Cinder - Sharp Edges Dulled (1998)

A while back I ran across a copy of this CD I had made at some point in the early 2000s. It compiles a bunch of demos I did in Austin in the late 1990s. It is pretty much a lo-fi mess, but there are some good ideas here and there.

At the time I was recording with a broken Tascam four-track (the rewind didn’t work), a broken Realistic analog synth (one oscillator was shot), the same Alesis drum machine I still have today, my trusty Fender Strat, and the Peavey bass that Darin Brock and I sold back and forth to each other for several years.

I used the name Cinder for a while. Then I found out some crappy metal band had the same name so I dropped it.

Anyway, I recorded a bunch of songs during this time. Being both recently divorced and unemployed provides ample time for such diversions. Even when I started working later in 1997 my non-existent social life at the time didn’t interfere with my recording endeavors.

Closet Groove is actually a single song I split up for some reason. I was listening to a lot of DJ Shadow at the time. For some reason I thought this sounded like his stuff.

Song For You is pretty noisy but has a decent riff. The lyrics are pretty hateful, which is why they are mixed so low. Well that and my microphone kind of sucked at the time. Concerns a couple of individuals exiting my life around that time. Stupid I know, but there it is. Issues.

You can probably guess the inspiration for No More Apologies. Not a bad song. Some nice atmosphere on it.

I have no idea what prompted the lyrics for Dumptruck. This is actually the second version. The first is really terrible.

Magnetic Fields have been a favorite since I discovered them one winter’s evening in Boston on a radio station. Get Lost remains my favorite of all Merritt’s work. This is my take on Famous from that album.

It’s That Time is a driving bit of rockish music. Lyrics are meh.

Untitled No. 2 is an instrumental wherein I made the best use of that malfunctioning synth.

A former employer was the source of the lyrics on Faithfully Blind. Yeah issues again.

Apologies to Tom Verlaine for this country-fied take on the brilliant Breaking In My Heart. I love the song and have recorded it several times. Not sure what inspired this take on it, but here it is.

What A Place is another instrumental. I think it was inspired by some stupid local car dealer commercial in Austin.

Darin and I were both sober (or at least hungover) when we gave birth to Hurtin’ The Barney. This mix of the Barney theme song and NIN’s Hurt is one of the more interesting detours we’ve taken in our recording partnership. I like it still today.

O.S.H.A., which stands for obligatory self-hatred anthem, was inspired by Marilyn Manson and all the lame creatures who followed him at the time.

There are at least five versions of Life By The Numbers floating around. This is one of them.

I first heard Death Of The European on the Rock and Roll Alternative in Dallas, Texas some time in the 1980s. I found the 12-inch single later at VVV Records on Oaklawn in Dallas. It is a great song and this is tribute to it by me and Darin.

Rock and Roll Colostomy Bag – yeah who knows? An instrumental.

My Own Disaster is, as the title implies, an epic take on my own errors in judgement around this time. Nice riff on this one.

There was to be a version of New Life with vocals. And somewhere the actual lyrics might still exist. In place of that version there’s this one. Kind of a nice song.

Silent Tracks 1 – 5 were on the CD I found. I guess I thought it would be a real CD at some point and these would be the teaser tracks between the end of the album and the hidden bonus tracks (see next paragraph). Ah ego.

Backwards Things / Roundboy Lounge Intro / You Can’t Turn It Off – I’ve really no idea what is going on with these. Certainly too much alcohol figured in there somewhere.

Recorded at the apartment by Pease Park in Austin, Texas from 1997 to 1998.

All songs written by Cummings except Hurtin’ The Barney (Brock and Cummings), Famous (Merritt), Breaking In My Heart (Verlaine), and Death Of The European (The Three Johns).

Darin played bass guitar, keyboards and contributed vocals on Hurtin’ The Barney and Death Of The European.

Cover image is from a photogram I made in college. Why I had so many fish hooks I do not know.