The Milk
Cup
Every artist has a sketchbook. Jack Kerouac used to carry round 10-cent notebooks and ‘sketch’ with words. I have my own ring bound little book where I tab out ideas. ‘Shortest Days’…was a clinical album, not in a bad way, but ideas were sketched out, worked on, complex intertwining parts worked out, and then recorded as cleanly as is possible (on a four track). I’ve begun to regard my four track as more like a sketch book - it works better that way. I’ve tried to put together some shorter works, more stripped down, more solo stuff, recording stuff almost off the cuff, leaving in none fatal errors – people talking in the background, me coughing (like Wendy by the beach boys). Just trying to record stuff in interesting ways – ambient mics picking up birds and cars going past. Of course there’s a bit of the full arrangement stuff – horns, bass, drums. But on the whole It’s more a sketchy idea. Kinda what you’d hear me playing if you were in my room…fingerpicking, acoustic guitar. ‘course there’s a lot of amateur effects on there as well – the delay on ruth’s song no1 – is the same tape played into different tracks. Likewise the roomy sound on some of the tracks is literally a room, my kitchen back home (like Kerouac writing town and city in his parents kitchen?).
Post-script March 2004
Again, the album 'The Milk Cup' never came to be. Man, I was obsessed with Kerouac at that point.