Speaking of unrequited crushes, I had suffered mildly impure thoughts (y'know...holding hands, asking her to wear my TWA Junior Pilot pin....) about Tanya Donelly since I'd first met the Throwing Muses, which was of course when they were all a few months shy of a driving license (is there such a thing as a "dirty young man?). Gary had seen them in Newport and he came back raving about them to anyone who'd listen, so I drove down to see them play at the Blue Parrot. I wanted to see what the big deal was, having (as I said earlier) heard their first demo but not "gotten it" right off. One live show was enough to make me a believer, however. Kristen was like some Sufi dervish poet, all explosive emoting but in a controlled framework that funneled the eruptions for maximum impact, and the band was strikingly original and un-derivative. Later we all talked- Gary was already courting the band in the super-focused way he had when he fell in love with a new group. I think he convinced them they had to move to Boston if they were serious about their careers, and not long after that they did. Because no one in the group had a license, never mind a vehicle, I drove them to some early out-of-town gigs (they took cabs to local shows), feeling like fucking granpa because I was 27 and had a car! Kristen was beautiful and Tanya was just as cute as a bug, but more importantly they were both completely unique players and great songwriters. As the years went by and the Muses spent mucho time at the Fort recording House Tornado and a mess of B-Sides, I watched Tanya grow more and more sophisticated, and ever lovelier. The real kicker though was seeing her talent blossom, as her songwriting contributions to the band grew and her guitar playing began to cohere into an even more unique style. Both her writing and playing provided a solid foundation for an already distinctive voice, and by the time she left the Muses to join the Breeders she was dead sexy even with your eyes closed. When we recorded the demos for the Breeders album (the one that never happened) I had all I could do to concentrate on my engineering. Now that she's married to an equally hunky partner, the embarrassing truth can be revealed. Those were sessions worth commenting on.

We were all very careful about respecting territorial limits at the Fort, and the Pixies / Breeders work was the exclusive realm of Gary and Paul. Tanya had liked the work I did on Kim's demos, though, and was eager to try something new for the demos she was making for the second Breeders album. Since these were only demos there was no objection to her request to use "fresh blood" and we booked time for sessions in my favorite format- eight track. Since we would be using just Tanya's voice and guitar without a rhythm section I wanted to get the fattest sound possible, and I saw a unique opportunity to do so at that time. The Fort had fitted 16-track heads onto our two inch 24-track machine in order to re-mix tapes recorded during David Bowie's Station to Station tour- that was the standard back then, two lovely inches for only 16 tracks! I sandwiched in two session after the Bowie remixes but two days or so before we had to send the 16-track heads back to New Jersey or wherever (the other was with the Peecocks).

We "split" the tape in half so it acted as if there were two separate eight track reels (instead of one reel of sixteen). To do so we used 8 tracks of the tape (1 through 8) for the first song, then rewound and used the next eight tracks (9 through 16) for the second song. Moving back up to tracks 1 through 8 we placed the third song after the first, then rewound and put a fourth song on tracks 9 through 16. I'd asked Tanya to show up with just her main guitar, and to use my amps and other guitars to get different sounds. We did a bunch of tunes that way, with Tanya playing and overdubbing herself, though I played lap steel on one song. I love those songs and the way that they came out. We tried all sorts of techniques, and there were several firsts Tanya had never tried in the studio before that we explored that night such as playing slide and acoustic twelve string. We used an Vox Super Berkeley slaved to an AC30 to create a tremolo rumble that served as "bass" for one song, and put deep reverberated vibrato tones onto Feed the Tree using a Gretsch Chet Atkins and a vintage Ampeg Reverbrocket. The limited time we had the tape heads for gave the sessions a certain edge as we knew we wouldn't have any second chances, no "fix it in the mix" mixes down the road.

The sessions were fun, but the work was pretty intense with a dozen songs planned initially to get through that night. Much needed comic relief was provided in a nunlikely fashion when Kim Deal showed up to lay down a guitar part. The plan was for her to place this short passage onto a song in two spots, and then to double it by overdubbing herself- that made four sections to be played, each about 25 seconds in length. This was before I went into recovery for my drug habits, and aside from the more harmful narcotics I was a confirmed pothead of toxic proportion. I happened at the time to have a "special blend" I'd thrown together made up of the ends of three bags thrown into a fourth. There were bits of a brown Thai, green Vermont "skunk" sensimilla, and a high altitude Mexican mixed in with the principal contents-a killer chocolate-flavored brown Jamaican. I'd smoked several bones already and was rolling another when Kim came into the control room after laying down her first section. I'd never know Kim to smoke weed so when she asked for a hit I warned her "this is very strong cheeb, are you sure you'll be OK?" So she of course said she was cool, and as I smoked so much all the time I underestimated the effect great pot has on normal people with blood counts below Rasta-level. I handed the spliff to Kim and she took a couple of hits. I have seldom seen someone get so stoned, so quick. Now, it had taken Kim about two minutes to practice and one pass to lay down the first of the four sections she needed to record. The weed took effect almost instantly, and Tanya and I sat in the control room giggling for almost an hour while Kim tried to get through the second section. Take after take she would make a mistake, come in early or miss the cue entirely and just sit there as the section rolled by. I finally patched together the second section out of three other failed attempts and we abandoned the idea of Kim doubling the part- Tanya played it herself. I was apologetic in the extreme, but Tanya was good natured about it. As Kim sheepishly exited the studio I shook my finger at her like a maiden aunt and said "no more weed for you in the studio, young lady!" She had arrived her alert, energetic and somewhat bubbly self and we'd sent her home in a box- or, if you will, in a bag. I filed this one under "things not to do in the studio with Kim".

The songs we recorded that night remain among my very favorite work I've ever done. Tanya was writing beautiful songs and with the sparseness of our approach they were laid bare for all their treasures to be seen. Ivo sent me a message that said "you're a genius" and said he loved the lap steel part as well. I always hoped they would someday be released as a sort of unplugged bonus track set and it's really too bad for fans that it wasn't. Just as with the the Pilgrim sessions and the original Breeders demos there were qualities that made these versions interesting and worthwhile in more than an historical way. Of course Tanya left the Breeders before the second album, so the tunes in question actually became the core of the new Belly repertoire.

I had seen Kim now and again, then I moved to Ohio. I'd run into the Pixies soon after the move (see the previous Pixies article), but it wasn't until much later that I got a chance to see Kim with the Breeders.

Kim was passing through Columbus with the Breeders and a year had passed. She was engaged and her fiancee was her very capable road manager. In fact she had parlayed the Breeders into quite the cottage industry. Sister Kelly was of course a member of the band; with future hubby running things already she had hired her mom to drive the bus and handle concessions. I asked her why her father wasn't working for her as well and she said "he would be but he already has a real job!" I was impressed at Kim's business acumen. It makes damn good sense to practice a bit of nepotism in the rock and roll world, so that there can be many taps on the fast-drying keg of fickle fame and its fiscal benefits. And, oh yeah, she was as beautiful as ever.

Go to the Pixies article...