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
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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
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