In late 2012, I began recording a followup to Vacation, which I ingeniously titled ii. The resulting unfinished tracks are some of the best recorded and produced that I’ve done. Certainly some potential in a few of these. Not much cohesiveness, though.
AAA: Not sure what these lyrics are supposed to be about. That’s definitely a theme among many of these unfinished tracks. I’m messing around with mixing acoustic and electric here, trying to update the original sound of Vacation. As I continued recording, I realized I missed the raw-ness of the original album. The breakdown on this one loses focus and the drums never received the cleanup work to the MIDI that they sorely needed.
Electric: The beat for this one is a direct ripoff of a Name track. Not sure that I did it on purpose, but it happened anyway. Some of the synth and guitar interplay here is kind of fun, though.
Funk: This track fulfills my urge to play something a little groovier and funkier about once or twice a year before I realize I can’t pull it off without Blonski and Devin. I assume the whistling was a melody idea. Not sure.
Rock Dance: Rock! This definitely doesn’t fit the sound that was defined on the first Vacation release. That album’s sounds grew organically, mostly around the restriction that only one microphone be used throughout the recording. Without that restriction this time, these tracks varied wildly in style. Decent solo-y thing in the middle of this one.
Slow Rock: Looking back on this one, I really like most of the sounds I got out of the instruments. The guitars are crunchy and satisfying, the bass is defined, and the synth layers in the background. I purposely broke with expectations for structure for this track, which gives some parts of it a little bit of a Tool vibe. I think I was looking to channel Rated R era Queens with the ending section. Would’ve liked to see a good singer finish this one – which is why I didn’t bother and it remains unfinished.
Summer Vacation: No bass and some hastily thought out guitar parts make this the least finished of all of these unfinished tracks. Could have been decent, but it’s hard to tell from this early edit.
Meat Without Feet – WPOP scrapped initial sessions:
Track 01: This was the long version of what ended up being “Introduction” on the final album. The “verse” section mirrored the outro track from the original Meat Without Feet album, but it ended up getting cut from the final release.
Track 02: Kind of unremarkable in most ways. Some acceptable grooves, but obviously not much came of it.
Track 03: The first track with some vocals. As mentioned earlier, I have no idea what these are supposed to be about. Meat Without Feet has a vague focus on romantic lyrics (see “In this Town” and “I’ll be There” from the first album), but they’re neither very relate-able nor interesting. The chorus vocal performance is decent and the outro is somewhat interesting.
Track 04: This song was appended to the conclusion of the previous track. I like to think of them as a pair and this was to be a response of sorts. This might be my favorite of the unreleased WPOP tracks. Had I thought of a melody, it could’ve made it to the final release.
Track 05: The vocals on this one are somewhat unlistenable, but I’m glad I was trying to get out of my comfort zone. The lead guitar line in the chorus is pretty neat – both in tone and writing. Most of the lead makes me happy, actually. As long as I don’t think much about the words (which I assume was intended to me some kind of parody?), this track is enjoyable to listen to. The drum parts in the middle and end are fun and the half time bridge-y thing is kind of cool.
