Fancy this!

Rain Station's "Fancy Fancy" is a combination of tracks written at different times and put together by Jay and I as a sort of compilation CD. The CD features tracks recorded by Jay and I, Brian Peet and I and by Jay, Tony Iuppa, Brian Peet and I. Soon after Jay's recording project gave us "Criminal Goat" I moved to San Francisco with Tony Iuppa and Yun Shin, but after a short while Tony and Yun decided that the commute to the Peninsula was just too tough so they wanted to move out. Jay was living in San Francisco's Mission District, I was in need of some roommates and since Jay's living situation was a bit..let's say, different, I convinced him to move into the house in the Sunset. For a time Jay and I tried to put together a "live" act with Jay on vocals (and sometimes acoustic guitar), Tony Iuppa (The Screaming Paisleys) on bass, Brian Peet on drums and me on guitar. We recorded a three song demo in our Sunset livingroom (re-recording "Summer Home", "Widdershins" and "Quiet Morning") with the hopes of getting some gigs and gaining some momentum, but it didn't pan out as it was really tough to get together and rehearse. Unless you're living together, as Jay and I were, it is nearly impossible.
So since Jay and I were living together we had the ability to create whatever whenever the feeling hit us. The "SOB Puppet Hour" was born out of this living arrangement. Jay and I recorded "Hold The Sky", "Solitude", "More Out Of Life", "Smile Like A Monster", "Empty Home" and "Fancy Fancy" in various rooms of what became The Rain Station.

I got engaged and decided to move in with my fiance, Jay got more roommates and eventually moved to New York (where he met his wife). During that time Brian Peet (here) and I recorded some tracks together - some on his gear - some on my gear (which I upgraded from a 4-track tape machine to a digital 8-track recorder with MIDI capabilities - the same gear I have today). To test out the gear, I recorded "The Place I Once Came From" and "Slice A Piece Of Heaven" with Brian lending vocals on the tracks. We recorded in his (much better studio) some tracks for his Syrinx project. Brian had access to a pro studio and he wanted to try out recording some of my old mopehead tunes so we did "It's A Good Day" there with Brian playing drums and lending backing vocals and me recording guitar, bass as well as singing. "It's A Good Day" is by far the best engineered and sounding track on the CD and it is one of the things that motivates me to get new gear.

Like "Criminal Goat" you may not like some of these tracks, but keep listening as you may find one that you do dig.

Thanks agan for reading,

Mark Harvey