JEANNE'S ATTIC

1. JEANNE’S ATTIC

Artist: JEANNE WHALEN & FRIENDS / SHEEP

Originally Released (CD): 2000 (Jeanne-Boppin’ records #168)

Recording Dates: (see Tracklist below)

Personnel: (see Tracklist below)

Recordings Produced by: Jeanne Whalen (except tracks 6/11 with Danny Hesse)

Compilation Produced by: Chris Matthews

Tracklist:

1. INTRODUCTION • THE OUTLAW JEANNE WHALEN

Montage of recordings 1982-1991 featuring The Cast

2. JEANNE PEED IN MY SLEEPING BAG!

Recorded: circa 1973 • Personnel: Jeanne as a Teen, with friends Kim, Rhonda, Hedy & Buddy

3. I MET A GUY NAMED DANNY

Recorded: Oct 1982 • Jeanne with Danny Hesse, plus Chris Matthews & Kevin Tice (as “False Start/Trilogy”)

4. “DON’T MIND ME (THE ARMADILLO SONG)”

Recorded: Nov 1983 • Jeanne with SHEEP: Danny Hesse, John Wilson, Mike Edwards, Chris Matthews, Benny Daniels, Steve Wirth & Robb Perrone

5. DANNY & THE BOYS • “NOBODY BUT ME”

Recorded: 1985 • Jeanne with THE ERRAND BOYS: Danny Hesse, Joe Velosa, Keith Neal & Buggs Manocchi

6. A FOUR-TRACK LETTER TO MATT

Recorded: 1986 • Jeanne with Matt Ordway

7-10. HERE’S A BUNCH OF SHEEP (THE KEN’S BEDROOM SESSION):

“AHHH!”

“TUNING SONG” • “MIKE EDWARDS!”

“I RESIST YOU”

“I BUMPED MY HEAD” • THE NED PROBLEM

Recorded: June 1984 • Jeanne with SHEEP: Ken Garkow, Danny Hesse, Chris Matthews, John Wilson, Paul Sidore, Robb Perrone & Mike Edwards

11. THE KITTY SONGS

Recorded: 1986 • Jeanne with SHEEP: Danny Hesse & Paul Sidore

12. GUESS MY ENVIRONMENT! • SICK OF SMILING •

STEVE’S SINGING DOGS

Recorded: 1987 • Jeanne with Matt Ordway, Steve Wirth & John Wilson

13. DANA’S 2ND DAY ON DRUMS • HAPPY BIRTHDAY MATTS

Recorded: 1987 • Jeanne wih Dana Callen, Chris Matthews, Monique Boyd, Lenny Wolfenstein & Paul Sidore

14. A SHEEPISH PARTY AT STEVE’S:

a. KSPD REPORTING • LET’S SMOKE POT!

b. NED VELCRO & THE DERRIERS: “HAPPY BIRTHDAY MATT”

c. TURNED JAPANESE

d. DANNY & THE BURPTONES: “FEELINGS”

e. STEVE ‘N’ BURPO

f. A BENNYDICTION / KSPD SIGN-OFF

Recorded: 1987 • Jeanne with Danny Hesse, Chris Matthews, Mike Edwards, Steve Wirth, John Wilson, Benny Daniels & Stephen Burpo

15. LIFE WENT ON (BAD EDITS)

Recorded: 1989 (except Matt material, 1994) • Jeanne with Danny Hesse, Matt Ordway & Steve Wirth

16. THE ANSWERING MACHINE

Recorded: 1989 • with Jeff Mitchell, Chris Matthews & Danny Hesse

17. THAT WAS MARCH

Recorded: March 1989 • Jeanne with John Wilson, Mike Edwards, Steve Wirth, Matt Ordway & Danny Hesse

18. “STAGGER LEE”

Recorded: June 1989 • Jeanne with Steve Wirth, Danny Hesse, John Wilson & Steve Richards

19. SPACE CADET! • “TAC EHT XILEF”

Recorded: Nov 1989 (except Danny segment, circa 1984) • Jeanne plus Danny Hesse

20 - 22. AN ODD FLOCK AT SYLVIA’S:

“WHEN THE TIME COMES” • “STOP YOUR SOBBING”

“RIDE MY SEE-SAW”

