TA-80: Think Tomorrow

Think Tomorrow



"Think Tomorrow" is the 8th TA-80 record. It is a single containing one track, "Think Tomorrow" which is a re-recording of a song from "80-83." The track was recorded in the Basement Studios by Randy Curtis. I wasn't around for this recording. It was an overnight session and I had to work at 6 a.m. Amy played the mini-moog on it.

I actually like this recording a lot. One of the few "TA-80 in a real studio" recordings that someone didn't ridiculously interfere with. And it turned out warm and intimate.

It was given out with fliers to promote an upcoming TA-80 show at a venue that, now that I think of it, was also called the Basement. There were only about 25 or so copies made. For as few as there are, this is one thing we have plenty of copies of. If anyone would like to hear it, hit us up on . We'll send you an mp3.

This never had a cover, it was given out in a white envelope.

Jens 80 had officially joined the band at this point but I don't think he played on the recording either. I think Amy played everything. I loved the sound of the Moog so much on this that about 75% of the keyboards on every TA-80 recording since has used a Moog emulator. "Think Tomorrow" was played live a couple of times during the Cullen years, but not since.

This track is now available on "Atari Du Cirque" which can be bought at .

- Jamin 80

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This is an old song. Not even old in the way that this single was released in 2005. I wrote this song when I was 16 years old. I came home from school with it stuck in my head. I was living with Jamin, his brother, Jason, and his brother's girlfriend at the time. I was also working with Jamin at a pizza place called MaBell's. Work always started at 4 p.m. but I didn't have to work that day. I got out of school at 3 p.m. and once Jamin left for work, I locked myself up in our bedroom and wrote this song.

I had the music for it first. Usually, at that time, I wrote my lyrics as I was writing the music. This was the first song that I had all the music running through my head but no lyrics. The lyrics aren't really anything meaningful. I think that's why I can still listen to this song and enjoy it. I have absolutely no personal connection to the words at all. I'm not even embarrassed to make the lyrics available, right here and now.

People all around, you see them everywhere
But they don't see you
Everybody's here, you stop and start to scream
But no one hears you

And I don't wanna see you
And I don't wanna hear you
But I can't help but feel you
today

That's it. For about a minute while I was writing this song, I thought that maybe I should come up with more lyrics. I'm not a big fan of repeating lyrics or verses because I kind of consider it a cop out. I mean, come on...Finish the fucking song already, right? However, on this song, I wrote what I wrote and felt like I had said everything that needed to be said to capture the feel of the song. In other words, I had no other ideas and was satisfied with saying just what I wrote because it would maybe work as some sort of meaningful statement. Again, I stress that these lyrics mean nothing to me. But I can see how they might be meaningful for other people. Or something.

The re-recording of this song was done at the Basement Studio with Randy Curtis as engineer. Randy recorded a few things for us. I'd have to say, and, unfortunately, this isn't praise, that Randy was the best outside person that TA-80 ever worked with. At the time that we recorded "Think Tomorrow" he was pretty great. He was open for new ideas and he was a great one for sitting around for hours on end, trying out (possibly) thousands of different sounds and effects until we'd finally find something that was perfectly weird enough for us. On this recording it was easy. Moog.

We used a real Moog for this song. This is not a digital effect. Randy still had a decent set up for analog recordings to run into his digital set up and that's exactly how we got this recording of the Moog. I played the Moog on this song. Actually, in both recordings, I did everything on this song/recording. It makes it hard for me to consider it a TA-80 song but since TA-80 is really all I've ever done musically, the fact that I did this song completely on my own, it's still TA-80. All my best stuff belongs to this band and I say this is the band's so it is. The Moog is fucking badass.

- Amy 80

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I like the Moog. It was the first thing we recorded with Randy. It was also pretty understated. 'Nuff said!

-Jens 80

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Soul Power! Moog-a-riffic. I like the reverb on the vocals. Sharks teeth.

-Klae 80

TA-80: Junk Car Grand Prix

"Junk Car Grand Prix" is the 7th TA-80 release and our 5th full-length album. It was recorded in 2004 and released early 2005. It was recorded on Powertracks Pro-audio in Amy's dad's garage. The line-up is Amy, Jamin & Russ with Jens joining us on the song "Soft Noise." The title is taken from an episode of "Speed Racer."

I basically consider this the first of a string of cursed albums and nearly resulted in the breakup of the band.

"Are Go!" was pretty well received locally and everything about the band was going up,up,up...this album was kinda the let down. Promises made by Right Time had fallen through and we parted ways with them.

A partial list 0f bad things that happened during the making of the album:

1.Cullen quit the band to pursue his college studies.
2. Russ quit the band 3/4 into making it to pursue work.
3. Places that would let us play kinda dried up. Either going out of business or banning us.
4. The 4-track tape I used to record the albums demos was lost halfway through the recording, resulting in us not recording most of the best songs written for this album.
5. The computer crashed right when we finished recording and we could only rescue rough mixes (so yes, the album is composed of mostly rough mixes... hello, shitty drum sound in "Never Forget").
6. After recording a good chunk of the album, which was originally a concept album about Michigan (our home state) called "The Great Lakes Statement", someone else put out an album with the EXACT SAME CONCEPT, resulting in me having to hurriedly rewrite most of the albums lyrics (in a drunken state, which has resulted in me vowing to write every TA-80 lyric, after this album, strictly sober). A few of the lyrics I never changed, "Great Lakes Statement" is still a quick Mid-Michigan history lesson and "Never Forget" is about leaving Michigan.


As of the time Russ left we were still about 3 songs short of an album, and the band was back down to only me and Amy. To fill out the album we used a Russ outtake from "Are Go!" entitled "Ya", an outtake of mine from "Are Go!" called "Heaven?" that me and Amy re-recorded and a new song we wrote called "Soft Noise" which featured Amy's brother and future TA-80 member Jens 80 on feedback and hollerin'. Oddly enough "Heaven?" and "Soft Noise" are kinda the highlight of the album for me, along with the Herb Alpert parody "Mambo #80", which was a damn blast to record.

The album holds up fairly well considering that by the end of the recording there was basically no band. Easily the best album we had made up to this point. We consciously decided to toughen up our sound to better reflect our live shows and it makes all the difference. For the first time we sound like a real punk rock band with a distinct sound. So most of it is in the TA-80 punk style, with a few detours into ska ("Crash Course"), dancey stuff ("Heaven?"), Noise-Rock ("Soft Noise"), power ballads ("Occupy her Mind") and hardcore ("See it Thru"). I think "Out(Count Me(Don't))" is maybe our funniest title.


Most of my problems with the album are due to the fact that all we were able to save from the crashed computer were rough mixes that we couldn't change... and we didn't have enough songs to have the luxury of outtakes. So we were stuck with the drums that sound like they were buried under a blanket in "Never Forget"... and the weird chords in the chorus "Tell Me".

Oh, and I CAN'T STAND "Exhumed Cadillac"... I don't know what happened. THe demo was good, but the final product? Ecchhh. Except Russ' slide guitar is the shee-yit on it!

This was also the time that an enthusiastic kid with a real talent for self-promotion named "Matt 80" joined the band. His exhuberance was a real life saver for the band at the time and we love the guy... he later left to move to California but we did re-unite with him years later and did a U.S tour with him in 2009.

