Mos Generator - Songs for Future Gods LP

REFLECTION & OVERVIEW:
PT #1: Songs For Future Gods was recorded twice. The first attempt was in January 2006 at Eclipse Studios in Port Angeles WA. We wanted to record in a bigger room than the room I worked in at Temple Sound so we loaded up our gear and a Tascam MS-16 1” 16 track reel to reel machine and headed two hours west to make a weekend out of the session. We ended up getting the drum tracks for nine songs, Six of which would end up being re recorded during the second attempt at SFFG and the remaining three would be scattered across odd releases over the next few years. When I got the drum tracks back to my studio and Scoooter and I started overdubbing on them I realized they really weren’t what I was hoping for. There was no energy and upon listen to the finished tracks we realized the our jamroom demos were actually better than these studio tracks and we decided to scrap the recording and take these new tunes out on the road for while before attempting to record them again. In between these Eclipse sessions and the sessions that would happen later in the year we made a hand shake deal with Small Stone Records to release our next offering. Scott
Hamilton from Small Stone was keen on the direction of our first album and we talked about how far from that we went on our second album “The Late Great Planet Earth”. Although we both agreed it was a great album we thought it would be best to get a bit closer to the energy of the first album and an album we could reproduce live, unlike “LGPE”. That being decided, I figured since the self titled album was already out of print and had no distrubution except at our shows, we should re record some of the songs from that album that we still played live.

PT #2: In November 2006 we set up at Temple Sound in our home town of Port Orchard Washington to take a second stab at what would become our third album “Songs For Future Gods”. Things seemed to be cursed from the beginning. I had a definite idea of what I wanted the drums to sound like and Shawn didn’t totally agree on my idea. We spent a very long time coming up with a drum sound we could both agree on. After that hurdle was overcome the acual drum tracks only went just a little bit more smooth. Between Shawn and I picking at every drum hit it was hard to accept takes. I was trying to capture energy and perfection and that is very difficult to achieve. Looking back now I think over-analyzed the whole process and almost ruined the recording. During the recording sessions (that were taking way longer than expected) a tragedy struck within the band and we had to take some time to deal with details and gather the strength to focus on the project again. During this time I would still go to the studio and work on my parts and once again in reflecting back I realize I didn’t just let go. None the less, everything managed to get finished and
there was no stern deadline for the album so that helped us achive our goals at the time. By looking at my recording notes (for some reason I kept very detailed notes for these sessions) it appears that we started tracking drums on November 18th 2006 and I did the last mix on March 25th 2007.

PT #3: After the album was mixed I was informed that Small Stone had their own mastering guy so the recording was mastered for cd by Chris Gooseman @ Solid Sound in Ann Arbor Michigan. I’ve never been satisfied with the mastering job. That doesn’t mean it’s not good, it’s just not the vision I had for it and since then I’ve been the only person to master or remaster Mos Generator albums. At some point shortly after mixing the album another handshake deal was done with Roadburn Records out of the Netherlands to do a vinyl version. On the vinyl version we replaced two of the re recorded first album songs with the an outtake from the Eclipse sessions and it was also a chance for me to do the mastering job. Both formats were released within a month of each other. cd (September ‘07) LP (November ’07) and in April 2008 we did our first tour of Europe opening for Blood of the Sun with the first show of the tour being at
Roadburn Festival in Tilburg, Holland. The vinyl version has been out of print for quite some time so I figured it was the perfect time to do a 10 year anniversary version. This time the track sequence is just like the original Small Stone cd version and includes all four of the songs re recorded from the first album. In 2013 a reissue cd version was released on Ripple Music with a full remix of the album and had no re recorded first album songs but it did feature two other Eclipse session outtakes (confusing I know). No remixing has been done to this version. All of them are mixes from 2007. I may have come to grips with them - TR Feb. 2017 

Black Vinyl

 Tracks:

1. Silver Olympus
   
2. NandV
   
3. Son of Atom Smasher
4. Wizards of the Prophecy Pen
   
5. Into the Long Sleep
   
6. Yes My Lord
7. Lumbo Rock
8. Sleeping Your Way to the Middle
   
9. Acapulco Gold
10. Y'Juana

OS GENERATOR_SFFG_TECHNICAL DATA:
Arranged & Performed by Mos Generator. Recorded & Mixed by Reed @ Temple Sound, Port Orchard WA. November 2006 - March 2007. This vinyl re-issue mastered by Reed @ HeavyHead Recording Co. February 2017. Front cover art by Civiletti. Originally published in Space Science Fiction Magazine, September 1953. Originally released on vinyl by Roadburn Records as cat# RBR003 and on cd by Small Stone Records cat# SS-075 Tony Reed: Guitar_Vocals_Wurlitzer / Shawn Johnson: Drums / Scooter Haslip: Bass