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
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