So yea...to sum up the album...don't write lyrics drunk.

Track Listing:

1. Tell Me
2. The Great Lakes Statement
3. Crash Course
4. Occupy Her Mind
5. Out(Count Me(Don't))
6. See It Thru
7. Exhumed Cadillac
8. Never Forget
9. Warm Kites
10. YA
11. Writing Songs 4 U
12. Soft Noise
13. Heaven?
14. Mambo #80

Note: "Junk Car Grand Prix will likely never be re-released, but the tracks "Occupy Her Mind", "Warm Kites", "Writing Songs 4 U", "Soft Noise", "Heaven?" and "Mambo #80" are all on the TA-80 compilation "Atari Du Cirque" which is available at http://interpunk.com/item.cfm?Item=68094& . "Never Forget" and "Warm kites" were later re-recorded for the 2008 "Angry Young Computer" e.p (which is getting a re-release very soon...you read it here first, folks...)


We played some of these live over the years, most notably "Never Forget," "Warm Kites," and "Heaven?". We also played "The Great Lakes Statement" a few times.

The cover was originally a hand drawn picture based on an Austrian beer bottle our good friend Gerhard gave us, that Jens 80 later re-created digitally. There were very very few copies of this made. Maybe 35 or 40. We really didn't do very many shows during this time period.

-Jamin 80

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Tonight, I'm the last person to write my thoughts on this album. In a weird way, this was kind of my first album, meaning this is the first album that I really started writing the music. I was still trying hard with lyrics on this album too (something I tend to stay away from apart from the stray chorus or bridge here and there...) I really came into my own on my music writing on "Junk Car".

I think "Occupy Her Mind" was one of the first songs I wrote for the album. I was doing a QA job for a big Internet provider when we started this album. That pretty much translates into me doing countless hours of repetative, monkey work that didn't require me to actually speak to a single other human being. I loved it. I used to bring in about 20 CD's a day with me and listen to them as I, basically, pretended to do a job that actually meant something.

I listened to a lot of Elvis Costello during this time. When I came up with the lyrics for "Occupy Her Mind" I was listening to Elvis. I had already written the music because I was coming up with bass parts like crazy. I had found a style that was comfortable for me and the bass kind of got easier to play. Hey, it's gotta sink in at some point, right? Anyway, I was sitting at my desk, listening to Elvis, and I came up with the first verse. When I say that a girl is listening to someone singing but he's not singing to her...That's me singing to Elvis Costello.

I wrote the lyrics to "Tell Me" at Lane's house. Lane was a DJ for the Tucson local station. He did a show called Avante Garage and played all punk and related music up to 1980. The show came on at 2 a.m. on Tuesday nights. We rarely missed a show. We called in all the time and requested our favorite songs and Lane was mighty impressed with our music knowledge. This was mostly coming from Jamin. Now we all love the stuff but at the time, I'm pretty sure it was mostly Jamin doing the actual requesting.

So we ended up becoming friends with Lane and he had us on his show and played one of our songs, going completely outside his show's boundries. I ended up hanging out at his house one night while Russ was practicing for a different band. They were this weird, metal/emo/punk type of thing. Russ really got into that for a few years. I don't get it and I decided that I would rather hang out (very quietly) at Lane's place while he typed his dissertation or something. I told Lane later that I wrote the lyrics for "Tell Me" that night and he seemed really excited about it. He liked our band. It was nice.

I still really like this album. It's hard to say that because I wrote a lot of the lyrics and it's ultra personal and super girly and lame but the songs as a whole are pretty damn decent. This album is the specific reason why I really don't try to write lyrics anymore. I'm awesome at writing music and come up with a lot of the music you hear on any of the new TA-80 stuff. Lyrics, on the other hand...I leave that to Jamin. I gave up lyric writing to Jamin on "Crash Course." I originally wrote lyrics and sang vocals for it but it was awful. Even me, with my amazing ego, couldn't deny that it was terrible. I handed it over to Jamin and felt that, for as much as I loved the music, if he couldn't come up with good lyrics, we'd scrap it as an outtake. He came up with great lyrics and this was when I realized that I could write music, let Jamin write lyrics, and then I could sing it and it would still be an awesome TA-80 song that I wrote.

I grew up listening to the Beatles and whoever wrote the song, sang the song so that's how I thought it was supposed to be. Hey, it worked for them but not for us. We're not the Beatles. If we were...well, that'd be awesome.

This album is always a little sad for me too. This was the album we lost Russ. I thought we were done for. In a way, we kind of were. I mean, we didn't have another full length release until Russ came back to us almost 5 years after this album came out. I actually sent an e-mail to Dr. Frank (of all people) and told him how I was afraid we were going to be done. He (extremely kindly) sent some encouraging words back and we did continue to plug away. There's more to this story to come.

"Junk Car Grand Prix" was a really fun album. My dad, Gary Heronemus (who appeared on "Expansive, Yet Inexpensive") helped me with recording vocals. He taught me some stuff that I've incorporated into the way I record vocals now. He comes from a different time of recording but, damn, he makes some valid points. I'm not embarrassed of this album. I wish we could've had the recordings we wanted but it wasn't possible. As it is, I like it.

- Amy 80


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This is the best one I ever heard

-Klae 80 (whom I'm not sure has ever even heard this...)

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Ooh-ee-oooh... I did this cover... God, I wish that I had re-did this cover... Actually, I did re-do it, a couple of times, I just wasn't very good at doing art on the ol' computer. Nowadays, I'm perdy sharp when it comes to graphics. Hell, I'll brag all damn day about how tight my shit is when it comes to MS Paint, but this cover kinda makes me cringe. I do love that rooster, though (hmmm... I should get that tattoo, mebbe.) I think this might be the first TA-80 album I was on, albeit breifly (when we did soft noise) and I started to play live with the band around this time. That was cool. And I knew Randy... Who we'll get to soon enough.


-Jens 80

TA-80: Are Go!

TA-80 Are Go!




TA-80 Are Go!

"Are Go!" is TA-80's 6th release & 4th full-length album. It was recorded in 2003 using Powertracks Pro Audio in Amy's Dad's garage, except for "Morning Prayer" which was recorded on a 4 track in my apartment. The line-up at this time was Amy, Jamin, Russ & Cullen 80. Availabilty prevented Cullen from doing much on the album, he only did vocals for the break during "Small Moments", though he did do the live shows at the time. Russ actually plays drums on the record.

Our approach to recording "Are Go!" was much different this time due to the fact that it was apparent people were going to actually hear this one. Following the recording of "4" we started playing non-stop shows and even started to get local radio play. As a result we actually started to demo and polish songs before recording them, started doing second takes and we really started to pay attention to the lyrics and songwriting. The recording of the album was a shade less fun than the previous ones. There was definitely some differences in opinion, but all that aside, this is where TA-80 really found their sound. I'd almost consider this the first TA-80 album.

Looking back I think we may have refined things a bit too much...

I think we thought a bit too much about what other people would like...Although it's about a million times better than any of our previous albums, it's a tad lifeless...possibly too many ballads. It feels like we're afraid of being too weird, or too scary or too personal... Every member of the band was more interesting than this recording let on...I think the failure of the too-bizarre and personal "Expansive...Yet Inexpensive" still haunted us.