TRACY AND DAVE ON LILLIAN

Recorded: July 1990 • Jeanne with SHEEP: Chris Matthews, Jeff Mitchell, John Gluck, Lenny Wolfenstein, David Daniels & Tracy Rhoades

23. A HARRY ADVENTURE

Recorded: Nov 1989 • Jeanne with Harold Harrison

24 - 28. THE KWWT CHRISTMAS SHOW 1990 (OFF THE AIR):

SHOW CLOSING (Excerpt)

“THE RING SONG”

“SHARE THE WEALTH”

“MANGLED FLESH”

“BYE”

Recorded: Dec 1990 • Jeanne with Danny Hesse, Chris Matthews, Harold Harrison, Mike Edwards, John Wilson, Robb Perrone, Lillian Friman, Steve Wirth & Erin Connelly

29 - 31. CHRISTMAS PRE-SHOW PARTY AT THE DINER, 1991:

“SUSPICIOUS MINDS”

“CHANGE THE LOCKS”

“CYCLES & CIRCLES”

Recorded: Dec 1991 • Jeanne with SHEEP: John Wilson, Lillian Friman, Erin Connelly, Danny Hesse, Mike Edwards, Harold Harrison, Chris Matthews, Jeff Mitchell, Robb Perrone, Cheryl Perrone, Paul Sidore & Monique Boyd

32. SUM OF MANY ENDINGS (WHEN ANY END’LL DO)

Recorded: 1986 & 1989

•••••••••••

Full Liner Notes from CD:

Introduction

I first met Jeanne in 1982. Whalen, she was called back then. Having already suffered thru my musical-partner-and-best-friend Danny’s first girlfriend, I was somewhat unready to deal with his second, but he already was fully attached to Jeanne, despite their enormous 5-1/2 year age difference! He and I had only just graduated from high school.

Suddenly he was thrust into a far more mature world - her world - one that included a shared interest in a wide variety of music and in making their own recordings. Danny must have been thrilled to discover that Jeanne had made hundreds of creative compilation tapes before they had even met - indeed, her collection dates back to her pre-teen years, and is really a continuation of a process bequeathed by her father Bill, who made similar tapes - his voice interspersed with the music - as joyful audio letters-in-absentia to young Jeanne (her parents lived on opposite coasts). Jeanne also began exchanging these sort of tapes with buddy Matt Ordway, long before any of us audiophile geeks could corrupt her style.

Well of course eventually Jeanne probably insisted that Danny introduce her to his legion of friends: on one hand he had just begun a new rewarding musical endeavor playing cover songs at parties and in bars with “The Errand Boys,” and on the other hand he had his old friends, a group that had become quite volumunous at that point - we were on the verge of calling our musical projects “Sheep,” which I think was meant to imply the way the group was sort-of meandering, free and unfocused, and made up of any or all of our friends from session to session. Jeanne would shortly join those ranks.

Jeanne has admitted to me on several occasions how she works so hard to fit in and gain acceptance with new friends, and has often felt in awe or unequal among the various talents in our group. But ain’t that just ridiculous? Jeanne ended up inspiring and impressing all of us - with her ideas, her ambition & energy, her detailed video and photo-record of our collective history - and with these candid and loving recordings she has made behind our backs and in our faces for so many years. Here’s to the many more earfuls the future holds!

The Project

Jeanne and I began discussing putting together a CD of the best of her candid recordings in 1993. She and Harry and Lily were preparing to leave us in the S.F. Bay Area to move far away to somewhere Seattle-ish. Knowing I could never devote the time needed to go thru her zillions of old tapes, I asked her to pick a few of them and give me notes on what she thought I should excerpt. Well, she handed me two cases of tapes - the mythical “first armfull” - and lots & lots of index cards with her scribbled recommendations on them. Then, she was gone.

I was glad the first difficult steps had been fostered, but every time I’d look at those 40 or 50 tapes I’d think - God how overwhelming and of course I’d do something else instead. But then one day I just pulled them out and began the work that would have to be done if the project was ever going to occur. The first step was to skip any sections of tape that Jeanne hadn’t recommended I use, and go right to the good stuff. I listened to those passages and dubbed off anything remotely funny or musical or historically interesting on to REEL TO REEL TAPE! Yes, it was that long ago! Sometimes I would rewind and play the reel thru again, listening & stopping to edit out what fat I could with a sharp razor blade, and splicing the master back together with adhesive tape. After a year of doing this on-and-off, I had only made it thru 4 or 5 of Jeanne’s cassettes and had filled up several reels of tape. Overwhelming!

