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Jeff Rosenstock: "Fall 2008: I wanted to record an album that cost $50. Truthfully, we never spent that much money on a record before, but that's just because Joel recorded us pretty cheap on the last one. This time, I wanted to go at it without any help. I horned in on Halo Fauna/Get Bent/Red and Blue's practice space in Ridgewood, Queens, and prepared to record every day until the record sounded very very big. There were some problems however. Like the fact that the gate to the practice space would often roll back over the door so the alarm would go off and the door wouldn't open so you couldn't stop it. Or like the fact that someone in the space has been practicing to the same Marnie Stern song every Friday at 2 PM for the past three months. Or of course, what anyone who has ever recorded in a practice space knows, bad metal bands. So the recording process went like this: Tom set up some mic's at Turnpike Sounds, a nice little studio that Brad Cordaro runs out of a basement in Huntington, Long Island. He recorded Mike's drums with a little bit of help from Brad and a littler bit of help from me. Shortly after that we set some stuff up in John's mom's basement and recorded bass guitars. From there on out it was a lot of days spent in a tiny, sweaty practice space with microphones sticking out of toilet paper rolls, laying down a bunch of stuff, occasionally recording some stuff at my apartment too. Tom recorded his guitar parts himself in his basement in Seaford. We were supposed to have our record finished before our fall tour, but since we didn't that allowed us some time to record a beautiful grand piano and a kinda beautiful wurlitzer at the Bakery (which happened to be where we were staying) in Georgia. I eventually went back to record a Pegasuses record and threw some analog synth on there. Shit, Joel Hatstat even played some sleigh bells. To top all that off, Rick and Chris recorded some parts in their respective states and Sean Bonnette recorded some sweet vocals with jalipaz at audioconfusion in Phoenix. And the icing on the cake! Kepi Ghoulie and Dino happened to be in town towards the end of the recording and got a chance to stop by the apartment and since into panty house draped around a wire hanger. Once most of this stuff was down, Tom made a rough mix of one of the jams, feeling out some sweet EQ and compression settings. I sent a copy to Rick Johnson and he brought some reverb into it, which is something I've never put on Bomb recordings. Weird! After that I sat in my apartment for about three weeks straight, tweaking it and sending it over to Joel who would eventually master it. Finally when the record was almost done, we got some friends over my apartment in Brooklyn and John's mom's house in Baldwin to sing some gang vocals. We ate a lot of pizza in Brooklyn. The point being that this record could not have been made as cheap without such good friends giving such good advice and sharing their such good time. It is possible to make a sweet record that you love for almost no money, but it's a lot more possible with pals. Over the past few years I've learned a lot from the buddies that we've spent time with, whether on tour or otherwise, and I asked some of them to share some things they may have learned from their experiences. Their responses are listed in the 'zine that comes with this record. Remember, doing things yourself is fun and usually cheaper! Cooking beats McDonalds! Fixing shit beats paying some asshole to fix it! Recording yourself gives you more time to explore! So quit scramblin' to fit into a failing system, GO OWN YOUR LIFE!!!!".

via Last.fm

The Clerk says

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