But when we did let our guards down the results were really excellent...

"Everything's Okay" is where Amy finally hits on the intense punk that becomes her trademark... Russ' "Perplexing Beings" is one of his best songs. Really weird and really great. And I can honestly tell you that "Small Moments(in the big day" was the absolute best I could do at the time. I shouldn't of sung on it though.

I remember pushing carts on a cold winter's night in the Safeway where I worked at the time and the entire song popping into my head... the rest of the band helped me sharpen up the music and it felt really special when we were recording it.

Amy later got a line from the song tattooed on her arm: "What's your name? A sequence of letters that describes you better than a number does..."

I will also say "Rock Robots" is the blueprint for alot of what we did later.

I do have a hard time listening to the album now, mainly due to the digital drumset which was all we had then. Also I think the first half isn't quite ballsy enough, and I really can't stand "Morning Prayer"... I should have had someone else re-do the vocals. I do like the answering machine that goes off in the middle of the song (and the tribute to the Moody Blues).

The cover photos were taken from a show at a local (and horrible) venue called "The Rock." One of those pay-to-play places that really goes out of their way to screw young & upcoming bands...

There were about 250 of these made... it will never be reissued but three of them are currently available on Atari Du Cirque which is available at http://interpunk.com/item.cfm?Item=68094&. "Small Moments" was later re-recorded circa 2006 and is also available on "Atari Du Cirque."http://interpunk.com/item.cfm?Item=68094&

Track Listing:

1. No One's There
2. Ties That Bind
3. Spinny
4. You Don't Seem To Mind
5. Love
6. I Wanna
7. Rock Robots
8. Everything's Okay
9. Drown You Away
10. Morning Prayer/the Day She Flew Away
11. Randy
12. Perplexing Beings
13. Small Moments (in the big day)
14. Super Slob
15. I'm Giving You All of Me
16. Psychic Headache

Note: the last 3 songs were from the unreleased "4" e.p. they too are available on "Atari Du Cirque".

We played alot of these live: "No One's There", "Ties That Bind", "Spinny", "You Don't Seem To Mind", "Love, Everything's Okay", and "Small Moments" were all played live. "Spinny" became a contest of sorts where eventually we'd try and see how fast we could play it at each show. The 2 minute song eventually became about 40 seconds...

- Jamin 80

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This album happened at a very busy time in the TA-80 history. We were full on going by TA-80 at this point and had come, fresh out of a semi-pro studio, ready to record some real songs. We now knew a format that worked and we were ready to start playing with it. We hadn't, however, mastered it quite yet.

I didn't really write a whole lot for this album. Russ was living with Jamin and I at the time in a closet sized, one room studio apartment. I remember coming out in the morning (or afternoon, as it usually was) to hear Russ jamming out new "Are Go!" songs on my black with red trim, magnum acoustic guitar.

I got that guitar when I was 15 at a garage sale in Long Lake. I really learned to play and write on that guitar and there are pictures of all TA-80 members with it (including Matt 80). It was my special, first guitar. I had plans of passing it on to children, if I ever get around to having any. But, unfortunately, it got stolen, along with a fist full of only copy, original songs that I written as I was learning how to play guitar. I'm sure the songs were thrown away and the guitar was sold to a pawn shop, somewhere, though I did call around to all the Tucson pawn shops for months afterwards looking for it. I never found it. I miss this guitar.

Anyway, there's some really cool stuff on this album. "No One's There" is way too long but it's a great venture into the punk rock writing that everyone says I've become so good at. I can listen to that song, along with "Everything's Okay" and totally hear my approach to our current songs. I found my niche on this album. I didn't fully recognize it as that for a few more years still, but I did find it and recognized it enough to constantly come back to it when I wasn't feeling too confident about whatever I was working on.

At this point, I kinda feel like I'm saying the same thing for every album. It's not bad, not good, some growth, blah blah blah. I had fun making this album and I can still sit back and listen to it and not feel too embarrassed. So, it can't be that bad.


-Amy 80
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Huh, alright, at this point i still wasn't in the band yet, but when I eventually joined I did have to learn learn how to play a bunch of these. "Psychic Headache" was always a real crowd pleaser, "Spinny" lasted a really long time in set(at least two drummers, if not three) and I got to do the guitar for "Small Moments" when we rerecorded it at Randy's Basement Studio. Fer a long time this album didn't really have a name. Jamin finally told me it was gonna be called "Are Go!" ands I says "Oh! Like Thunderbirds?" He said "Yeah..." and so I made this cover that was a collage of various images from Thunderbirds and then we never used it. Based on this tenuous connection, an artsy chick I knew at the time said she would make marionettes of everyone, Gerry Anderson-style, but that never happened, either.

Still, I agree that this album, more than any before it, really set the stage for what TA-80 would eventually sound like most of the time. Accepting that punk rock was a viable medium for exploring the new ideas that everyone was coming up with was(ironically) more rewarding than making broad, stylistically diverse records. By the time this album got released, so many live shows had happened that anyone that might be called a fan had seen TA-80 live, and the disparity between the early albums and the subsequent live performances really forced everyone to make an album that would show off some of that enegy that TA-80 projected on stage.

Personally, I think they did it. It's not a bad album (I like it, a lot) and the only real bitches I hear about it from everyone is usually focused on the technical aspects of recording/final product issues. We all still listen to it, from time to time, and we always talk about how some songs are great first drafts. If we ever really wanted to, we could prolly make some decent, new recordings of some these tracks.

- Jens 80

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I can't comment at this time... I can't judge your guy's shit and post it on the... I don't know. I would just say as I heard these demos as they played them for me... I was impressed...they're just gay... gay, they're...really gay... I was impressed.

-Klae 80
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TA-80: 4

4




"4" was supposed to be the 6th TA-80 release. It was a 3 song e.p. that was never
put out but eventually became the 3 bonus tracks at the end of the "Are Go!"album . The line-up on this album is Amy, Jamin, Russ and Cullen 80. It was recorded at Nova studios by Mikey "The Woz" Wozniak in 2003. It was the first time we had left the garage to record something...and the one thing I want every band reading this to take away from our story is this...

Never leave the garage.

It was called "4" because originally it was supposed to have 4 songs on it. "Psychic Headache", "Super Slob" and "I'm Giving You All of Me" were finished at Nova Studios and the 4th track we started but never finished, it was a then-new song called, "You Don't Seem to Mind", that later ended up on "Are Go!".

The story of "4" started one night after a show at 7 Black Cats in Tucson, AZ. We had just finished playing when a woman with a raccoon-tail fur coat approached us with a business card. Her name was Lori and she was starting a management company and wanted us to join her roster.

This was pretty exciting... it was only our second time playing a show that wasn't someone's house party and already there was someone willing to back us. So we signed a two year contract with Right Time and she quickly booked us some studio time at a real studio.

Lori and Mikey went through our old material and found 3 songs they could live with and heard an upcoming one called "You Don't Seem to Mind" and flipped over it.

Now, re-recording was torturous for me at the time. My mindset is usually, "I did it once, why do it again?!?!" but I was wrong in this, and from this e.p., I have learned to do demos first and that has made all the difference in the world.

