Softcocks - Demo 90

These days, it is more or less 20 years since Softcocks started to behave like a real band. Although we started our first, drumless, rehearsals in November the year before, regular rehearsals didn't start until we found rehearsal space in August 1990. We had had less than 10 rehearsals altogether prior to renting this room at the first floor of a building in the Buran/Lademoen area of Trondheim. This building already brimmed with bands (among them Motorpsycho, Israelvis and Monster Blomster), but most of them rehearsed in the basement (where we ourselves had to move to two years later when they made the first floor into apartments). The rooms in the basement were rather stuffed; dark and airless. Our room, on the other hand, which we rented together with a band of shifting names (Whiplashtruppen is the one that comes to mind right now), had been an office of some sorts so it had windows, which meant that lots of air and light could come in. But, of course, it also meant severe outward sound leakage: half the population of Buran/Lademoen could therefore follow our rapid development, from the insecure, shaky sounding guys who started in August 1990 to the through-and-through professionals that had their proper debut concert a mere 6 months later.

By the time we started rehearsing regularly, we already had a few songs under our belt and we soon decided to record a demo. However, prior to starting the recording sessions, we invited a few friends over for a "performance" in an adjoining room to our reharsal room. Joining us for this event, which happened on November 17 1990, was co-renters Whiplashtruppen, who played after us and thus must be seen as the headlining act. For some reason, though, they didn't invite any friends along, which led to the rather bizarre situation where the audience (our friends!) shouted for a Softcocks encore AFTER Whiplashtruppens set. Adding to the strangeness was 10-15 local teenagers that had heard the concert from outside and entered the room while Whiplashtruppen played. These kids joined in on the shouting for an encore from us, making the ply for more music from Softcocks both funny and embarrassing for us and, of course, rather annoying for Whiplashtruppen. Both "concerts" (and our belated encore) was recorded, and we, shamelessly enough, released our performance on cassette in a thankfully small edition of approx. 10. Don't expect to hear excerpts from that particular cassette...

What you will be able to hear here, though, in its entirety, is the demo-tape that we started to record a short time after that "concert". We picked the songs we regarded to be the most finalized at that stage (many other songs were still being bent into shape, for instance one of the first own composition we played, a song by Per F. called Feaces From Brain, which we never really managed to finalize in a saticfactory manner).
The first song on the cassette was what we saw as our signature song. Cock Song is written by Per F. (music) and Håvard O. (lyrics). Great lyrics that becomes our great name.
Hangovers is Håvard K.'s, and - I believe - the second song he submitted to the band. His first, Legenden, a song about cross country skier and true Norwegian legend Oddvar Brå, was in Norwegian, which made it unsuitable for this release (but we did release it later, using the nome-de-plum Oddvar Bros, in an ironic nod to awful 80's band Bros).
The third song is Ignition, by Per F. In the pressrelease to the Demo 90, as we called the resulting cassette, we described our style to be 'popcore', and this song is perhaps the prime example of whatever that might be.
Per F. is also the writer of Crashlanding, and it is also he who sings it. Oddly enough, since this song is our one "ballad", we used three guitars when the song was played live. The reason was that Per T. could have something to do while Per F. sang.
The last song, Electrocute, was written by Per T. When we tried to persuade Per T. to sing for the band, we wanted him to use a David Thomas-like vocal (a style we had heard him use on some late late nights over a glass of wine or two). Except for the aforementioned Feaces From Brain, this song is the only one in the band's repertoire where this voice actually comes through. Still, he is more restrained compared to rehearsals and live performances. Before we recorded this song, it was called Records. Not sure why the title was changed.

For the recordings, which were done in our rehearsal space, we used a Tascam 4-track recorder that we had borrowed from Fotogjengen at Studentersamfundet in Trondheim. All the tracks were recorded live, with overdubs for vocals and some guitar, and possibly percussion. The cassette received some favourable reviews, for instance in Rock Furore and the Swedish popmagazine Sound Affects, which gave us 3 out of 5 stars and concluded the review by saying: "Change your name, guys, and we might even talk of a fourth star". We were very proud, of course, but didn't understand that part with the name change? Strange.

Demo 90 also landed us our first proper gigs. Actually, our first three concerts were given within two weeks. At the first, at Cafe 3B on February 2 1991, we played to an audience of around 150 - even a few that we didn't know...., while for the next, a week later at the sorely-missed bar Skansen, we only had 7... we did not take the difference personally (this was as a "cool-down" concert after a fantastic acoustic set by Robyn Hitchcock who himself only drew about 30 people). Another week later, we had our first (and only) out-of-town concert, as a warm-up act to Transiberian Hijackers at Fenka in Levanger. Approximately 40 people saw us play, and , actually, less people saw headliners TH (which might have had to do with the fact that most of Softcocks hail from Levanger...).

Starting up, two cassettes, three (and a half) concerts in only 6 months... things were moving fast for Softcocks! After this string of concerts, we went back into the "studio" once again, recording songs for cassette compilation 365 Riff. But that, as they say, is a story for later...