MDID

While y’all are waiting for our new band’s debut.. here’s something from 2007 with Laura King (Moaners) on drums and Tim Gilbride on Guitar..

The first band I was in. I mostly played drums, and wrote some of the lyrics. We did a lot in a relatively short period of time, from about 1981-1983, but never officially “released” any music. So here is the “best” of the historical studio, practice, and live recordings we’ve been able to cull from the members.

that this song will ever be performed live. Thanks to Carolyn Getson for filming. Practices are going well with the new band, but a month long hiatus is necessary due to travel commitments. We have 8-12 songs now.

A while ago I entertained the notion of re-recording my first album for our 25th anniversary. I was never that thrilled with the way a lot of these songs sounded, and was pleased with the versions of “Talk to the Weatherman” and “In Your Mind” that we did years ago for Shine(r). A new version of The Quiet Man was first, and given to Pox World Empire records for the latest in their series of “Compulation” CD’s. You can get this song at the “Missing Pieces” link.

Several other demos were recorded at the same time, and I eventually thought I might put a band together to re-record these. Well that’s one of those loose ends that never got neatly tied up. So here’s the project where it was left, in the demo stage. I didn’t want to make too many changes to the original lyrics or song structures. God knows I could have updated a few of the simple lyrics, but somehow it just seemed I should leave them alone. The few bits/phrases that I did add were actually in the notes of the original lyrics. Still, a couple of them ended up with some pretty different instrumental parts, and some might find Anti Socialist unrecognizable, though I threw an instrumental verse/chorus from the original in there. Who knew that I would write a song about the “smoke monster” 20 years before Lost. (Black Cloud)

Anyway, y’all might hate the “modernization”.. I know some folks really liked the lofi sound of the first LP.. so if you’re of that mind, don’t click on the link below!

The picture is of a house that now stands in the place of the house that graced the cover of And He’s Not Gonna Take it. The face of the neighborhood has greatly changed, and my childhood home wasn’t the only casualty.

Here’s some more live stuff from ages ago.. culled from two concerts in Bremen (at a very small club with only vocal PA) and in Hamburg (at a cavernous large club). There’s also a pre-trip practice version of 20 Yards Deep. The pic is not actually from that tour, but from the 1990 tour. Unfortunately I have no good tapes from that trip..

My Dad is Dead played it’s very first show in May of 1985, almost 25 years ago to the day, so it’s kind of fitting that May of 2010 is the month in which we shutter the windows. Except for the occasional possible dreaded “reunion show” or if anyone comes a’ calling with money bags, MDID has breathed it’s last. A huge and hearty thank you to all who participated in the creation of some fine music over the years. I could list a thousand people, but I’d especially like to recognize the following standouts:

Scott Pickering – Drummer extraordinaire, road clown who kept us all laughing. He can take a one note gtr line and make it rock. He’s been the longest consistent member of the traveling road show and recording ensembles.

Tim Gilbride – Great under-appreciated Guitarist, mentor and guitar teacher in the early days. Do yourself a favor and check out his recent bandcamp pages for his solo music, Uva Ursi, Cruel Cruel Moon, and Channel Masters.

Billy Buckley – Bassist. Brought a much needed level of enthusiasm to the band the last couple of years. I look forward to continuing playing with him in our next project.

Chris Burgess – Producer, bassist. There would have been no MDID without Chris. His production work on our Homestead records still sounds fresh, and his rock solid bass on tour really pumped up the live shows.

Gerard Cosloy – Record label honcho. It’s likely that MDID wouldn’t have existed past Peace Love and Murder if not for his interest in the band and getting us on Homestead. A lot of folks (including me!) have a lot of valid complaints about the label but Gerard single-handedly provided a national stage for a lot of bands who otherwise would never have made it out of their hometowns, MDID included.

Robert Griffin – Record label Honcho. Robert stepped in when Homestead lost interest. Robert ran one of those labels where you could count on every record being a record of quality, and many of them counting as pieces of art as well. He never made much money off of any of us and I’ll always be grateful that he put so much effort into the label despite that. He also lit the fire under us to get us on the road more often than we could really afford in the early 90’s

Jeff Curtis – Bassist. Jeff’s particularly melodic style of playing really helped establish the “signature” MDID sound on Taller You Are and select songs on a few later releases. I was always sad that he couldn’t tour with us when we got our opportunities to go on the road for longer periods.

