Sonic Ruin: The Details

This was the 1st full length album I ever recorded at CopperDisc. Sometime in late summer 1998, I officially was laid-off from my job as chip loader-button pusher at Intel and promptly took my cash "severance" to buy a second Tascam DA-88 for the studio. With 16 tracks I felt I could finally have some control over my recordings instead for mixing all the drums to stereo. Most of the songs were already written, so Jay Klepinger and I began recording in October with Song About Nothing. Our method was simply Jay in the studio on drums and me in the control room with a guitar (going direct) singing guide vocals through a pair of headphones (since I was using every mic I had on drums). One of the most problematic songs was Leaving Home because we just couldn't find the right tempo. The cut that made the album still seems slow!

Right before Christmas I took the final multitrack of Song About Nothing to Otto D'agnolo's home studio for a mix. I did this because I was unsure if my mixes were turning out good enough...and it's also nice to have a second opinion. We spent a couple of hours mixing but when I got it home, it was still not how I wanted it. Not that the mix was bad, I just wanted it different so I used my mix instead. (Sorry Otto!) Recording and mixing continued slowly over the winter until I finally had to finish it by March 1999 because I had booked the mastering session well in advance. Lee's song Hello There and a few others were products of this hurrying. Lee was sick that day, but I made him sing anyway. Also my voice on Lost My Spark really bites. Speaking of those songs, they are the only ones to have Jay's Sonar drums on them. The rest were recorded with his brother-in-law's big black Tama kit. You can probably tell by the piccalo snare.

The album was mastered by Dave Shirk at Sonorous in Tempe and he did a fine job. Not harsh or compressed sounding. The cd was released on April 28 at The Cajun House in Scottsdale because we got the cds back just a day before. But we had the "official cd release" a week later at Mustang Sally's in Tempe, though only about 5 people showed up. Par for the course.

Sonic Ruin Stats:
Release Date: April 28, 1999
CDs Pressed: 1,000
CD's sold (as of Dec. 2002): 32