Album Notes

POP ROX: After Erica and I moved back to NYC in late 2004, I asked my parents if (in exchange for cleaning the space) I could rebuild my Princeton, NJ recording studio in the basement of their Pennsylvania house. Ever the supportive duo, they agreed. Early in 2005, I decided to start recording a bunch of “garage rock” tunes – completely on my own - something I’ve always enjoyed doing. I may not be the most proficient musician in the world, but I do derive a certain amount of satisfaction from listening to a self-produced track on which all of the instruments are played by yours truly.

I mentioned this idea to Brandon Flatley. Although he was supportive, he did confess that he thought the drum sounds I had produced on the Revelation Monkey CD were crap and kindly volunteered to engineer and mike the drums for me. I got over my initial shock as quickly as I could (I really like the drum sounds on the Revelation Monkey CD) and accepted his offer.

One interesting note: After Brandon had miked the drums, he played a 45 second drum pattern to make sure everything sounded right. I kept the recording and wrote 45 seconds of music to his “test” drums. I named it “Mulesaddling” and it ended up being the first song on the album!

Over the course of the next few months, I would record drum parts every time I visited my family in the Poconos. Once I had 12 songs in the can, I began to record guitar tracks – but what guitar to use? In the spirit of the garage rock collection I was intending to create, I pulled out the very first electric guitar I ever owned – a white imitation Fender Stratocaster made by a company called Hondo. I was amazed at how beautifully trashy it sounded when I plugged it into my Rat Pedal and ran it through an old Stage keyboard amp I had lying around. Initially I didn’t want any acoustic guitars on the record, but did end up playing one on “Casual Event” and “Chocolate Skin”. By the end of the summer of ’05, I had everything recorded (bass included) except for the vocals. I packed up my 8-track recording console, a few mikes, and headed back to NYC. Within a week or two I laid down lead vocals and harmonies on all 12 songs. I’m sure our neighbors at Columbia University loved listening to me record “Whore Shoes” at 2am!

The song selection for Pop Rox is pretty varied. The first three songs (Mulesaddling, Whore Shoes, Born Again Virgin), as well as the last two (Chocolate Skin, Do It Right) were all new songs. Out of the other seven, some were unrecorded Liquid Bliss-era tunes (I Hear Voices, Don’t Need A Car, Synapse of Kin-Killing), some were post-Liquid Bliss kiss-offs aimed at former band mates (Tokens of Identity, French Girls On Acid), while the remaining two were garage rock songs I’d written in my twenties but never recorded (Casual Event, Guilty Partner).

I finished the album and sent it to Curry and Brandon to master. Although I had no intention of releasing the record – I had just done it for fun – both of them told me I was crazy to leave it in the vault. Brandon even put it in his Top 10 for 2005. I gave Carl Basler a copy and he told me he liked it even better than the Eschaton stuff we doing around that time. Several other people said it was their favorite of my records. So here it is…out there for you enjoy. Please take it for what it is – a tribute to those great indie records where the most important elements are distortion, rudimentary musical ability, and good, good songs.

– Billy Webster,
Brooklyn, December 2007


Written, Performed, & Produced by Billy Webster
Recorded at Cedar Lane
Drums Engineered By Brandon Flatley
Drums on “Mulesaddling” performed By Brandon
Mastered by Brandon Flatley & Jason Curry
Cover by Jason Curry & Billy Webster

Side One: 1 Mulesaddling 2 Whore Shoes 3 Born Again Virgin 4 Casual Event 5 Tokens Of Identity 6 Don’t Need A Car
Side Two: 7 I Hear Voices 8 Guilty Partner 9 Synapse Of Kin Killing 10 French Girls On Acid 11 Chocolate Skin 12 Do It Right

Shampoo Girl Music, ASCAP - 2005

www.myspace.com/billysongs
www.billysongs.com