Another thing we learned from these sessions is song writing. We studied song writing religiously at the time, learning the new techniques and theories that also account for the gigantic leap forward in quality from "Psychic Headache" to "4".

Drawbacks... well... there were alot... the producer had no idea what we were getting at and, like most people we end up working with, wanted to turn us into the most generic pop band possible...

I clearly remember this being said, "We need to cut away the punk rock stuff and get you more into a Natalie Imbruglia vibe!"

Natalie InWHOglia?!?!?!

Also they re-wrote most of our lyrics to the song "I'm Giving You All of Me", apparently the original lyrics weren't generic enough for them and decided to re-write it so it could include such earth-shattering poetry as "I give you a smile to hang on the stars..."

Now, anyone who knows TA-80 knows that isn't us!

We agreed to do this since we were not paying for the sessions. In retrospect I wish we had stuck to our guns a bit more.

Actually, I showed up to these sessins as little as possible. I watched Cullen play drums, sang a million takes of "Psychic Headache" cos I wasn't enunciating enough, and eventually successfully de-railed the sessions on the last day by insisting that the backing vocals on "Psychic Headache" say "Shoot up!". I remember the Woz shrugging his shoulders and giving up that day. It was a small victory. Now, me not showing up to sessions is extremely rare, I'm usually the person there the most, so when I say I barely showed up that speaks volumes on how I felt.


Actually all of the "4" e.p is available on the TA-80 compilation "Atari du Cirque" which you can buy at http://interpunk.com/item.cfm?Item=68094&

So, yea, a mix of good and bad experiences.

Good: Learned to demo, learned songwriting basics. Working with Right Time was an overall good experience for us. They booked us a lot of shows, we never got paid for a single one but they did buy us things like equipment and did pay for studio time. It was also good in that, prior to this it had never crossed my mind I could do music fit for human consumption. We gained a lot of confidence 6`9`16

Bad: Having others who don't understand the music try to shape it into something faceless that even the people who created it could not identify with...

We never released this because, if I remember correctly Lori, was going to put it out or something as a slick demo to send to record labels but she never got around to it. While we were working on "4" at Nova studios, we were also recording "Are Go!" in the garage. Eventually we finished "Are Go!" and the "4" songs were still just lying around collecting dust, so we just decided to throw them on as bonus tracks.

Note they are unlisted on the back cover of "Are Go!" because we didn't want Right Time to know we were releasing them independantly. Shhh!

Track Listing:

1. I'm Giving You All of Me
2. Super Slob
3. Psychic Headache
4. You Don't Seem To Mind

We played all of these live; the version of "You Don't Seem To Mind" has never been released. The version on "Are Go!" is a different recording. The other 3 tracks have been released on both "Are Go!" and "Atari Du Cirque".

This was also when we started going by the abbreviation "TA-80" rather than the full title of "These Acoustic '80's", due to the suggestion of Lori that the band name was too long. No one would remember it. They would remember a random group of letters and numbers much better. Also, the picture above was not the original cover. The original cover was a drawing I did of the band similar to the cover of "Expansive...Yet Inexpensive." Jens was kindly enough to make this one for us 10 minutes ago...

- Jamin 80

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This was an exciting and frustrating time for the band. I kinda felt like I had fallen asleep and started up on one of my favorite dreams. Lori talked big. I was easily impressed and unfortunately, still kind of am. Is it really being naive if all you're doing is appreciating a good story? Oh well...

She used to always hang out in the smoking room of the Denny's on Speedway in Tucson. There was always such an interesting crowd in that place. Anyway, Russ and I would meet her down there for planned or unplanned meetings so she could tell us stories of how she was going to make us famous along with stories of her crazy, Native American drum circle bullshit. Apparently she was Native American or something. She also used to buy us food and since we were broke and basically unemployed, I was always appreciative of a free meal.

I remember one very exciting night at Denny's when Lori informed us that we would be doing a summer tour in Bei Jing. Yeah, that's right. China. At the time, I really didn't know if she was serious or not. I think she probably honestly believed every word she spoke. This shit was entertaining. The conversation quickly spiralled into us playing on the Great Wall, being the first band whose show could be seen from space and then eventually, the first band to play in space as Lori confidently told us that she could see us playing a show on the moon. Or Mars! Who knows? It's a universe of possibilities!!

Lori really liked our music. We used to spend hours showing her all of our material. She would sit, cross legged on her floor, chain smoking cigarettes and talk excitedly of putting us into a real studio so our full potential could finally be showcased. It was a good idea. It's just too bad that she had no idea what she was dealing with.

Recording with Mikey was one of my least favorite experiences of all time. If only we could have just sat there and watched him destroy our songs, but no. We got to help him do it. I remember the day my mom and step dad came out to watch us in a session. It was the day I recorded the vocals for "I'm Giving You All Of Me" and it was also the day that Mikey re-wrote the lyrics for the song, as Jamin mentioned above.

Mikey had a nice looking studio. To the casual observer, very professional. I remember my step dad mouthing to me, "He's good." I seriously wanted to cry. The Woz was a complete idiot running a studio that might have been halfway decent in 1992. He recorded us on fucking DAT, for chissake! He was a joke and completely clueless. I won't even get into how awful his band was. I like the time he told us we needed to have a bit of edge to our lyrics and demonstrated by playing us one of his songs and pointing out the line, "You're breaking my bwaaaawwwllllzzzz..." Ooh, edgy!

A couple of highlights from those sessions are when Russ told Mike that he couldn't sing while wearing clothes because they were too restricting. He then proceeded to strip down to the nude and sing Super Slob. There was another time that Russ and I didn't want to go to a session so we sat around in our apartment getting high until we were a good hour late. We then started out on the hour long trip to his studio. Earlier that week, Russ had been side swiped by a car and so I decided to tell Woz we were late because we had been in an accident on the way to the studio. Russ and I then went and got some McDonald's, came back to the studio and ate it and ended up telling Woz we were gonna head home because we were too shaken up from the accident to record. We're assholes.

We trudged through the sessions and finished with a recording I really wasn't surprised by. It sounds as lifeless and uninspired as The Woz wanted it to be. Mission accomplished. I later found out from a friend that Mikey was trash talking us in a bar after he recorded our E.P. Jealousy, she is a bitter mistress.

- Amy 80

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I still wasn't in the band yet, so I don't have any deep insights regarding this album, but all that stuff they already mentioned did lead to me signing on with Lori as an independantly contracted A&R man. OOH!!! The soul crushing experience of bilking local high school rap acts out of money at pay-to-play showcases at the Rock! Eh, whatever, she did reimberse me for going to local shows, buying the bands drinks(mostly bought myself drinks) and passing out business cards, plus my fee. It wasn't real money, but damn, that kinda deal'll kill a month or three. Plus, I got to see a bunch of TA-80 shows that I only might have gone to see otherwise. They were fun and I sometimes I got paid for just being the only guy in the room wearing a suit(that was mostly at the rap showcase things, though). I also think I eventually learned how to play "You don't seem to mind" not long after this stuff happened. And, while I promptly fergot how to play the song, I did learn how to play somes chords, including what we call the "TA-80" chord, and I use that thing in about half of the stuff I write to this day... That's good anow fer me.

