Unsupervised Libretto

The Mono Puff Unsupervised Libretto is a track-by-track pamphlet about the 1996 album Unsupervised that was signed and numbered, and shipped with the first 100 orders of the album from Rykodisc. It features illustrations by Tony Millionaire and lyrics to each song.

A NOTE FROM FLANSY

First, I want to thank you for checking out this new recording by the band Mono Puff. Some of these songs were previously recorded for EP's released on the Hello CD of the Month Club. We also recorded a few covers that we thought were interesting and relatively unheard. When we embarked on the album project, our goal (and budget) was to record as spontaneously as possible. The process was very much in the spirit of album-making in the seventies, where a live band plays together and key overdubs are added for spice. We recorded the majority of the songs over one weekend and mixed it over another. It was a great time. Hope you dig the results.

I want to thank the fine people at Rykodisc for bravely releasing the album to the big, bad retail world.

Guitar Was The Case

Originally written as a ska song for a TV program and later rejected by finicky producers, this track takes some of its melodic inspiration from "Hall of Heads" off of TMBGs Apollo 18 album, and a lot of its vibe from the recordings of the Ventures and Dick Dale. It's essentially a surf guitar duel between me (on the right speaker) and Mr. Mike Viola of the Candy Butchers (on the left speaker.) It also introduces the awesome boogie-power of the rhythm section: Mr. Hal Cragin (Iggy Pop) and Mr. Steve Calhoon (Skeleton Key).

Unsupervised, I Hit My Head

This is kind of a personal song that I could easily spoil with too much explanation. Looking at the lyrics, it seems pretty self-pitying, but I assure everyone I was really just trying to put the blame on someone else.

Don't Break The Heart

I first heard this song covered by a few different singers in downtown NYC (including Laura Cantrell, upcoming Hello artist). I finally realized it wasn't a SoCal-rock standard but the work of a great songwriter named Amy Rigby. World Famous Blue Jay Jay Sherman-Godfrey delivers the Frippertronic solo.

Distant Antenna

This recording was cooked up quite spontaneously at the end of the marathon tracking session at Unique Studio in Times Square. Romanian-born actress Elina Lowensohn, star of "Nadja," a number of Hal Hartley films, and the upcoming "Devil When Down to Newport" video, did the voice-over. There are no samples or loops, just real records scratching along, and live radios being tuned.

The Devil Went Down To Newport

This two chord wonder was originally recorded in demo form by the legendary, now-defunct New England combo the Clamdiggers. Members of that band were in the group Mente, who performed a locally notorious song called "Bobby Orr" ("greatest hockey player in the world- bahhhh-none!"). Mike was channeling Eddie Van Halen during this take. That's my best/worst John Entwistle impersonation on the fuzz bass at the end.

What Bothers The Spaceman?

This song is not based on any personal experience with baseball great Bill "Spaceman" Lee, who I quite accidentally met at a TV show right after writing this song. Lee, back in the seventies had a couple of great, controversial seasons with the very conservative Boston Red Sox. When Lee made a couple of appearances on local rock radio stations at the time, he lived up to his name with a very odd "lost philosopher"-style that made a lasting impression on me.

Hello Hello

When Marjorie Galen and I first started Hello CD of the Month Club, producer Joshua Fried suggested we do a disc of "Hello" songs- or maybe he just wanted an excuse to cover this song. Originally recorded in the early seventies as an over-the-top Glam-rock number by the legendary Gary Glitter, the tone of this track bears little resemblance to the original. Some of the words are unintelligible on the original, and we just kind of flubbed through them on this version. They are also strangely smarmy, and look too ugly printed out, so I'll just leave that experience for the listeners.

Dr. Kildare

The melody came from a ska tape I bought without any publishing credit. I recorded a MIDI version of it for the Mono Puff Hello CD of the Month Club and added the lyrics. The middle break here is all electronic music and an electric guitar plugged directly into the tape recorder. That part was smashed together at around four in the morning at Hello Studio.

So Long, Mockingbird

This was intended to be a group a cappella number, but at rehearsal it was obvious that the fellas felt funny singing without their instruments, so we did it this way. That's Hal at the mighty Hammond B3 organ. The vocal was recorded as a guide track for the band, and then kept for this recording.

Careless Santa

This holiday tale of misadventure was recorded for the Hello Santa Special CD last Christmas. This track is the first finished product of my drum looping session with Yuval Gabay from Soul Coughing.

Don't I Have The Right?

I wrote this song a couple of years ago for performance artist Iris Rose's Torch Song show at La Mama. It is a radical departure, even for this record, but Nancy Lynn Howell's beautiful vocal brings the song to life.

To Serve Mankind

Those are human voices, but they were recorded one not at a time in the late sixties. The vocals are being played on a early version of a sampler called a Melotron. The British company was put out of business in the early '70s after a few short years when the UK musician union deemed they were losing jobs to the machine. My approach to this track was to create my own kind of HiFi test record, with the same kind of other-worldliness the originals seemed to be driving at.