(skip past this explanation and go right to the good stuff!)

One of the cool things about making View was the process of creating the demo CD, which I tracked at home from September through December of 2002. I played all the instruments—using various forms of tweaked bass as a guitar substitute—and programmed the drums my own damned self. A lot of the ideas that ended up on View actually originated from this demo, which I took great care (for a demo) in mixing and mastering, albeit in a charmingly demo-type way.

Another cool thing that happened was the recording of some of the candid moments and jams from the tracking of the album itself, from April-June of 2003. I've got five CD's full of such moments, some of which I'm not too embarrassed to share with the public. In fact, regular readers of this site will know that I've toyed with the idea of making a special, available-through-the-website-only CD called Rear View Mirror to encapsulate all of this good stuff.

Well, I thought about it, and after careful deliberation, I solemnly said to myself, "What a freakin' hassle. Screw that - let's just post all the good stuff on the web for free, little by little." And that's what we're doing here. Only at bryanbellerdotcom do you get this kind of deliberative business acumen on display for all the world to see.

So, in bite-sized installments, Onion Boy Records presents... Rear View Mirror.

INSTALLMENT #2 - May 6, 2004

See You Next Tuesday (demo)
written by Bryan Beller
© 2003 Panorama Ataraxia Music BMI
File size: 3.78MB

This installment of Rear View Mirror deals with one of the most difficult tunes on the album, the aptly named "See You Next Tuesday". The demo version contained here was constructed in painfully slow fashion; programming fast swing drums and simulating lightning-quick heavy-metal-bebop licks (on what would eventually be a baritone guitar played by Mike Keneally) took hours upon hours, and some really humiliating edits to get the melody sounding right. But when it was done, I stood back from it and thought to myself, "This is the kind of song I'd like to hear the old Mike Keneally and Beer For Dolphins trio play." Most fun was playing a guitar solo where melody wasn't as important as pure aggression. And nearly as fun was programming the drums during the song's penultimate moment. After I was done with it, it took me another hour just to figure out how to count in 4/4 through it. Yes, the point was for this song to be hard.


See You Next Tuesday (studio jam/alternate take)
written by Bryan Beller
© 2003 Panorama Ataraxia Music
File size: 3.96MB

This was recorded on a room mike facing the studio monitors, as we warmed up for what we knew would be a tough tune to track. I can still see the look on Keneally's face and he pounded away on Griff Peters' custom-made Carruthers baritone guitar, playing that repeating lick in the chorus until his face turned red. It wasn't until after this take that we decided to add the Small Stone phaser effect. As a result, the guitar has a little more raw power in this run-through, which was never actually meant to be anything but a rehearsal.