"HISSER"


 

Thanks then to: Sofa & Patch, Mom & Dad, Liddy Popageorgiou, Jackie Nalpant, John Parish, John,Joey and Bulky. And also to Kate Hyman, Melinda Cody, Marc Attenburg and Dan Beck, all at V2 for the structure to still make records like this.

Him being gone is not good. These songs aren't mostly about him, but the dwell sneaks in on more than a few. Rainer meant more to me than I'm suppose to tell you. Here's to his everlasting infiltration and rare extrodinaire y love.

OW OM Recordings is an artist run mess of a label

Hisser was mostly recorded at home in Tucson. The house on Convent Street was a turn of the century adobe with 12 foot ceilings. The walls were about 2 feet thick. The floor, wooden. Cliff Eager lent his old Teac 4 track reel to reel for the duration. Sometimes folks would stop in from touring and we might record some. Most times, when no one was around, the middle of the night would beckon to be kept company with a song. Harvest time comes at the odd hour when no old material will do.

At some point, you look around and realize that time machines are not necessarily tools of the future. The piano is an upright called an Emerson cabinet grand from Boston. We found it a few years back in a Salvation Army shop in Prescott, AZ. After finding markings under the lid of the years it was tuned, we were able to establish the piano was from 1888. In fact, it was built before such a thing as concert pitch, so it's tuned a whole step down.

At the same time we were in Prescott, we also found a Bruno old timey gut string guitar at a music shop. They wanted too much for it, probably what it was worth. But our friend Harvey Moltz from Rainbow Guitar back in Tucson said he had one he would give me. It became my favorite guitar. The year is sometime around 1900. It's tiny and sweet and I won't change the strings. The case is made out of thick paper. Thanks Harv.

Sometime last year we stumbled into a Salvation Army around here. Walked out with a Goldstone pump organ. From the 20's or 30's, we don't know. But it plays so fine.

These are the instruments used in the making of Hisser. The only exceptions are when we weren't recording at home.

One other thing. The electric slide guitar was left from Rainer. It was given to me by his loving wife, Patti. It's old and sacred and those strings won't be getting changed either.