1990

At some point during 1990, my 4-track packed it in and became a “playback only” device, and recording material with vocals became problematic. In and amongst a series of unreleased and unfinished material, a redone version of “Citizen” was put together, using samples instead of the drum machine and synth sounds. The band track is identical to the version on the 1994 CD, but the original vocals from 1990 version, much like “Dare”, were still pretty slight and gutless, compared to the later version.

A curious phenomenon (more realistically, a curse) that followed me until I started working with digital equipment was that EVERY form of magnetic storage I used (cassette tape and floppy disks) hated me. I could gently put a freshly recorded tape or floppy disk away in a sealed and protected box, but the minute I touched or looked at it, data would be lost, or a massive tape drop-out would develop. Different machines and different environments did little to resolve this issue, though perhaps periodically using floppies as projectiles and drink coasters was less than wise.

Around this time, industrial music seemed to have become a compelling hybrid of influences, blending pop, dance, metal, hip hop, and experimental noise in ways that were abrasive, yet not without hooks. I had just seen a Ministry show in Texas, and the evolution from dance band to electronic/thrash/metal was very appealing. There also seemed to be a glut of albums by Ministry/Revolting Cocks, Laibach, Skinny Puppy, Nitzer Ebb, and Front 242 that grabbed my interest around this time.

One of the major disconnects during this time was that, for some reason, I was hesitant to go too far in emulating the industrial bands I was listening to, partially because I still had one mental foot in the then relatively un-hip Bowie/New Romantic camp, but also because I felt that between local “industrial” bands Numb, Skinny Puppy, and Front Line Assembly, anything I did would simply be a “lite” version. It almost seemed too easy and pointless to do, because it had already been done so well.