History

To provide some context for the pages to follow, here's a brief history of the Spent Poets. In the late 1980's, Adam Gates and Matt Winegar began recording song demos on Matt's Tascam 388 1/4" 8-track machine. In 1990, Peer Music signed them to an exclusive music publishing deal, secured with the aid of friend and record producer Matt Wallace. They hastily put together a five piece band for live performances and began playing locally throughout the Bay Area in Northern California. A successful showcase performance for A&R executive Mio Vukovic resulted in a recording contract with Geffen Records.

Matt Winegar's home studio

The band had little experience playing live shows together in the months that lead up to the studio recording sessions. Instead, the band rehearsed and recorded demos of new tunes, struggling to find a style that reflected the disparate musical and aesthetic sensibilities of its members.

Although the band was based in the city of San Francisco, Mio and the production team convinced us to make the record in Los Angeles's Hollywood district while rooming in Universal City. The band lived in low-slung bungalow apartments surrounding a swimming pool and hot tub. While I was checking in at the front desk, I caught sight of Alice Cooper standing idly by.

"Now I know I'm in Hollywood," I thought.

The first set of sessions spanned 3/18/1991 through 5/20/1991 at Track Records Studio. Reconvening at Coast Recording Studios in San Francisco's Mission district on 6/8/1991 and continuing through 6/13/1991, we re-recorded some tracks. Mixing commenced at Studio 55 Room "A" in Hollywood, California on 6/15/1991 and continued into early July, though the diary only covers through 6/28/1991. I think the remaining undocumented mixing sessions numbered one or two at most.

While preparing to make the album, The Spent Poets had developed a distinctive production style. Demo recordings from this period were packed with complex instrumental arrangements, collages of 'found' sounds, random noises and massively overdubbed vocal arrangements. We liked these recordings. Could Matt Wallace and ace engineer Jack Joseph Puig re-create our sound in an LA studio?

Wallace knew that the Spent Poets recorded for themselves, not for a particular type of audience. To keep the band both happy and productive, Wallace's production strategy was to encourage studio experimentation within the limits of budgetary constraints. To keep the results commercially viable, Wallace intended to reign in our most egregiously self-indulgent ideas.

Wallace and Puig rented dozens of instruments and set them up throughout the studio. Puig decorated the control room with lava lamps, Christmas tree lights and kitsch decorations to make the band feel at home. Wallace organized the sessions around the principle that the band could record entire songs in sequence if so desired, rather than sticking to conventional production methods (such as recording drums tracks for all songs first, guitar tracks next, and so on). With all of their consideration for our needs, it's no surprise that they were dumbfounded when some band members responded with bitterness and hostility.

After the album's release, the band toured the US and Canada, opening for Live and Wire Train. As a performing act, the Spent Poets were a knockout. Lead vocalist Adam Gates could whip the crowds into a frenzy and the band played as a tight, cohesive unit. Nevertheless, a minor hit single ("Dogtown") in a few radio markets, a music video shown on MTV a few times, positive critical reviews and screaming crowds at the live shows did not drive album sales to the levels necessary to sustain Geffen's interest in the Spent Poets.

In May of 1993, three members of the band gathered at Coast Studios in San Francisco, CA to record a follow-up album. We were disappointed, though not terribly surprised, when Geffen decided to shelve the album permanently. Within days of hearing the news, the Spent Poets called it quits.

The cast of characters in this diary:

• Adam Gates ("Gates") - Lead vocals, rhythm guitar
• Matt Winegar ("Winegar") - guitar, keyboards, background and harmony vocals
• Michael Urbano ("Urbano") - drums
• John Berg ("Berg")- keyboards
• Derek Greenberg ("me, myself, I")- bass
• Matt Wallace ("Wallace")- Producer, helped band secure a record contract
• Jack Joseph Puig ("Puig")- Recording Engineer
• Mio Vokuvic ("Mio") - A&R for Geffen Records, signed The Spent Poets to a record contract
• ("Peter") - the second engineer
• ("Gregory") - studio runner
• Ross "The Drum Doctor" Garfield ("drum doctor") - drum tech
• Steve Rosen ("Rosen") - band manager