-Jens 80

...................................................

Robert Cop

-Klae 80

TA-80: Diggity

Diggity




"Diggity" was the 5th TA-80 release. It was a 5 song e.p released at the same time as "Steamrollaz N' Effect" and also had a very small run, probably of only 10. I still have a copy of this but it is badly damaged. I haven't tried loading it into a computer to save it yet, but I have a feeling the computer will not be able to read it. It still plays on the stereo though...not that I ever listen to it. The line-up on this e.p is Amy, Jamin, and Russ 80.

The "Diggity" e.p is actually a comedy record recorded during the same time as "Psychic Headache". This is something we do quite a bit, plan out funny songs and oftentimes we never record them but this time around we actually did.

"Queen Sleep" is titled after a guy I used to work with that had a bad speech impediment and at night he'd hold up a broom and say "I'm going to make a Cwean Sweep of things...", and eventually the phrase just morphed into "Queen Sleep", it's a disco song written for a friend of the band's who asked us to mention her in a song, therefore the entire lyrics of this song are, "Here's your mention, Carrie...you know this song's for you!" except in the middle of the song Russ says in an underwater voice,"So...who else wants to be a millionaire?"

Funny thing is, I don't think Carrie has ever heard this song.

We used to act out this song all the time and talk about shooting a hilarious video...I get the feeling for alot of this to be funny, you kinda had to be there...

"Shark Diggity" is maybe 10 seconds. It's an old timey showtune written about my brother's pet. Here's the phone converation that inspired it....

Jason: I got the kids some fish...

Me: What kind?

Jason: one of them's a shark...

Me: Oh, really? What did you name him?

Jason: Lieberman.

Lieberman was such an awesome name for a shark I had to write a song about it. I want to shake hands with Lieberman the shark!

Entire Lyrics: "Everybody knows when he's coming to town 'cos he's Lieberman the Shaaaaaaarrrrrk!!!! I'll bite 'chyachyachya!"

You had to be there.

"Wah Diggity" was just a short piece of funk with us laughing hysterically and saying swear words with an extreme amount of echo. The best part is Russ has a great laugh... you know the kind with a wheeze in it? That's the kind of laugh he has and when there's an echo on it's endlessly entertaining. Amy says this song sounds like huffing gasoline.

"Punk Diggity" was a humorous attempt at a generic type punk song. Russ kinda sang it like Rancid and it quickly goes dramatically out of tune.

"Beat Diggity" is just a clattering beat and echo-y vocals...I think it was the only one that wasn't meant to be humorous per say... it was just really weird.

So yea, that about sums up "Diggity"... will it ever be reissued? Uhhh...no. That said, I love the cover still...in an odd way it really sums up TA-80.

Track Listing:

1. Queen Sleep
2. Shark Diggity
3. Punk Diggity
4. Wah Diggity
5. Beat Diggity

We've never played any of these live. I think we talked about "Shark Diggity" once or twice. But I don't recall us ever going through with it.

- Jamin 80

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I love the "Diggity" E.P. None of the songs are good. They're all complete jokes. I love that we are comfortable enough with what we do that we can spend time creating something that is 100% meant to be laughed at. Though we weren't great musicians and didn't know a thing about recording properly, we knew how to turn the music we loved into something ridiculous and stupid. It's usually something we try to not do. But for "Diggity", we decided to let people know that we were well aware of how to properly poke fun at ourselves. We don't always have the best taste in music but sometimes, recognizing the ridiculous can make music a lot more enjoyable.

We're not a serious band. We take our band seriously, that's not what I mean. I mean that we have fun. In case you haven't noticed a running theme through these posts so far, but everything we've done was only ever meant for our families and close friends. It was only recently that we realized that other people (outside our net) saw something in us and we could maybe try to make this our life. "Diggity" is a great example of us doing this because we love it and it makes us happy. We'd all love to be able to do nothing but music but no matter what, we're going to do music. Whether people hear it or not. I also think there will be another "Diggity" type album in our future. "The Only Woman Elvis Ever Loved" was close but not quite the same. We need another "Diggity".

So I should probably talk more about the songs on the album. It's pretty much as simple as what Jamin said. We're not a jam type of band but when we do randomly "jam" on stuff, it ends up sounding like the songs on "Diggity". They're joke songs because (at least speaking for myself), when I get into a room with my band, who consists of all my best friends, I wanna make them laugh. So I start coming up with stuff that does just that and they do the same thing back. The stuff ends up too funny to not use.

I've heard people say that it's intimidating to hang out with my band because we're all so close and we do nothing but laugh over what sounds like random comments because, at this point, everything is an inside joke. I hope that other people can hear something like "Diggity" and appreciate the good time we're obviously having, but I'd understand if other people don't really get the joke. That's really not the point. We're not comedians. We just like to laugh and know how to have a good time. And bands should share good times with people. There's enough depressing shit to provide suicide for the ages...there's nothing wrong with a little laughter.

- Amy 80

.................................................................................


It just wasn't your class....

- Klae 80

.........................................................................

The "Diggity" E.P. was one of those you had to be there kinda jokes. I can understand why it's funny because it is funny. I laugh when I hear it. But it was really, really funny when they recorded it. 'Cos it is funny. The Jimmy Durante thing...it's funny.

- Jens 80

TA-80: Steamrollaz 'N' Effect

Steamrollaz 'N Effect



"Steamrollaz N' Effect" was the 4th TA-80 release. It is a 6 song E.P. that featured outtakes from the last two albums, therfore the line-up is the same as those albums: Amy, Jamin & Russ 80. It was released in late 2002, only a couple of months after "Psychic Headache" and at the exact same time as the "Diggity" E.P (which we'll get to tomorrow).

And somehow this is 10 times better than the last two albums. I still like most of these.

The song "Steamrollaz N' Effect" was an outtake from the "Expansive...Yet Inexpensive" sessions, and it would have easily been one of the best songs on it. The only reason it wasn't used was because of a flaw in the actual tape it was recorded on and back then I refused to do a second take of anything so... but eventually what we did was load the 4-track recording into the computer and were able to overlay new instruments over the warped section and fix it. We later worked out a KILLER live version of this song, that only Cullen could play...and Cullen had to quit to devote more time to school...so...

"Candy Girl, the Mall is Closed" was also an outtake from Expansive...", I have mixed feelings about it but I think the overall result is pretty good, even though the chorus is a little weak...

"Lynyrd Skynyrd Box Set", "Man-Thing Vs The Micronauts", "The Art of Zen Gardening" and "American Stunt Driver's Association" were outtakes off of "Psychic Headache", all were rejected for being too bizarre. I actually kinda wished we had scrapped all of "Psychic Headache" and wrote a few more songs like these and just put out a weird album. It would've been way better, but perhaps not necessarily indicative of the direction we were heading in.

Sadly, this album no longer exists. It had an extremely low print run of about 15 and were given to family members and friends...all of which it appears have lost them. I never saved a copy for myself and all I have left is the origanl cover drawing. So will I ever hear these songs again? Very doubtful. Will it ever be re-released? Uhhh...even if it did still exist I don't think I'd re-release it. The sound quality on it was really bad, and the subject matter, while largely abstract is still a little personal for me to comfortably share with people... I really doubt anyone would actually be interested in hearing it.

