"The Sediments" (1984)

After the demise of Shmaz in the summer of 1983, the remaining members of the avant circus band found various other projects and bands to keep themselves busy. Pink Bob had been giving a few solo tape collage performances under the moniker "Pink Bob's Stereo", and of course Brian Keys was still heavily involved in The Dits with Scott Lucas. By 1984, Brian had borrowed an 8-track reel-to-reel Fostex and Steve Rubin had purchased a communal 4-track cassette system that spent most of its first six months in Pink's bedroom.

Pink and Brian worked on several pieces of music together, but they had never used multitrack recording and it suddenly dawned on them that doing "songs" via overdubbing was a lot different than improvising into a stereo cassette deck! Words like "production", "engineering", "arrangements", "lyrics", and "mixdown" started to creep into nearly every discussion. Even though Pink and Brian knew very little about these subjects, at least they were talking about them.

By September, 1984, enoough snippets had been recorded and mixed to amount to some 20 minutes of music. Some tracks featured both Pink and Brian. Some featured only Pink, and one track featured neither Pink nor Brian (unless you count the backwards noises that were inadvertantly left on the tape after Wes Fischer had used only a fraction of the eight tracks!) Brian handed Pink the mixdowns from the 8-track material and instructed Pink to add all of the 4-track mixes to it, thereby forming what was intended to be an odd compilation EP.

After Pink Bob finished the assembly and made the first dub to take back to Brian, he realized they hadn't discussed a name for the compilation. Having listened to "Bad Alchemy" by Slapp Happy/Henry Cow, Pink borrowed a word from the lyric of this wonderfully bizarre song and put a label on the tape that read "The Sediments".

Upon listening to the result, the duo realized it sounded like a band, not a compilation. In October, 1984, Home Recordings released "The Sediments" as the debut by the label's "newest recording act". While the material is thinly recorded, full of faults, and has a disjointed uncertainty about it, Home Recordings owner Steve Rubin sent out copies to radio stations and magazines. Before long, positive reviews and playlists featuring Sediments songs began trickling in. Encouraged by the results and with a little experience under their belts, Pink and Brian began planning their follow-up release, "Capitalism, Inc."

SIDE ONE

1. Untitled Introduction (Pink Bob/Brian Keys)
2. The Day's Begun, Now Shines the Sun, and the Tape Has Only Started (Pink Bob/Brian Keys)
3. Rock Snots (Pink Bob)
4. Lost in Mexico (Wes Fischer)
5. Sediment (Brian Keys/Mike Hogan)
6. Answering Machine Message #1: Nobody's Home (Pink Bob)

SIDE TWO

1. The Morning After a Night in the Life (Brian Keys/Pink Bob/Wes Fischer)
2. A Perverse Waltz (Brian Keys/Pink Bob)
3. The Past Is Like... (Pink Bob/Wes Fischer)
4. The Proud Americans (Pink Bob/Brian Keys)
5. Answering Machine Message #2: Nobody Is Home But Us Machines (Pink Bob)
6. The Day is Done, Now Sets the Sun, and the Tape Is Nearly Over (Pink Bob)

Musicians:

Pink Bob Vocals, Percussion, Guitar, Bass, Trumpets, Casios, Tuba, Chord Organ, Kazoos, Telephone, Piano, Tapes
Brian Keys Vocals, Percussion, Bass, Guitar, Chord Organ, Tapes

Wes Fischer Guitar, Bass, Percussion, Vocals
Mike Hogan Guitar, Percussion
Cindy Bemis Flute, Vocals

Produced and Engineered by The Sediments.
Packaging design and layout: Pink Bob.
Photography: John Dickison.
Management: Steve Rubin.