A worthy effort
posted by McFrozen on April 25, 2003
So I got this package in the mail yesterday from a dear friend. It contained a few CDs. But the most notable CD is called "Homework No. 2", released by a label called Hyped To Death, one of the coolest projects I've seen in a long time. They exist specifically to "present the best of indie punk, powerpop and DIY from the late '70s into the first few years of the 1980s. ...with brilliant sound and plenty of handy info at a reasonable price." Visit their site to learn more and to buy some of the best music EVER for $9 per CD.
Anyway, the reason that "Homework No. 2" was included in the package, and the reason that it's so incredibly cool, is that it includes a nearly forgotten and (I thought) lost forever Hugh Beaumont track called "Purple Things". This was recorded in early '83, just before our move to Austin and was released on the "Steelrok Presents" compilation tape. "Purple Things" refers specifcally to purple microdot acid, but it was a time of rampant and liberal experimentation by everyone involved with HBE, particularly MDA.
Here's the liner notes about the song from the CD:
Then there's the Hugh Beaumont Experience, perhaps the rarest and most sought-after Texas punk band. "Purple Things" appears here because it's from the obscure Steelrok Presents cassette, but you'd hardly know it was HBX. Drummer King Coffey [later in the Buttholes] explained: "The band (except the guitar player) stayed up the night before doing MDA at my house, listening to Pebbles compilations. We were convinced that if we ran David's one lone effects pedal through the entire song, we'd achieve some kind of psychedelic bliss. David was pissed that the stoned singer and drummer was telling him how to play, but there was little he could do to shut us up." There's a fine '93 LP of more typical HBX stuff that E.V. released just after vox Bradly Stiles' death in '93.
My recollection is about the same except for one thing: the pedal that was used to actually record the song wasn't mine. It was lying around the studio the day that we recorded.
We had written "Purple Thing"s as a funny little psychedelic pop ditty, and I had been turning up my stereo chorus to get the shimmery guitar like in "Too Much To Dream Last Night" (more or less successfully, but mostly less). But when we got to Rocky's studio that morning, somebody found a different pedal: a flanger (maybe an Ibanez Super Flanger?). It was determined (to my later chagrin) that finding that pedal was an omen because it was ... purple.
It was also determined that if some flange was good, more flange was gooder. I have a vague recollection of making some deal to record it both ways, but then we ran out of time before we could record it with the chorus instead of the flanger. I think by that point I didn't really give a shit because I didn't think the tape was going to amount to much and I had to get to my dishwashing shift at the Keg.
So enough already. Here's the song. It's a hoot. And big, big thanks to Hyped To Death. They're doing a very cool thing in a very cool way.