Outside of the "Expansive" outtakes, which were straight up rockers, the "Psychic Headache" outtakes were a weird lo-fi space rock things, with fake sitars and all kinds of weird stuff..."American Stuntdriver's Association" was actually a weird New Wave song-suite... just bizarre stuff...

Track Listing:

1. Steamrollaz N' Effect
2. Lynyrd Skynyrd Box Set
3. Candy Girl, The Mall is Closed
4. Man-Thing Vs the Micronauts
5. The Art of Zen Gardening
6. American Stunt Driver's Association

I think the only song we ever played live from this album is "Steamrollaz 'N Effect"

- Jamin 80

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I really don't share Jamin's praises for this album. I think he's thinking more nostalgically than realisticly. These songs were outtakes from "Expansive" and "Psychic Headache" for a reason. They weren't as good as the songs that appeared on those albums. They're all either too long, too short, too repetitive, too weird, too sparse or too messed up. I like my vocal harmonies at the end of "Lynyrd Skynyrd Box Set". If I was a better singer I'd tell you what I did but I sing my harmonies off of instinct, not my knowledge of music. The song "Steamrollaz" is a great song but with a terrible recording. If we could've gotten a recording with Cullen 80 on drums, I would probably still consider it one of our best songs.

Like Jamin said, no copies exist anymore. At one time, seeing the 1 copy I had was becoming damaged beyond repair, I loaded it into my laptop for safe keeping. And that worked great until the laptop got stolen. The cd we have of "Steamrollaz" won't even play anymore and anyone we had given to has lost it. I wish I still had a copy just so I could have the entire TA-80 collection but I'm not really sorry it's lost. It's probably better that way. Though I did just remember...We gave a box set to Robert Pollard at a GBV show in Tucson and that had a copy of "Steamrollaz" in it and was also the only box set we ever made. Maybe Robert Pollard still has a copy. That's a sad and funny thought.

- Amy 80

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The sound a giraffe makes.

- Klae 80

TA-80: Psychic Headache

Psychic Headache



Psychic Headache was the 3rd TA-80 release. It was released in late 2002, recorded half digitally using Powertracks and half on the tascam 4 track tape machine. The line-up for the album was: Amy 80, Russ 80, and Jamin 80. Sorry there's not yet a scan of the cover, I simply don't have a copy of this... and I don't know anyone that still does. Everybody that I know who once had one has magically had it stolen... I don't blame them... I wish someone would steal mine too...So the image above is a scan of the front page of the lyric sheet...which is all I own of the album, except for a couple of test cd's I made (which didn't have covers).

Remember how much I hated "Expansive...Yet Inexpensive"? Well, I hate half of this one even more. The first half to be more specific. I think the only reason I like this better than "Expansive...Yet Inexpensive" is because it's shorter.

The recording quality for the parts we did digitally sound bad. We did not know yet how to really use the program and as a result the vocals kinda fade in and out (they needed to be compressed, the mics we used were $5 radio shack mics) and the drums sound like someone flicking a bic lighter.

At least this time around we had a stable line up and were actually starting to sound like a band... or more accurately like a billion different bands. We still didn't co-write enough.

I think what's most frustrating about this is that alot of the songs turned out to be pretty good later on when we played them live or re-recorded them, but you wouldn't know it by the performances here.

Alot of the album is so stunningly sloppy and out of tune. Now, being in tune has never really been one of TA-80's highest priorities, but this is ridiculous! And any one of us are perfectly capable of tuning a guitar! We were still working under the "firs-take, don't-write-the-song-before-you-record-it" mindset. Maybe some bands can do this. But we cannot. And here's the proof.

I can't say recording it wasn't a lot of fun. I remember having a ball doing this one. You can tell, in the middle of some songs we start bursting into laughter. And from these sessions we were able to piece together a comedy album (the "Diggity" e.p, which we'll get to in a few days I'm sure...)

We started to do some stuff around this time that started to become part of the template for the punk style we later became known for (I think "Your Reputation" almost resembles current TA-80), and we handled the punk rock so well that I think some of the other stuff sounds kinda dopey around it.

About 2 years ago after Russ 80 re-joined the band we listened to the album again after about 5 years of not hearing it. After it played Russ summed up the record perfectly, he said,"I remembered this album being a lot more hip..."

The album had an exremely limited run of about 50 copies, mostly to friends and family. I don't know if anyone still owns it.

It was around this time we started playing our first live shows, we did a house party shortly after "Expansive" and after this album we played another house party, at which an acquaintance of ours saw us play and offered to join us and play drums (we were using a drum machine for these house party shows). His name was Cullen 80 and he turned out to be one of the most amazing drummers I'd ever heard in my entire life! We then started hitting the clubs... well, only one club would take us back then, "Seven Black Cats" in Tucson, we did 2 shows there, and to our surprise when we played all the shitty songs from those crummy albums" they miraculously started to sound pretty good! It was at our second Seven Black Cats show we were approached by a woman who was starting a management company... well... I better save the rest of this story for later...we'll pick up this story in the post for the "4" e.p.

Track Listing:

1. The Whispering Elite
2. Psychic Headache
3. I'm Giving You All of Me
4. Broken Pediment
5. Something Summer
6. Here 2 There
7. The Book She Wrote
8. Weak Willed Being
9.Your Reputation
10 Cut
11. National Lampoon's Rodeo Day Vacation
12. Super Slob
13. A Hotel Room in Indianapolis
14. Reason For Leaving
15. Pipe Dreams (What it Takes)

The songs "Psychic Headache", "I'm Giving You All of Me" and "Super Slob" were later re-recorded for the 2003 "4" e.p. "The Whispering Elite" was later re-recorded circa 2006 for the soundtrack to Scott Whiteman's "Mad Kurt" film.

Songs From this album we've played live: "I'm Giving You All of Me", "Weak Willed Being", "Your Reputation", "Cut", "National Lampoon's Rodeo Day Vacation", "Super Slob", and mosly notably "Psychic Headache" which remained in our set for years. For some reason when we started doing shows everone would request we play that song and so we kept playing it for years, and then when people stopped requesting it at shows then it seems every new band member we got really wanted to play that song(espeically drummer Matt 80, Who used to have a hard time remembering the song titles and always just called this song "Taco Taco Taco" based on the opening drum beat).

As a result I'm sooooo sick of the song I can barely stand to hear it, let alone play it. As of right now I don't think we'll ever play the song again... I've been saying this for about 5 years now, but somehow it always finds itself back in the set.

Oh, yea, I forgot to say it this time around... we will NEVER EVER EVER re-release this album.

- Jamin 80

.....................................................................................

This album was a lot of fun. It's the last album that features me as a prominent guitarist. I basically fully switched to bass by the end of "Psychic Headache." For the most part. This came out of realizing that it didn't make a whole lot of sense for Russ, Jamin and I to keep trading instruments on stage. It made our already shambling live show a total mess. Russ was a better guitarist and once I really started getting into bass, I liked it a lot more than guitar.

