…Sane

Description

…Sane is the sole full-length album by the American doomy metal studio project Velocipede (guitarist/songwriter Dann Gunn and drummer Mike Santrock), released on R.E.X. Music in 1994. (The duo also released an EP entitled Wheels, and Gears, and Spinning Things in 1993.) The album was recorded and mixed by Crisco Bear (Chris Colbert of Breakfast with Amy fame) during one week at Neverland Studios in Nashville, Tennessee. Vocals recorded by Skinny (Steve Hindalong of The Choir fame).

CD tracklist:

01. Blue Skies – 3:51
02. Don’t You Lose It – 3:04
03. The Lost World – 4:18
04. I Catch My Breath / I Let It Go – 3:47
05. This Way – 5:28
06. Why Not Now – 4:27
07. One More Time – 3:03
08. Just Like You – 2:54
09. Never, Never, Never – 4:10
10. Sane – 5:51

Note: Simultaneously released on cassette and CD by R.E.X. Music. Available at Bandcamp: https://danngunn.bandcamp.com/album/sane

How did you get hooked up with REX and Neverland?

Dann Gunn: I had known Tyler Bacon, REX’s A&R guy since college. He had always seemed to like the music I did, to a degree, but always made suggestions for improvement which I dismissed. His tastes were more polished, I guess you could say. I contributed a song to the Demolition album, and he called and said he wanted to do a complete record. I did some demos at a friend’s house on his four track, and sent it in. Tyler liked it.

During this time, I had moved to Knoxville, and changed drummers. Mike Santrock, who was an old friend, and an amazing drummer, really pushed me musically. I ‘drilled’ with him for months, and my guitar playing really stepped up. It became second nature to me to play and sing. I never practiced with a microphone…I would face the drummer and sing as loud as I could. It really helped me build power. Mike didn’t play the drums as just a beat…he played parts. Very specific things at specific points during the song. This was a huge difference for me, and really changed things.

Anyway… These days, the White Stripes and the Black Keys do fine, as two-piece bands. Back then, it was a struggle to make people ‘understand’ the concept. I didn’t have anything against the bass, I just thought the idea of two guys just ‘going for it’ was really cool. When we played live, people would say, ‘Where’s the rest of your band?’ Thirty seconds into the first song, they’d say, ‘Oh, nevermind.’

Tyler didn’t get it. He was worried about production, and worried how the record would be perceived. He went to Neverland, which had just moved to Nashville, to talk to Chris Colbert, because Chris was known as the king of punk, and he knew how to make a record CHEAP. The studio was booked, and we had a week to make a record.

Chris recorded us as we were…raw and crazy. Stacking the guitar tracks in fours or more, sounded huge, but turned things into a dizzy mess. Mike’s drums didn’t sound very good, and his cymbals were utter crap. It frustrated me at the end of recording to find out that the studio had many good cymbals we could have used…just sitting in the closet. Chris was pleased with the way it sounded…it was a big, glorious pile of sludge. ‘That’s what you sound like’, he said. Although I had to agree, I wanted a more polished sound, and wish I had known more about production. I kind of felt like a bystander during the process. No one’s intent or fault. There was no producer listed on the project. Chris explained to me why he didn’t claim to be producer. ‘My job as a producer is to **ck an artist up. You were already **cked up.’

Tyler said he did not like the way the record sounded. Chris offered to remix it. Tyler said not to bother, it didn’t matter. I later found out through a friend that a couple of songs actually charted on the ‘Hard Charts’. REX never bothered to tell me, and never offered any support other than to say they were unhappy, but not to bother remixing. They were obsessed with Fleming and John and Sixpence None The Richer at the time, and everyone else was a bit of a nuisance, I think. I really think we could have done something with the record, if it sounded better, and if REX even pretended to care. [Excerpt from an interview with Dann Gunn at adamipodreviews, September 2010]