we worked with at the Art Institute, whose name escapes me. We were in the AI recording "900", and would play "Weirdness..." as a warm-up tune. As with "900", the black student went nuts about "Weirdness..." and would ask what the name of the song was, but it didn't have one. They kept saying that the song is strange, weird, etc... but had a great beat and energy... so, the engineer said out loud, "Weirdness IS an attribute"... and THAT'S how the tune got its name. 

The two guys talking at the end are (first voice) me, and (responding voice) our friend Brady Youngman, who came home from the Air Force a few weeks before these recordings were made. Brady was an Air Force air traffic controller, so I thought that a jet fighter taking off amid pilot/controller conversation, would be a pretty cool way to end the song.

- Attila

BIG BAD WOLF IN THE BASEMENT

We rehearsed at J's house (bass player). The basement was our turf and the set-up was tight but sufficient. The sound in there was pretty good, but you can't tell by these cam-corder recordings. The biggest reason is because everyone was playing out of amps, so... the sound was coming from all over and depending on where Big Bill (J's dad who made most of these recordings) stood, that's what you heard. But it's pretty cool to see these videos of us learning songs in 1991. This was also one of only four times in my life where I had facial hair, and the only time I ever sported a goatee.

A few fun facts about these four videos. ﻿
"On the Loose" was one of my favorite songs to cover. Though it was still a little rough, it turned into one of our most solid cover songs.﻿
"If You Want It"... I don't remember this song at all. I'm pretty sure we never played it LIVE, but who knows. Can't remember everything... lol.﻿
"Runaround"... was Claudia's favorite song we covered (you see her in the video). She ALWAYS came downstairs to dance, every time we rehearsed it. Another little fact... I LOVED covering Van Halen songs. Sammy or Dave, didn't matter. On top of Runaround we covered Poundcake, Right Now, Hot 4 Teacher, Panama, Ice Cream Man, Source of Infection and Jump. Though we never played the last three, LIVE.﻿
"Still of the Night"... I covered this song as a keyboard player with my very first band, Paganini. We had two excellent good guitar players, so the song sounded really thick, the way it was intended. With Big Bad Wolf we were never quite able to get that thick sound the song required as we only had one guitar player. So... we never ended up covering it LIVE. But it WAS a fun song to play, in the basement.﻿