So the project sat literally on the shelf and I’d think about it now and then. Finally one day I realized I could not go thru every tape she gave me before deciding what would and would not go on the first volume of excerpts - I would have to pull a Lp’s worth of tunes and stop with whatever happened to be there, or else the project would crush itself under its own weight. I took the many reels I had previously copied and added them to a number of new bits I had just reviewed, and dumped it all digitally into my computer. Hacking madly, I cut and pasted and trimmed and juggled the elements - wondering how much refinement I should put in before it got too polished?

In the end I opted to make the disparate pieces of audio move fast and never linger too long. I am hoping it will all be worth listening to many more times that way, offering lots of little things for the listener to catch upon the second and third playing. What is lost is that sense of “you are there” that occurs throughout Jeanne’s tapes. But don’t worry - there are still plenty of extended documentary moments on this CD. Time just moves real fast - like WHOOSH!

- Chris Matthews, February 2000

Track By Track

Side 1

1. INTRODUCTION •

THE OUTLAW JEANNE WHALEN (1:45) - The Cast

We begin with a wacky sampling of quips & quotes from some of the many source tapes Jeanne provided me with. This is ART people - there’s little reasoning behind any of the editing decisions you hear. It’s a Tapestry - ahh!

Some excerpts from emails Jeanne and I recently exchanged:

CM: “I have abandoned the concept of trying to make this sound anything like a tape you would have made for me or Matt or Lillian or anyone” - - -

(J: “Why? it is so easy to do....”)

- - - “although I have started it with your intro that presents it as such. But I have tried to fit a lot in so there's not a lot of breathing room - it whips right to the next good excerpt, somewhat chronologically.”

2. JEANNE PEED IN MY SLEEPING BAG! (1:34)

(includes “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” • “The Pepsi Song”)

Recorded: circa 1973 • Who’s On It: Jeanne as a Teen, with friends Kim, Rhonda, Hedy & Buddy

On many of Jeanne’s oldest tapes she is very rarely heard saying anything at all. She was being Little Miss Technician, recording other kids or her radio & records, or dodging her dad’s mic. In this first armfull there is one old cassette, labelled “Reel 16” by Jeanne, that does contain her voice along with some other young playmates. Sounds like they’re having fun, but, as kids’ recordings often are, the whole thing is utterly chaotic and you wonder what in hell is going on in there? These excerpts are from two different parties on that tape.

“I have one my friend Kim and I made which is a classic of my teenage years. We do a Dickey Goodman-type thing with music. And my first slumber party recordings - I don't know if I am on those, I might have been the engineer and shy in the background.

“This was the same time as Hedy and Buddy. Hedwick Josephine and Buddy Behling. They were the children of my father's girlfriend after my mom. They were together almost all of the 70's and Hedy and Buddy were like brother and sister to me. (I always had a crush on Buddy.) Hedy was my age and she died of cancer in 1991.

“I remember exactly where this was recorded... We were in Hedy's bedroom sitting on her bed recording the commercials. I felt so insecure and stupid because I could not come up with clever commercials like they were. They always had stronger personalities than I and being that I had a crush on Buddy made it even worse for that pimply, straight-haired, "fat" 13 year old. It was while I was visiting Connecticut - Greenwich - during the summer (maybe 1973, when Tea for the Tillerman came out. Hedy turned me on to that album.) My mom and I had moved to Ca. at this point.”

3. I MET A GUY NAMED DANNY (3:59)

(includes “My Song” • “Sedated” • “Gumby”)

Recorded: October 1982 • with Jeanne & Danny, plus Chris & Kevin

You know what they say - girls mature fast - and Jeanne is already a swingin young adult even though you’re only four minutes into this CD! She still sounds like a giddy girl here and there as she intro’s her new romance in an audio-letter to Matt - check out that first photo of her & Danny to get the proper image in your mind! These potentially-embarrassing bits are priceless historical stuff.

Then Danny’s voice appears to prove he really exists, and though he may not have known who Matt was, he valiantly shows off his guitar composing and playing skills with an acoustic piece apparently written just for his new sweetie. Jeanne has labeled it “My Song” on the master, and I know of no other recorded version by Danny.

