In a way, I often think of Pie in the Sky as a 3-piece, even tho I dont think they ever performed as one. Maybe I'm just fond of 3-piece bands, I don't know. You have got to love the bass tone on this recording, this is a (probably cheap) Yamaha bass that Reid got from Sean Kugelberg. Yet another case of someone that wanted to start playing, bought an instrument, never touched it, then passed it onto a musician. I too have been the lucky one in this type of transaction.
Very interesting in this recording are the four 'demo' versions of songs. I guess now that I think about it, that puts this recording probably in the fall of 98, becuase by December of that year, Spreading Yourself Thin had vocals. On the actual tape, I wrote '1-2-3-4' becuase they played these 4 quick instrumental jams, which was the buildling blocks for the 4 later, great songs. '30 Years' is espically wild, without lyrics Washburn just busts leads the entire time. I don't think that technically 'Full Service' was ever officially finished, tho it did get another change and some lyrics. What you can listen to here is a riff that the guys used to jam on all the time, sometimes probably for 4 minutes or more until they got bored. Only 3 notes, but its lack of complexity is a lesson to us all about the basis of good song and riff writing.
I can remember so many more recordings that I have somehow lost the tapes to over the years...'Pimples' is yet another reminder of that. Its a super short song, probably under 1 minute, tho depending on the amount of Old Styles consumed that night it might be 3 minutes or more. Whoever might be present in the room might decide to step to the mic and bust their own verse. This is the most basic stripped down version, it was the last song on the tape, as all short songs are -- when there is little tape left, you have to play your shortest song as fast as you can in the hopes of jamming one more track onto the tape before it ran out.
1. Buckley
2. Grey
3. Rock n' Roll Joe
4. Seperate Ways
5. Nothing Knew
6. Pimples
1. Full Service (demo)
2. Green (demo)
3. Spreading Yourself Thin (demo)
4. 30 Years (demo)