The songs on this album are better than most of what's on "Expansive" but they're still not put together very well. Even the song line-up is a mess on this album. To me, it sounds like we just put them on in order of recording. I do like the version of "I'm Giving You All Of Me" on this album. The song later got turned into a weird type of pop song and I really always liked it better as the simple, folksy poem to music. It's lame but that version reminds me of the night I wrote the song while the other version reminds me of recording with the Waz...which I'd just assume forget.

All in all, I really don't mind this album. There's definitely some cringe worthy stuff on it but did show growth. We were getting better at working, writing, playing and recording together. We're great friends and you can really hear it on this album (the constant laughing that Jamin mentioned). We had fun.

- Amy 80

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B-B-B-B-B-B-B-baby....

= Klae 80

Expansive...Yet Inexpensive

"Expansive...Yet Inexpensive" was TA-80's 2nd release...it's also my least favorite. In fact I kinda hate the album, yet this album was actually important to us in that there were a lot of firsts:

1. First album we made since relocating to Arizona
2. First album with Russ 80
3. First time songs were co-written

We started recording "Expansive... Yet Inexpensive" in July of 2001 and finished it in early 2002. It was recorded in Amy's dad's garage , where we recorded about 50 songs which we narrowed down to the 25 that made it onto the final album.

In retrospect we should have narrowed it down to about 8.

It was recorded in 3 distinct sessions:

1. A set of recordings similar to "80-83", where Amy and I recorded acoustic and drum machine songs onto a 4-track casette recorder.
2. A few sessions that were basically try-outs with various musicians. John Chace (guitar), Stephen Smith (bass), and Gary Heronemus sitting in on drums, that were also recorded onto 4 track.
3. The final set of sessions, recorded digitally using Powertracks Pro Audio 4, with Russ 80, who had officially joined us after I'd met him at work and showed him some of the stuff we were working on.

Unsurprisingly the album is a mess.

Using different recording methods and shifting line-ups, the songs range from punk rock ("No Way Out", "Nothin' To Do"), acoustic ballads ("It's Always One Step Away", "Don't Go"), Blues Rock(?!) ("Abandoned Husk of a Locomotive", a gigantic jamming version of Cream's "Sunshine of your Love (yes, I'm a "Disraeli Gears" fan)), heavy metal parodies ("Broken Soundwaves") and some utterly indescribable shit that even I can't wrap my mind around (the backwards music and forward vocals of "Waking, Sleeping, Dreaming" and a song where the music isn't actually the music we played, just an echo of it (the title track).

This was when we wrote albums just for the hell of it, expecting no one to hear it but friends and family. No second takes. Improvised songs. Copious mistakes.

We never fixed mistakes back then. Anyone that was meant to hear didn't care about mistakes. They were used to us making them.

Against any common sense we ended up selling a few (of the maybe 40 copies ever made) at a local record store. This album will NEVER be re-released.

I actually think some of it kinda holds up. I think "It's Always One Step Away" and "Don't Go" are great, I really like the last half of "I Don't Want to Feel Your Pain Anymore" (which we unofficially refer to as "Tapedeck") and some of these sound like promising rough demos ("Cheap", "Inflata-Tanks Unite", "Dinosaur Gardens") and I still get a kick out of "These Acoustic 80's" and "My Incredibly Drunk Stunt Double".

I was still avoiding straight punk because I had just spent 10 years doing punk rock with my previous band D.C. (Deranged Chimpmunks). For some reason I also decided that my lyrics were getting too bizarre so I decide to take a more "straight forward" approach on about half the material. Big mistake! The lyrics seem dull and clichè compared to what we usully do, as a result I refuse to listen to this album with anyone else around.

I don't listen to it alone either. I like to pretend it doesn't exist.

I drew the front cover on the inside of my day planner at work and the back cover (don't have it scanned yet) a bright orange picture of a vinyl record was drawn by Amy.

Track Listing:

1. These Acoustic 80's
2. The Abandoned Husk of a Locomotive
3. Kick it Down
4. My Incredibly Drunk Stunt Double
5. Going Home for the Winter
6. Headache Weather
7. Sunshine of your Love
8. Nothin' to Do
9. Barleypop
10. Your Brother's Tape Collection
11. Desert Waves
12. Hey! Hey! Retro Rockets are Go!
13. No Way Out
14. Friday Night, Saturday Morning
15. Inflata-Tanks Unite!
16. The Disappearing Planet
17. Cheap
18. Dinosaur Gardens
19. It's Always One Step Away
20. I Don't Want to Feel Your Pain Anymore (Parts 1&2)
21. Broken Soundwaves
22 Don't Go
23 Expansive...Yet Inexpensive
24 Waking, Sleeping, Dreaming
25.Goodbye

We later re-recorded "It's Always One Step Away" as a single, which was also released on "Atari Du Cirque" (more on that one at a later date).

At later live shows we've played "These Acoustic 80's", "Kick it Down", "My Incredibly Drunk Stunt Double", "Desert Waves", "Inflata-Tanks Unite!", and "Broken Soundwaves".

- Jamin 80

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I can't even speak the title of this album without cringing in embarrassment. This album has 2 of my most horrible songs ever written on it, along with a bunch of other songs written by various These Acoustic 80's members. A 25 song shitfest. 25 songs?!? What were we thinking?

We moved out to Tucson, AZ in August 2001 and immediately started working on our next album. Jamin got an awful job at an organ shop in the mall and met a bunch of musicians. John was an amazing blues guitarist and he played on "Abandoned Husk" and "Sunshine of Your Love". Steven was an incredible bassist that played on "Friday Night, Saturday Morning". Russell was a jack of all trades that listened to the same type of music as us and thought our music was brilliant. Russ stuck around. He immediately became our third songwriter, guitarist, singer, bassist, drummer, keyboardist and his stage presence next to Jamin's was undeniably awesome. Russ entering the band is a shining moment that took place on this album.

I do have some fond memories of recording the album. Thanksgiving when Jamin and Russ got really full and drunk and recorded a bunch of songs. Endless hours of laughing. Getting to play with new and insanely talented musicians. And even though this is a semi-terrifying thought, it was great that we finally made official looking copies of the album, got them shrinkwrapped, and took them to a local record store which shamefully agreed to sell 5 copies. No, I should say that the record shop made our 5 sad copies available. They certainly never sold and after about 4 years, they finally took them off the shelf. I'm thinking they were either recycled or taken home by some poor employee who thought he'd give it a listen. Hopefully they were just destroyed. Support local music!

Some of the songs aren't too bad. "It's Always One Step Away" originally appeared on this album. That song was later recorded for a single with "Think Tomorrow". I've always been a big fan of "Inflata Tanks Unite!" and would love to work it into a live set sometime. The song "These Acoustic 80's", our TV show theme song! All terribly recorded but good, fun songs. It could probably be cut down into a 12 or 13 song album and be halfway decent. Nah, it'd still be pretty awful.

- Amy 80

.....................................................................................


Still with us? Cool. Okay, I was sittin' over there while Jamin was finishing his part of this and I thought I could really illustrate my experience with this album in the form of a short one act play. It mighta actually been okay as a device (I was gonna use italics fer the "scene" directions and everthing), but I realised that I could sum it a little more succinctly: "Hey! we should do something on this song like that thing we did on that one song from 'Expansive...'"

"Oh yeah? You should put that on." And then Jamin looks like someone just put a gun to his head...