On this premiere recording Danny mentions how he’s being forced to play bass in his band - meaning the one he & I & Kevin Tice had devolved into called “False Start” (alternating with the name “Trilogy”). To illustrate, I include here a hilarious bit of the Ramones’ “Sedated” - from a live recording off the board at a club called “The Woodstock” in Orange County. We thought we’d be so popular if we learned songs like this! It isn’t until a later tape that Danny mentions his other band, which he would soon leave us to devote himself to (and who could blame him?).

Danny’s mini-rendition of the theme from “Gumby” here is typical of the sort of non-sequitor he would begin to interject throughout Jeanne’s tapes. He knew one of us would use it one day...

4. “DON’T MIND ME (THE ARMADILLO SONG)” (5:31) - Sheep

Recorded: November 1983 • with Danny, Jeanne, John, Mike, Chris, Benny, Steve & Rob

A year later, and Jeanne & Danny’s audio partnership was in full swing. Here, she has apparently met Danny’s “Sheep” friends before and joins in the fun as we write an absurd new song at a typical weekend party at Steve Wirth’s pad. Also present are: Rob Perrone, Mike Edwards, me, John Wilson, and Benny Daniels, all of whom sing heartily on the choruses and on at least one line solo. We’d only just begun to use the “Sheep” moniker with the recent album Johnson Valley Weekend.

I don’t know why we never went back and refined this song - it may be that getting this exact lineup together again was easier said than done - so this tape became the final master. I used it on Roast Sheep - Rare Cuts in 1987, along with bits not heard here where we cleverly devise the lyrics en masse (Steve’s contributions from the background yielding the phrases “I’m fucked up!” and “Don’t mind me!” - hence the title).

5. DANNY & THE BOYS • “NOBODY BUT ME” (3:16) - The Errand Boys

Recorded: 1985 • with Danny, Joe, Keith, Buggs & Jeanne

Whoosh - time passes. Matt may have moved to Hawaii at this point, so Jeanne has Danny describe the band he plays with each weekend in illustrious venues throughout Covina - “The Errand Boys” (more frequently referred to as just “The Boys” but some other band was already making money with that name). The live recording of The Human Beinz’ “Nobody But Me” from The Oak Tree Lounge was made by Jeanne, and is typical of the band’s good clean fun-with-KRTH approach. The tape also features some good backstage dialogue from cohorts Keith Neal, Joe Velosa and Buggs Manocchi that can be heard on the upcoming compilization Bands Box.

6. A FOUR-TRACK LETTER TO MATT (:57)

Recorded: 1986 • with Matt & Jeanne

Even though Danny had purchased a 4-track cassette recorder in 1984 and had loaned it to me to do plenty of Sheep-ing at this point, Jeanne had not really gotten her hands on it for some reason. When she did, her inspiration, apparently, was to overlay her voice in this attempt to amuse and annoy ol’ Matt. (Danny may have assisted as her engineer for this piece.)

HERE’S A BUNCH OF SHEEP (THE KEN’S BEDROOM SESSION) - Sheep

7. “AHHH!” (:31)

8. “TUNING SONG” • “MIKE EDWARDS!” (1:05)

9. “I RESIST YOU” (1:35)

10. “I BUMPED MY HEAD” • THE NED PROBLEM (1:24)

Recorded: June 1984 • with Ken, Danny, Jeanne, Chris, John, Paul, Rob & Mike

In what seems to have been an attempt at recreating the group-inspired “Armadillo Song,” we reconvened with a slightly revised lineup in Ken Garkow’s bedroom in Azusa, the site of many wild acid-ic parties of the era. Jeanne, who is present but rarely audible, recorded me, Danny, Ken, John, Mike, Rob - and Paul Sidore, back in Covina from Berkeley for the summer (Ken and I would leave home the next year and live up there in his pad). Paul often inspired all of us, not only towards quality in improvisational musicianship (he had become a Deadhead) but also by making us want to free ourselves from any constraints of “normalcy” we might be subject to, and to be, well, weirder.

All that is pretty self-apparent in these excerpts from a very long informal session. I have edited out the parts where I whine a lot about how out of control and unproductive it all is. Whittled down, this music sounds pretty fucken cool! (COLLECTOR’S NOTE: These sessions also gave us a few songs that appear on Roast Sheep - Rare Cuts. The hilarious “Book of Paul” diatribe is followed miserably by “The Abortion Song,” which should never should have seen the light of day. An improv piece I called “Guitars” by Danny & Paul is worth hearing, and finally, our fairly cogent “live” rendition of “I Like Pot” - with Danny’s new little frills added - makes this session seem darn productive indeed.)

