Some kids and a 4-track Cassette Recorder...
Some songs from my young years that my friends and I made. Recorded usually in one take for each track on cassette 4track recorder. Enjoy?
In the mid-2000s I was lucky to have a group of highly interesting, very creative friends. I often don’t think back to this period of time because of well…reasons. But recently I was going through my old hard drive and discovered a set of songs by “Eric Ripped Off My Tail”. I couldn’t believe I still had these songs. You see EROMT (Eric Ripped Off My Tail) was the band me and my friends made over the course of a couple of weeks when my friend was either gifted or found a 4-track tape recorder. By this time MP3s were the preferred medium, but we were enchanted by this little tape machine. So we would all hang out, sometimes get wasted, and make these songs. The name “Eric Ripped Off My Tail” was a name that came from my personal family history. My middle younger sister was playing with this Ariel (the Little Mermaid) doll when I was probably 8 and she was maybe four or five on the way to Disney World (Yes my whole family including a cousin we were close to took the sacrificial drive to Disney World from our home state Ohio, and it was in two words… “an experience”. An experience never repeated.) She was playing with Ariel and Prince Eric dolls and she was singing a long song about what they were doing, when suddenly she said in a funny low sing-song voice, “Eric ripped off my tail–” and she proceeded to rip the tail that went over the Ariel doll’s human legs off in one clean swoop, pretending like Eric had done it. I don’t know why but this tickled me greatly, and for some reason, I told this story to this set of friends many years later, and they too found it hilarious. So that’s how the “EROMT” name came to be.
I had mixed emotions while listening to the songs that survive on my hard drive. Some of it was just being very amused, some of it was bittersweet, as many years have passed, and some of it was a small amount of shock at how “un-woke” or “un-PC” some of the lyrics were. Some of them were just childish, like beyond childish for our respective ages at the time and that is what made them initially so funny when we recorded them, and others were just kind of cruel. There is one particular song, which I decided against sharing in this post because it’s just pretty mean and honestly I don’t like the way the target of this song was being called the “f” slur. Truly though it reminded me what different times we live in now, and also how my sensibilities have changed and how I am much more cognizant of how these slurs can truly harm people, even when said in jest or ironically. But I remember these slurs and names were thrown around so casually back then, that truly we were probably not any more cruel than other kids our age at that time and maybe even now were/are. Even being pan-sexual sometimes I called things “gay” back then, which I just don’t even consider doing now especially having connected more with other members of the LGBTQA+ community plus it's such a dumb thing to say. I will probably share another song that uses the word gay because it's less offensive and kind of just a nonsense song. It’s too bad the one particular song is not one to be shared, because it’s kind of still a bop. Also, I remember we were all so annoyed with the topic (person) of this song becoming a pretentious asshole because he had discovered philosophy and French literature, which is not a reason to write a song that directly names the person and bashes the shit out of them but we were bored and probably drunk or high and a lot of stupidness happened sometimes. Also said person never did anything that really bothered me, we had even been friends for a short time until we just drifted apart. The beginning of the song is his poetry being read aloud, and then my friend who was reading it stops and talks about how this is a stupid thing to do. “Who the fuck wants to read his words for a song anyways?” But then the song goes on to talk about how stupid said person is, and all the ways he sucked.
We all took turns playing instruments, clapping, singing, chanting, writing lyrics, reading out-of-school textbooks and I must say it was quite a good time. I think about some of the people in the group who I haven’t seen for years, and one that I am glad is gone from my life. Hearing that one person’s voice stung a little, but I have healed enough that I can push it aside to literally have an audio time capsule of a time when I was very young. I feel like there is very little that is as authentic as these recordings in my life from this exact period of time. I had to switch High Schools after my sophomore year due to extreme verbal and physical bullying I and others received simply for wearing too much black and being “alternative”. I wouldn’t have considered myself emo even though I listened to some emo music. I was way more into industrial, EBM, goth stuff new and old, and indie rock. I had moved to a new high school, which was much more tolerant of different types of people, and I had found the friends I share these songs with and many other people to hang around. Another fun thing is my now husband sings a song called “Jesus and Steven” on this “album” of songs which is silly and still makes me laugh to this day.
So basically, I got to feel some sickly feelings mixed with extreme nostalgia listening to these songs. I have always been interested in making music, but I didn’t start making my solo music project “Frost Flowers” (which I’m still doing, working on my fourth album right now!!) until 2011. But when I was young music was so important and most of my friends played instruments, and I often played around on keyboards and superficially with fruity loops, as well as doing small parts for music projects. Throughout my teens and twenties into my thirties I was always out at shows, traveling with some bands and meeting many others, it was just such an inspiring experience. So I kind of see these songs as a genesis. So now I give you the sounds of a few EROMT songs…the least offensive ones that is. LOL. So big warning, these are not professional songs, many of the lyrics are first takes from messed up kids, so don’t expect masterpieces also LANGUAGE ADVISORY!!! There are a lot of curse words in some of these, so take care where you listen to them.
The first one is called “Hanwey is Stoned”. (Below this paragraph) Hanwey was this guy who I swear was always lying around stoned wherever I seemed to go. I never really talked to him much, he was a little older and I was actually kind of shy. but Hanwey’s stoned was almost always true at that time. But yeah, the reference to “Trent” who wrote the graffiti tag “sky”. There was a time when you couldn’t go anywhere without seeing one of his hastily scribbled “sky” tags in different colored spray paint, it was everywhere all over the city. My friend and him got into a fight at a party around this time. (I found a singular Reddit post about “sky” and they call him a “bored rich kid” which honestly is apt. https://www.reddit.com/r/Columbus/comments/8bncoa/anyone_remember_that_sky_graffiti_that_was_all/?rdt=35584)
The next one is called “Feeling Gay” This one is not as offensive as some of the others because the whole song is referring to the feeling “gay” and how the word was used in old musicals and by older people and writings. We made this because someone looked a little out of it, and when asked if they were ok, they replied, “I’m feeling, fine, quite gay.” that seemed really funny to us so the song was born. It was quite fun to play and scream, honestly, we as people should scream more often. (below)
The next one is called “Cochlea” is one that has a lot of lyrics from textbooks and I think some novels. The keyboard on this is a cheap little Casio I think it might have been my grandfather’s or was it? I remember feeling the most attracted to keyboards pianos, and digital instruments which if you know me, makes my music make a lot of sense. (below)
The next one is the one that my husband made when he was left alone in a room with the 4-track. This is the only song of the whole “album” he appears on, but it’s memorable.It’s called “Jesus and Steven”. All voices are him, a real one-man show. He was obsessed with the name “Steve” or “Steven” but I don’t remember why. This will never not remind me of our favorite episode of “Tom Goes to Mayor”.
Anyway, enjoy this classic example of my husband’s silliness. I feel like many people think he is so stern and quiet but really, we are both little autism/ADHD gremlins.
Anyway, that was my random memory lane post. Just be happy (or maybe unhappy?) that I spared you the “Penis and Vagina Song” LOL. I know this is not my normal type of content, but I just felt inspired to share this absurdity. I will be back to writing more regular posts in December. My health has been shitting out on me, and I’m in school full-time, and family stuff. I will post more of the novel I’ve been posting along with some other content. I will also be probably making YT videos again, and working on music and writing projects. (My School from Jan-Aug when I graduate will be a lot lighter.) I hope you weren’t too annoyed or offended by these songs, seriously just stupid shit some kids made. Have a great week, and I hope the elections end up pleasing me. I’m kind of writing this to not obsessively stare at the numbers tonight.
Later!
Aisling
