Leaderdogs for the Blind: The Recipe

LDB. A topic for multiple posts.

In the previous post, ‘Numb,’ we leave off when Dude A pitches a project to the A&R rep from R.E.X. Records based (at the time… now defunct) in Nashville, TN.

Beyond the track ‘Numb’, Dude A and I continued meeting up to scratch out demos. ‘Numb’ was a terrible song backed by a terrible approach. That approach was combining heavy guitar riffs with funk. Executed properly, the combo can work, though it is a bit of a paradox. A heavy guitar riff is usually saying, “Pay attention to me ‘cuz I have something important to say.” That something is often serious, even dark. Funk is the 2nd cousin that wears colorful t-shirts, has cool-ass parents, and seems to get away with partying too much. And has all the sex it wants. All the fun, zero consequences.

Dude A called it “heavy funk and groove.”

And by the way, ‘Numb’ was not executed properly. We put heavy, funk, and groove into a blender, added a tempo that was way too fast, threw in Dude A vocals (who was not a singer), and some of the worst lyrics I’ve ever written. Try that as your morning smoothie. No bueno.

But somehow ‘Numb’ ended up on a compilation album from R.E.X. Then again it wasn’t difficult to see how it got published. The A&R rep was that desperate to work with Dude A. Oh, and the other 10 or 15 tracks on that compilation were also shitty smoothies.

Dude A packaged up 4 or 5 of the demos he and I had created and submitted them for consideration. I’m guessing we sent a cassette tape in the mail. I don’t recall much about those tracks, other than the fact that it was more of ‘Numb.’ Possibly even more numbing.

While that submission cycle was happening, Dude A and I happened to see a video on Mtv. For you kids out there, the “M” stands for music. Mtv, believe it or not, used to play music videos. Crazy to think that was the only content Mtv had at the time. It was popular. It was fun. Artists blew up as long as they could appear either as a magazine cover model or extremely weird.

An entire generation was influenced by Mtv. It changed the trajectory of pop culture. But it was mostly appealing to teenagers and young adults. Back then neither had money, and few had the power to influence purchases. So the corporate overlords kept tweaking the recipe, where “tweak” means–remove all music.

I mean, c’mon. It is America. Corporate. Capitalist. No record profits? Then you must die on the vine.

Back to that video. It was late night when the edgier, fringe stuff received some air time. The band was called Body Count. I don’t remember the track title. The guitar amps were on 11, the groove was thicker than molasses on a Midwest winter day, and there was a middle-finger-in-the-air message.

We were enamored.

We decided to ditch all previous demos. I can now say, you are welcome.

We programmed that drum machine to pump out thick, heavy grooves, forgoing the funk preset patterns.

The new recipe was starting to feel urgent. Necessary. It evoked deeper feelings. Angst. Raw power.

By the time the R.E.X. rep heard our ‘Numb’ based demo and agreed to allow Dude A to produce a full 10-song LP, we had 4 or 5 fresh demos with the new recipe.

And, we had a whopping budget of $8500 to produce 10 songs and the album artwork. Oh, and we had a few months to do all of this, and by this I mean crank out at least 5 more demos, lyrics to all 10 tracks, find a singer (thank all that has ever been created), and teach the bass lines to the bassist from Dude A’s actual band.

Seems reasonable.

And so it begins.