11. THE KITTY SONGS (3:10) - Sheep

(includes “Clem” • “Kitty in Concert” • “The Kitty Song” •

“Oh We Take a Little Kitty” #1 & #2)

Recorded: 1986 • with Danny, Paul & Jeanne

Don’t ask me what the meaning is behind Jeanne & Danny’s little songs they blurt out here - they just like cats, ok? It makes them grit their teeth. There is some experimentation with the 4-track here, delaying the kitty sounds for that stadium effect, and overlaying Jeanne’s inspired lyrics on parts of Paul & Danny’s new “Kitty Song” (which had already been released that year, pre-lyrics, as part of Sheep for Sale). (COLLECTOR’S NOTE: Jeanne’s vocal version, plus “Kitty in Concert” and an untitled “Oh We Take a Little Kitty” #1, were released on Roast Sheep - Rare Cuts.)

Significantly, Danny & Jeanne had made the move up to Berkeley that year, and then promptly broke up. Jeanne stayed in the Bay Area near me, Rob, Ken & Paul, while Danny sadly left to pursue new promises with The Boys in SoCal.

12. GUESS MY ENVIRONMENT! • SICK OF SMILING •

STEVE’S SINGING DOGS (1:02)

Recorded: 1987 • with Jeanne, Matt, Steve & John

This segment begins with an interesting “you-are-there” piece, but don’t hold your breath for Jeanne to tell you where she recorded it - she never does. It may be somewhere really specific that only Matt would know. It’s all a big secret.

Life went on, and Jeanne got occasionally a lot more snippy and fed up with the single life and making it as a pro photo-takin chick. Picture Mary Richards. I didn’t use a lot of her angriest moments but the “I’m Getting Sick of Smiling at These Fuckers” bit was too classic.

And then there’s one small excerpt from an interview Jeanne did with Steve Wirth for the “History of Sheep” project I was planning, wherein Steve gives us a chillingly lifelike rendition of a record he probably had been playing over - and over - and over - and over...

13. DANA’S 2ND DAY ON DRUMS • HAPPY BIRTHDAY MATTS (1:33)

Recorded: 1987 • wih Dana, Jeanne, Chris, Monique, Lenny & Paul

Here is one of only a few rare recordings of my really-gay-sounding lover-boy Dana Callen, showing off his brand new skill. This must have been very near the time we taped “Hey Big Spender” for Jeanne’s first album.

At this point Jeanne was apparently compiling recordings of everyone she possibly could get to say “Happy Birthday Matt!” for a surprise extravaganza she was planning - indeed, it turned out to be like 17 tapes long - EDITED! Here, you’ll hear Monique Boyd and hubby Paul Sidore, plus Lenny Wolfenstein and me say the magic words.

14. A SHEEPISH PARTY AT STEVE’S (6:35)

a. KSPD REPORTING • LET’S SMOKE POT!

b. NED VELCRO & THE DERRIERS: “HAPPY BIRTHDAY MATT”

c. TURNED JAPANESE

d. DANNY & THE BURPTONES: “FEELINGS”

e. STEVE ‘N’ BURPO

f. A BENNYDICTION / KSPD SIGN-OFF

Recorded: 1987 • with Danny, Jeanne, Chris, Mike, Steve, John, Benny & Burpo

She still had Matt on her mind as she filled up nearly one whole tape with the zantics of yet-another-party-at-Steve’s! Perhaps due to Stephen Burpo’s (and Mike Edward’s) normal everyday state of comedic zealousness, Danny is inspired and in top form here. He emcees and shows us what’s-what even though he & JW were supposed to BROKEN UP at that time. Jeanne must have been visiting, as must have I.

John & Benny are also heard during the course of the evening’s recordings, some of which you may recognize if you own the rare Junk & Songs collection issued in 1989, which contained some of which.

