BOSS by Magik Markers

This is Boss. I could post a Pitchfork review or someone else's fumbled ideas about this record here, but I think maybe I'll put whatever comes to mind here. At this point we'd experienced some casualties. Our friend David Sauter, the furiously gentle upright bass giant of Louisville's Sapat had succumbed to a brain anneurism while drinking morning coffee with his wife and infant son on the 4th of July. Matt Mason, my first friend in Louisville had taken his own life after a particularly bad night on the town. Tim Morris, Elisa's New Jersey friend from her days booking hardcore gigs had gone too.

We had already put out one record on Thurston Moore's Ecstatic Peace! label (I trust my guitar etc.. ). Thurston had just acquired a deal with Universal to partner on his label. In an interview he and his partner proclaimed that they would use Universal for their more commercial acts like Be Your Own Pet and that the noise bands like Magik Markers would be ghettoized in some lesser version of the label. We took this as an affront and a challenge. We entered Sonic Youth's Echo Canyon West in Hoboken with Aaron Mullan and Lee Ranaldo to record for several weekend sessions throughout the summer.

I mostly remember Elisa and Lee bonding over Bruce Springsteen, which I still don't get. Lee was a lot of fun, but the first thing he made us do was use a tuning pedal. Up until that point we had been the guitar with a harmonica. Aaron Mullan made me dismantle my drums in order to determine where all of the various buzzes and rattles were coming from. I had a shitty sears guitar and Univox echo machine that I used to play the riff on Taste. They tried to get me to use a different guitar on that too... but it didn't have the sound.

These dudes did not neuter our sound as some would have it though. They made us sound big and polished. Thurston's partner started blowing smoke to the effect that we were gonna be the next Pink Floyd. Our fate as emmissaries of the Universal windfall was sealed.

It was great fun to make this record. We improvised and experimented a ton in the studio all around. Lee made Elisa do vocal takes a million times. We learned how to make records.

Arbitrary Signs is the vanity record label of Pete Nolan of the Magik Markers. Artists: Magik Markers, Spectre Folk, Devin, Gary, and Ross, MV&EE. For links to other Magik Markers see Drag City's Bandcamp. For more Spectre Folk go to the Vampire Blues Bandcamp page.

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