Dwight Glodell and the First Demo Tape, 1986

Dwight Glodell, who had previously worked with Personal Effects, had a studio in the Village Gate Square. He had co-produced and engineered the Effects 1983 Cachalot Ep that had garnered the band some national attention.

When it came time for the band to invest its earnings ($200) in a demo tape, Paul & Peggi not only recommended Dwight but got him to "do us a favor" with a professionally recorded live performance for next to nothing. The band that entered the studio was the first Rochester incarnation of the band that featured Bernie Heveron, Jimmy McAvaney and G. Elwyn Meixner.

Dwight was fairly reserved to the point of being a bit stand-offish to us. It seemed like he neither a) particualarly liked the band nor b) liked working for next to nothing. The songs we ended up recording there, I'm Considering a Move to Memphis, Dance Critters and First Day of Spring, all ended up on our debut LP and each received a lot of airplay on BBC1.

Dwight used some left over 1/4 inch tape and towards the end of First Day of Spring the spool ran out..fwwp, fwwp, fwwp. Moments before the tape ran out, my high E string broke during what was to be the fade-out guitar solo. Anyone familiar with a Stratocaster-style guitar knows the bridge/tremolo bar is attached to springs. When one string breaks, the springs stretch out and the remaining strings go out of tune. Of course I wanted to do it over but Dwight would have nothing to do with that. For two-hundred bucks, we got what we got. He mixed a fade-out that ended a split second before the tape ran out, with the sound of my guitar going completely bonkers.

Considering a Move to Memphis went on to make John Peel's Festive 50 for the year 1987. Dance Critters was chosen to be remixed and released as 12" dance single (what were they thinking?). It's always been a humorous point to me that our brush with success was linked to a three hour demo tape session.