So, yeah, I've heard the damn thing and I'm not gonna say it isn't exactly what Amy 'n Jamin've told ya it is, but, and this is important, here; that album isn't terrible for what it is. It's easily the only collection of TA-80 blues-rock songs (good Lord, I can't even describe just how sureal it was to walk into the studio the night of the "Sunshine" sessions) and there're some pretty decent first-draft concepts scattered around that album, like the theme song and tapedeck, and, me 'n Amy's dad is on it. This is the last album he worked on (hopefully not the last (although, I doubt he'll be on another TA-80 (nothing personal, he is a really great drummer), but we don't do a whole lotta blues-rock anymore)) and I Iike it 'cause of that.

The other thing about describing my feelings toward this album is that I just haven't really gotten to hear it very much. If Jamin's around, there ain't a chance in hell that anyone's gonna get to hear one bit of it. That, coupled with the ridiculously small print run, mean that my opportunities fer listening have been, more and/or less, nonexistant. But I, as previously stated, have heard it. It's cool for what it is. There's way too much of it, sure, but considering that at that point most everybody we knew was telling 'em that music was just a waste of time, they managed to D.I.Y. a sprawling 25 song album as a sophomore release (that they did manage to get in local music store, too!) They sure as hell weren't wasting any of their time.

Oh, and the title of "Inflata-Tanks..." is in reference to this magician named Jasper Maskelyne that the British employed during the North Africa campaigns of the Second World War. Jamin, Amy and I watched a documentary about him around that time... He's really cool, you should look him up.

- Jens 80

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I don't know what to say... I...I ..I don't know what to say...

-Klae 80

TA-80: '80-'83

TA-80: '80-'83





80-83 was our first release. The line-up at the time was only Amy 80 and Jamin 80, it was originally released as a casette tape and then later as a cd with differing track listings. There are two different versions of the cd. The original and a second version that was remixed and removed the song "Drum Preset". The tape version had a couple of songs, "Where We Belong" and "Synchronized Smokes", which weren't on the cd, but the casette was missing the last four songs on the cd (which weren't yet recorded at the time the tape was released.)

We recorded "80-83" on a 4-track Tascam tape machine in the spring and summer of 2001 in Hale, Michigan. The album was completed in July, 2001 and there were very few of them made. They were mostly for friends and family. We never sold a single a copy anywhere and likely never will. None of us have the revised version (which is the version I prefer...) but the album is still dear to us...Hell, Amy has an "80-83" tattoo...

It wasn't really designed for public consumption so much. It was basically a musical (?) diary and the songs are pretty much what we would now consider rough (sometimes improvised) first demos. There were no second takes and if we made a mistake... oh, well... I really never anticipated anyone would ever hear it, and as such I'll never re-release it, I'm not embarrassed of it. In a weird way it's one of my favorites because it's so evocative of the time and place we made it. We named it after "80-83" so it would sound like an imaginary K-Tel compilation. It was also a partial tribute of Bad Religion's "80-85".

I drew the tape cover in marker and pasted photos of pills to it out of a dictionary of medicine I had lying around. The cd cover was an idea my younger brother Pinhead had. "An anerican flag but it's a bar code!" That night at work I ripped a barcode off of a box and stuck it to a piece of paper and drew on it with markers... we still use the bar code icon!

This was the only album we made in Michigan, the month this album was finished we moved to Tucson, AZ. This is also the only album we ever put out on casette. At this point in time we were still going by our full name "These Acoustic 80's". We didn't shorten our name on a release until our 4th album "TA-80 Are Go!"

Track Listing (Original CD Version):

1. Swirling East
2. Just Like Water
3. Welcome to Psychedelic Lawns
4. O Ten Directions
5. Time Machine Replica
6. Just Like You
7. Bells of Middleston
8. Snapshots of Faraway Places
9. Summer of Love Gun
10. Pizza and Burgers
11. Just Because
12. In the Beginning
13. Drum Preset
14. Radio Beehive
15. Thoughts for Tomorrow
16. Three Sunrises

Of these songs I think the only one we ever played at live shows was "Swirling East", which we still played up to about 2006 or so. We later did a re-recording of "Thoughts for Tomorrow" retitled "Think Tomorrow" in the mid oughts.

The album sounds a lot different than we do today. It was mostly acoustic guitar. At least half of it was drums played on a keyboard and there is hardly any of the punk rock that we're mostly known for today. The only thing close is maybe "Radio Beehive". "Swirling East" still kinda sounds like the demo for a new TA-80 song to me. A lot of it is closer to maybe "Since I Turned Away" off of our 2010 album "Born Insecure".

I meant this to be short but I guess I had more to say than I thought...

- Jamin 80

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Since Jamin did all the basics, I'll share some of the story of making the first album. For me, "80-83" is definitely one of my favorite albums. The songs on (any of the versions) aren't even close to being great but I can hear our very basic ideas on those songs the same way I hear ideas from our still extremely sloppy demos. I agree with Jamin. The songs off our first album would at best be our demos today. And really, only a handful would actually be considered for final recording. The lyrics are insanely personal, something that still embarrasses Jamin and I today. When you listen to the lyrics on this album, you'll get to hear about exactly what was going on in our lives at that time.

Since we recorded this album in the spring and summer of 2001, we started writing it in the fall of 2000. Jamin and I decided to start the band because we had written a song together on an album for Jamin's old band, D.C. The song was called "Sweet Constance" and we had so much fun writing it together, we decided to keep going. I had already been playing guitar for a couple years and Jamin taught himself how to play guitar. We both knew basics on drums, bass and keyboards so we filled in where ever we knew how.

I've never been a very confident song writer and even more so back then. Nowadays, Jamin and I will co-write songs, along with the other three members of our band, and come up with giant sounding songs. Back then, we just had the basic idea and Jamin's were always better so he is much more present on this album. He also sang a lot more. Now, the part of me that wants people to know I'm humble and shit says that Jamin sang a lot more because I always wanted us to be a band that had a lot of singers. That's not a lie. I enjoy more bands with multiple singers than not. It mixes things up and keeps it fresh. But the truth of it is, when we started recording this, I was a senior in high school, about a month away from graduating and it was the hottest summer after the most horrible winter Michigan had seen in a long time. In other words, I couldn't be bothered to get out of the pool enough to come do my parts.

It was a start. A strong start. Jamin and I created a solid base for a band that we still love working for today. My favorite memories are planning song line-ups on the back porch at MaBell's Pizzaria where Jamin and I worked. Hoob-jibs until sunrise. The playground at the elementary that inspired a lot of my lyrics for that album. I think I'm about to get corny, but it was the start of something big and new at the end of the only life we had ever known. It's desperate and rough and embarrassingly emotional at times, but it is what it is and I love it. And you'll probably never hear it.

- Amy 80


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All and all I like the album,it was good, but I wasn't on it...So it wasn't good enough.

- Jens 80


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Jam it on the one

-Klae 80

TA-80 ARE GO!!!!

TA-80 ARE GO!!!!

This is just a random thing we're doing. We'll basically just post a different thing each day that's TA-80 related; mostly historical shit, like old album covers, lyrics, abandoned album notes, unused art, whatever jive we decide to pull out of the happy-sock drawer. It'll probably be only interesting to us, but oh, well...