Lick Lick is so good, and I am so proud of this You and Me Neither – I hope as you listen along you find as much joy in these performances as I do.
This was our third record, our second with David Hobizal on drums, and our first with Sam Arnold on the bass. Greg Yancey did the lions-share of the recording and engineering, David did the artwork, and you can buy it on 10″ vinyl!
We recorded basics in an afternoon at Michael Crow’s studio, and then did overdubs all over town – vocals at Ohm studio with Chico Jones, piano in the chapel at St. Andrews School, guitar at the Opposite Day rehearsal space, etc.
You and Me Neither marks the beginning of a time of heartbreak that yielded tremendous colossal art rock. The story gets continued in our next record, You and Me Neither, Too. But for now, please listen along with me, won’t you, to
You And Me Neither, by Lick Lick
1. Non Grata 7:48
“That means you can’t come back here.” Drum and Bass intro, with me and Matt coming on on a big power chord figure, doesn’t last long before we go into a big 7 and then a bluesy thing in F#. I dunno how we keep track of all these parts. So much guitar – it’s great – I have two solos over tritone figures! What more could a guitar player ask for? This was the heyday of taking songs and smashing them together to make longer songs – I forget what the second song was called – its starts with the piano lead-n to the Latin-y section. Our favored aesthetic (or at least for MO and me) when seeing bands is bands don’t take much of a break between songs or spend much time talking – we wanna see playing, so smashing songs together permanently helped ensure we’d keep going. Speaking of MO, this is a great performance and the lyrics are dynamite throughout – and fantastic interplay between her and the boy singer.
2. Erix 10th 4:44
One of our more straight ahead songs, I believe the words came from Sam. We wrote a totally evil riff to play there in the middle – notice how I drop out and let Sam keep going. OOOO Peter did the string arrangement. I had pledged a kick starter for which the reward at one level was a couple of hours recording time with the band’s string section. So we got Joseph Shuffield, Annie Franzen, Dixie Yoder and Hector Moreno and got this blazing awesomeness. We also recorded some tracks that were used on Things I Should’ve Done Better and Peter’s solo album Now Would Be A Good Time.
3. Eric’s IX 5:00
A re-imagining of my 9th birthday from MO’s POV. Some of my favorite interplay there at the beginning and a fantastic hard rock riff to off set the dreaminess. We sure do stack a lot of evil sounds.
4. Gaia’s Lament 3:35
This record didn’t make it onto the 10″ – we had miscommunicated with the pressing plant, and with three songs on the side, the level was excessively light. excise song/deeper grooves. I like how this groove seems energetic and quirky at the start and turns into classic Lick Lick drive. Do you remember that summer when it was over 100 degrees like 40 days in a row? That little complicated sounding riff that we play in between sections – it’s as hard as it sounds. For me at least. My little solo at the end is one my very favorite things I’ve done – it’s shaped right and has all the necessary unplanned change.
5. 2bscene 5:27
Aleatoric piano at the beginning. And then it’s a shuffle, sort of. MO sings in French! Greg told me that when our friend Dany heard the record she said: “it’s just one long guitar solo!” True, I reckon. I’m very pleased with 2:40 to 2:56, and that descend from 2:54-2:56 is classic me. Another 2 song collision! With the incredibly rare solo guitar intro – I’m so used to playing behind and around the beat that I am generally untrustworthy for moments like this – thanks bandmates for allowing me that indulgence!
Well, that’s that! I hope you enjoyed it! you will probably enjoy the whole Lick Lick catalog, and the first Zirque album, Things I Should’ve Done Better.