Thursday, February 18, 2010

emiLy - RTO 1.5329


In the fall of 1993, emiLy went to Miami Street Studios for our first professional recording experience. We recorded and mixed four songs in the space of two days or so, and the first three were released as a seven-inch EP called Finer Time. While waiting for the records to be pressed, we decided to make some quick copies of the recording session on cassette that we could send out to labels and venues we found in Book Your Own Fuckin' Life, the massive punk/DIY resource guide put out by Maximum Rock and Roll. (BYOFL started in 1992 and was a big bound newsprint magazine up until 2003 or 2004, when it turned into an online resource at www.byofl.org.) We sent the tape out with a simple insert that asked people to "Write us if you can help us find places to play, people to play to, vinyl(or tape(or CD)) to be on, or good Indian food in the MidWest." The tape did help us in the first two enterprises, but not so much in the latter.

The tape features the same four songs on both sides. The first three are the same tracks from Finer Time ("Cartoon Sex", "Finer Time", and "5(Frialator)"), and the fourth is a studio version of "Fortune 13", which appears in a different form on engineering means i Like you. Aside from the hundred or so people who got to hear this tape in person, this is the first opportunity for most people to hear "Fortune 13" in all its Miami Street glory. (I have no idea what the significance of the .5329 is, aside from indicating that it was not meant to be a regular RTO release.)


Not too long after this demo came out, we played a show at Dalloway's with Comeuppance. We called it our birthday show, as it was roughly a year to the date from the first emiLy show. The flyer advertised free cake in honor of the occasion, and we delivered on that promise. I bought a bunch of Little Debbie snack cakes and gave them to James K. to distribute at the beginning of our set. James jumped up and ran around the room, yelling "I'VE GOT CAKE! WHO WANTS CAKE?" and handing cakes to all who asked.

listen/download:



see also:
emiLy on MySpace
emiLy on last.fm

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