5:22

5:22 volume 1 no. 4
straightaway I'll make apologies for the lo-fi sound of this one,
but it is one of the few offerings which was actually recorded
to a cassette tape which christy bley accidentally left running
while the GaGa band jammed together one night.
not even Flac could improve this one.

just so you know, a large amount of effort was put into
making all these downloads* sound as hi fidelity as possible
by using an extremely expensive computer system called
Sonic Solutions.
the cost is normally something like $300 a minute!
to correct sound flaws like hiss, hum, tape noise, etc.
thankfully our dear friend Bruce Marshall did it for free!
a lot of after-hours work and time spent by Bruce,
otherwise it would never have been affordable.
can you imagine what these hundreds of minutes
of music would have cost?!
bless you, Bruce.

as to the performance of 5:22 as mentioned
it was a late night jam at cwazy wabbit.
christy just happened to have her cassette deck running.
through the first half bill janssen plays sax,
switching in the middle to vocal and whistling guitar.
the second half also includes what must surely be
the first tape loop I ever made.
rich and I looped one little section (the last two minutes)
and then I recorded drums, moving a little off time on purpose
to change the loop slightly as it plays out.

the only thing left a mystery is how this piece
which was titled 5:22 at the time because
that was the length of the song
when we recorded it back in 1979,
has over the years become 5:33 in length!

* keep in mind these downloads range
from all manner of humble beginnings
such as 4-track recorder, cassette tape,
8-track, DAT or ADAT
all the way to full glorious digital sound.

saxophone, guitar, vocal: bill janssen
organ: christy bley
bass guitar: rich denhart
guitar and drums: adrian
recorded at Cwazy Wabbit Studio Springfield, Illinois in 1979
length: 5:22