In just a few days (February 2, 2010 to be exact) my album Disturb The Air will be available as a download from iTunes. Hooray!This is possibly my personal favorite of the six Dimentia 13 albums, which will all be released as downloads this year. I say "possibly" because which one is my favorite depends on what day you ask me. Here is an on-line review of the album if you want to know what somebody else thinks of it. Please avoid the download they posted. It's crappy and what's worse, I don't get paid for it.
The legit download comes from Smog Veil Records. It's not up on their site yet. But when it is, you'll also be able to download from them eight pages of liner notes in PDF format that I put together about the writing, recording and producing of the album as well as some of the contemporary reviews and articles about it. It's now on Amazon for pre-ordering as are the rest of the Dimentia 13 albums.
Disturb The Air was the third Dimentia 13 album. It came out in 1989, though it was recorded in 1988. The producer was Glenn Rehse of the band Plasticland. Their compilation album Make Yourself a Happening Machine is something you must own in order to be cool. Returning the favor, I appeared on You Need a Fairy Godmother, Plasticland's live album with Twink who was a former member of The Pretty Things and sometime drummer for Syd Barrett.
Although Disturb The Air was the third Dimentia 13 album, it was the first to be recorded with a real band. I had played pretty much all of the instruments on the first two records with the exception of a couple of keyboard parts. But by the time it came to record the third album I had moved from Akron, Ohio to Chicago and had been playing live there with a band.
I’d gotten word that Glenn Rehse of Plasticland liked the first two Dimentia 13 albums a lot and wanted to work with us. I was already a huge fan of Plasticland and this seemed like a dream come true. Glenn was just a couple hours north in Milwaukee, so we met and talked and decided it could be done.
It was loads of fun to do this album, even though we had to drive two hours to the studio in Milwaukee. It was great to hang out with Glenn and get to experience his vast collection of amazing 60s memorabilia.
It's also cool to revisit a time in my life that I haven't written very much about. It's ironic to me that Zero Defex (0DFx), whose sole recorded output up until 2007 consisted of a handful of tracks on two compilation albums have eclipsed Dimentia 13 who recorded six full-length albums (although the sixth one was unreleased, until later this year when the download comes out). But I guess that's the way things go. But at the time these albums were being recorded I was giving my all to making Dimentia 13 a successful band. I feel like we were artistically successful even though we never had a hit record.I began practicing zazen and studying Buddhism just before I started making the Dimentia 13 records. When I listen to them now I can hear little hints dropped into the lyrics. But I didn't want to sound preachy and end up like George Harrison with his annoying Hare Krishna albums (although those are my personal favorites of his records), so I never clearly stated that I was drawing lots of inspiration from Buddhism. In fact, much of what reviewers at the time saw as drug-influenced psychedelia in the lyrics was actually my own warped take on Buddhist philosophy. Ironically, my drug days were long over before the psychedelic band Dimentia 13 came to be.
The article I've posted on the bottom of this piece comes from the Milwaukee Journal in 1989 and tells a lot about the making of the album.
You've got about a week to save up your money for the download. Better get started now!