Matt Swanson – bassist. Matt also came along at a certain pivotal time in the band’s history, and injected some much needed passion for playing, arranging and recording. He’s simply an amazing musician, whose talents far exceeded our little endeavor. Check out his work now in Lambchop, or the older unlabelable Clockhammer.

Craig Stewart – Record label honcho. Craig was right there when Robert declined on For Richer. For many years I was lucky to find someone to put out our records despite the generally low level of sales.

Shayne Ivy – Drummer. Shayne stepped into the gap when Scott was unavailable due to his commitments with Gem. His frenetic drumming on Everyone Wants the Honey makes it one of the most cohesive and tight sounding MDID records ever.

And of course, to all the other players that stepped up to the plate, including Doug Gillard, John McEntire, and Scott Lasch, all of whom contributed wonderful parts to songs on various releases.

And to all the other supporters from label folks Steve Stone, Ken Beck, Craig Marks, Fran Miller and the Wild Stares, Chris Andrews, to the other folks besides Chris Burgess who have taken part in recording us over the years – Mike Griffiths, Don Depew, Brian Paulson, to our various booking agents, Larry Collins, Susanne McCarthy, Sabine Walz, to all the great bands we played with over the years and the few we managed to stay friends with, to all the writers who cared enough to say something about us, nice or not so, to all the college radio station DJ’s and music directors who played our records.

Finally, of course, my wife Jeanne, whom I wouldn’t have met without MDID. If I got nothing else out of the band in 25 years, having found her is more than I could ever have asked for.

Most of all I thank you, the fans who kept coming back in the later days, when sales dropped from the thousands into the hundreds. Your letters and later emails helped me to keep pushing forward, and gave me the lift I needed sometimes to continue despite the frustrating lack of media interest in the later years.

As far as the future goes, I can’t imagine ever not making music until I become physically unable to play.. (and maybe by then techonology will advance to the point that button pushing is all we’ll need..). We’ve already established a new band of sorts, with Billy and myself and couple of other folks, hopefully a collaborative effort with at least 3 songwriters. We just stuck our toes in the water this past week at the Station in Carrboro.. hope to be appearing some more in the next couple of months. Once we’ve got the web presence etc. established I’ll come back here to post the links.

Til then, love to all

Mark

This one is from a Peabody’s (Cleveland) show in May of 1988, opening for Throwing Muses. Jeff Curtis plays bass, Scott Pickering drums. This was right at the beginning of the songwriting for Taller You Are, and an early wordless version of “the Big Picture” is played here, along with an early version of “For Lack of a Better Word”. I like this set because it has a number of songs we didn’t play live very often, including Hill O’Beans, On Holy Ground, and the cover of Time Has Come Today.

My intention was to try to find and post the first ever MDID show, in May of 1985.  I was successful in the first part,  but bulk manufactured cassette tapes not kept in cases don’t tend to last 25 years.   The sound is hopelessly garbled.   Here instead, is a still early performance, and representative of the shows I played at the time with just me and the TR-606, from April of 1986 in the studios of WRUW 91.1 FM.    This was about a month before the actual release of “And He’s Not Gonna Take It Anymore” and most of the songs from that album are played here.  I’m asking $5 for a download, but individual tunes are free, so yes if you want to download all 13 individually you can get it for free. 

Live on WRUW 4-19-86

There are now track notes available with the Missing Pieces Bandcamp download (will be delivered in the zip file).  For those of you who have already downloaded this and did not get them, you can retrieve here..

Missing Pieces-Notes

Ok, so you’ve had enough by now of “there ain’t no words” so, in continuing the blitzkrieg of MDID history you’re going to get this year by simple virtue of the band surviving longer than anyone could have predicted, here’s a file of nothing but words. We’ve selected 22 of the most informative/entertaining interviews we could find with our friends in the music press over the years and bundled them up in a nice little zip file of pdf’s. Here you can read about all the juicy details behind the changing band members, musical influences, recording processes, unsolicited opinions on everything from fast food to baseball to monogamy, and of course, my own incredibly fascinating personal life.

MDID-Talk Talk Talk

Before you click that mouse, this is a 50mb file, so make sure you have some time to download.