Fastened Bulbous - Not of This Earth

This song is available on WiMP and Spotify.

Because 1991 was the year that Softcocks emerged from the rehearsal room there are a lot of 20th anniversary stuff going on in relation to them, some of which I'll return to later this year. It is therefore easy to forget that there are also are some 10th anniversary things to celebrate. For instance, it's 10 years since Fastened Bulbous' last release. I therefore present a song from that EP, with perhaps one more coming in a couple of days.

As described elsewhere, our last recording was done rather hastily because PG, the bassplayer, was moving out of town. I had conceived of a plan of making this EP fully instrumental, and all the songs I brought into this recording session was indeed instrumental. However, Per didn't agree with this, and had one song with vocals/lyrics. Since it turned out to be the best Fastened Bulbous song ever, the instrumental-plan was abandoned. And somehow, during the course of recording, this song got some vocals too. No chorus though. Still, most of the EP is without vocals.

As we had with the previous EP, we met one afternoon/evening to record some drum tracks for songs that not always was fully worked out. Not of This Earth (named after a film by Roger Corman) was one of those, although it was almost there. I had some (instrumental) theme for the verse, but wasn't entirely sure whether I really wanted to use it or not. During the recording process it changed radically, somewhat building upon the drums, which couldn't be changed. And then, also something approximating a melody appeared.

The hardest part of the recording this song was towards the end where I wanted to lower the gain on my overdrive pedal while playing. It therefore had to be done with my foot. This proved a bit hard, though, since I not only had to keep in rhythm (of course), but playing required some extra attention since the tempo of the song was also slowing down. In the end, if I remember correctly, I had to have Per to lower the gain for me while I concentrated on my playing. Yeah, just like The Beatles, we used studio tricks that couldn't be replicated on stage, and that's, of course, why we never played live...

I had, and still have, one regret, however, which is a result of the way we worked towards finalising a song. Once a melody was created for it, this song should've had a different structure. More precisely, I would've liked to have another verse of singing before launching into the second theme. We had, of course, the opportunity to cut and paste, and by that re-structure the song, and we did discuss that, but eventually decided against it.

Although the basic tracks were recorded in December 2000, just days before PG moved away, the recording process continued until May 2001 (it was released in June 2001). Rewriting songs of course take its time. And all the changes to some of the songs also required new bass tracks, which had to wait until PG had an opportunity to come by the Pop-eye studios in his old home town.

This year it is also the 10 year anniversary for our plans to release the two EPs as one LP, on vinyl (I even designed its sleeve). These days vinyl is all the rage again, so maybe now would've been a good time to realize those plans?