Here's a tune from The Raid on Moonfish, the recording session in Ithaca's Moonfish Studio on September 2-3, 1983. Tim was just about to go off to college at Hartwick in Oneonta, while I'd be staying in Ithaca at Cornell and Jon would be starting his senior year at Ithaca High School. There was some uncertainty about what would happen, but hope for our rockstar future still burned, poignantly climaxing in the double-time ending with the 12-string acoustic guitar overdub. Here are some notes from The Raid Records:

We set up in the studio, Jon using his entire set except he used their snare, their floortom in place of the jap, and their tom in place of his power toms. (See, Moonfish has their own drumset.) (see diagram)

Kurt Rodeheaver (love that name!) engineered us. There was a direct and amp signal from both guitar and bass -- so 10 channels were used by: drums (6), guitar and bass, and that was all that was ever used at once except "More Than A Memory" which was done with a live vocal. They had a tape echo which sounds pretty decent. Guitar was split left to right with the two signals, one of which was echoed. Bass centered...It took until about 12:30 -- 4.5 hours bout.

Saturday the third, we scheduled a mixdown session with Kurt. Tim stayed home and packed. Jon and Gino and Andy went down and worked out the mixdown from 3 or 4 tracks to Jon's cassette deck...2 hours total time remixing.

Overall -- $85.79 including a 4 track reel and 2 Maxell UD-XL-II C-60s.

Pretty pleasing. Definitely worth the money and hours of effort.

Silence is excellent. The 12 string isn't prominent but thickens up the refrains and the finale. What a great last song.

6.5 hours in the studio for $85.79?!? Wow. 1983 dollars.

Wait. "Last song"? Don't give up hope!

Tim plays a wicked cool bass solo. Jon's drums are super crisp and tight. We recorded guitar, bass, and drums live, then overdubbed the vocals and 12-string acoustic guitar. This appears on the CD The Raid. Another version from 1986 appears on the album Brown Carpet and Full Moon, and a far out silence dub is on the Brown Carpet Scraps album.

Thanks for listening!

-Andy

Silence

When you're all alone
The shadow of darkness, nobody home
You look around, and see what you've done
You look around, and you're the only one

No more words to say
No more night and day
You open the door, lie on the floor
You want to run but you can't anymore

When you can scream to the crowd but there's no response
That's silence
When you can hear your heart beating out loud 
That's silence
When you're lying in bed with a hole in your head 
That's silence

When you're telling me
This isn't how it was going to be
We've heard it all before
We can't listen anymore

While there's still hope
Don't hang your head on the end of a rope
A bright sun brings some light
Into your lonely night
Don't give up hope


Lyrics by Tim Odell - 1 February 1983
Music by Andy Wyatt - 18 May 1983
©1983 by The Raid