Album Notes

Wonder is the brainchild of drummer Dave Latchaw and guitarist Dave Ford. Natives of the San Francisco Bay Area, they've known each other since college, when they played in the late and much lamented punk-rock band Raw Meat. That group crashed and burned before recording or playing much onstage. More recently, the pair played in the late and much lamented odd-covers band The Lower Companions. That group crashed and burned before recording or playing much onstage. At this rate, Wonder should be done by December 2006. But we kid. In December 2005, the pair began recording tracks for "Havin' Fun," Wonder's debut CD. The sound combines elements of rock, country, funk, reggae and psychedelia. It was recorded at Garden Shed Studios, in the East Bay. The studio is, literally, a shed behind Latchaw's house crammed with drums, computers and sound equipment. Early in the process, Latchaw and Ford would play a live initial track (drums and guitar), and then build tracks one-by-one. They soon realized the process required a lot of work, to which both are constitutionally allergic. Consequently, they began to use a click track as the basis first for guitar and vocal tracks, and then for others. Latchaw played drums and added background vocals, bass and keyboards and synthesizer. He also served as the project's recording engineer. Ford contributed electric and acoustic guitars, bass and lead and backup vocals. He wrote the lyrics and was the chief songwriter, though the pair works collaboratively. The project was kicked into a higher gear in January 2006 by the suicide of one of Ford's longtime friends. Ford poured his grief into songwriting: in a productive if painful flurry, he wrote ten songs in two months. (Other songs on the CD were written in years past.) The pair recorded the twelve-song CD in nine months. "It was one of those burning-hot periods where the choice is to follow the muse and do the work, or to wind up curled under the bed, weeping," Ford says. "Dave and I chose to work." The death of Ford's friend infiltrated the work directly and indirectly. The song "Why'd You Do It?," a muted country lament, speaks directly to the man who took his life. Other songs, such as the yearning "He Just Wanted to See," visits the issue in more oblique ways. Grief and death are, however, but one lyrical through-line. The CD takes its title from a song that celebrates good times and love, and the point of the project is to entertain people with hooky, hard-driving music. "Havin' Fun" is dedicated to the memory of Tim Souza, August 3, 1967-January 31, 2006.