Side 2

15. LIFE WENT ON (BAD EDITS) (1:22)

(includes “Matt’s Whale of a Phone” • “Steve’s Drunken Songlet”)

Recorded: 1989 (except Matt material, 1994) • with Jeanne, Danny, Matt & Steve

Hope you’re refreshed after that little pause, and ready for more quips and quotes hurled at you at LIGHTNING SPEED! Here’s Jeanne with Danny, then a little quip from one of the few tapes I have that Matt recorded for Jeanne’s entertainment. Finally, well not really finally, since there’s much much more to come - but okay let’s say Thirdly, you’ll be treated to Steve Wirth singing a little song and you get big bonus points if you can figure out what in hell it’s supposed to be.

16. THE ANSWERING MACHINE (:55)

Recorded: 1989 • with Jeff, Chris & Danny

This must have been made awfully soon after I met The Man of My Dreams, Jeff Mitchell, which was in February of 1989. Jeanne had recently moved back to SoCal (wahhh!) and set up a nice domicile with Kathy MacLaughlin, who you don’t hear anywhere on this CD because she didn’t let herself get recorded nearly as much as everyone else, apparently. Anyways it was in Fullerton. Jeff and I made this interesting little outgoing message for them to cherish, and when Danny calls (hey didn’t they break up?) he leaves an incoming message that is at least as interesting. It’s from Frank Zappa, and it’s German but really it’s totally X-rated!! if you could translate German!

17. THAT WAS MARCH (2:26)

(includes “The Name Challenge” • “The Aristocats”)

Recorded: mostly March 1989 • with Jeanne, John, Mike, Steve, Matt & Danny

Okay, now, there’s so much going on here that you may wonder well, why the hell does this all get to be called “That Was March” as if it’s one thing when really it’s 250 things all spliced up and shit? The answer to that question is simply “I made the CD and I get to make up the titles and where they start and stop.” Also, seriously, if there was a separate thingy for every little section on this CD it just would never fit onto one baby CD page when typed out, as it nicely has on the back page of this booklet, you may find.

I have used the subtitle “The Name Challenge” to refer to two points occurring in different parts of this track, being all just ONE track, as discussed above. The “Challenge” is when Jeanne asks John & Steve to repeat their names in various ways so that I can excerpt the recordings and use them on The History of Sheep, which I’m pretty sure I did do, in a long list with others doing the same thing (except the others did not say “John” and “Steve” obviously - they would say their own names, or his/her own NAME singular - see?). Anyhow, he gets the pony.

Elsewhere in this mess there’s another swell message from Danny Hesse misreading Maurice Chevalier’s theme from “The Aristocats,” which, did you know, Disney execs had to beg the guy to come way out of retirement to do? I mean they didn’t beg Danny, they begged... oh, nevermind!

18. “STAGGER LEE” (3:32)

Recorded: June 1989 • with Steve, Danny, Jeanne, John & Steve Richards

Now this bit many of you will have heard before as previewed on Samples 1994-1996. It is extreme, but somehow also typical of the type of unpredictable behavior of an insane person. Extremely typical, and typically extreme. At heart, I guess, Steve Wirth just knows what kind of recordings will be entertaining when you play it back years later. Dan Hesse does his best to do his part, but how much can one man take? You may also hear Jeanne and John - and Steve Richards (in a rare recorded appearance) - aghast in the backgrounds. What the neighbors musta thunk!

I figured out just recently that, even though Steve seems to be freakin’ on the background part of “Stagger Lee” being played at that moment over his stereo, he may in fact be referring to the background singer-chick who screams “Go Jim Dandy!” in some completely different song from the same era. I betcha.

19. SPACE CADET! • “TAC EHT XILEF” (:42)

Recorded: November 1989 (except Danny segment, circa 1984) • with Jeanne plus Danny

Here is a piece recorded during Jeanne’s many travels in her mini-truck, going up and down and east and west and learning all about how students across this great nation frizz up their hair for yearbook photo day. This may have been about the time she started getting tired of smiling at the fuckers...

In her voice we can also discern that she was smoking a ton of pot. Thus she occasionally becomes, as she reveals here, a bit spacey.

AN ODD FLOCK AT SYLVIA’S - Sheep

20. “WHEN THE TIME COMES” • “STOP YOUR SOBBING” (2:51)

21. “RIDE MY SEE-SAW” (2:50)

22. TRACY AND DAVE ON LILLIAN (1:10)

Recorded: July 1990 • with Chris, Jeff, John Gluck, Lenny, Dave, Jeanne & Tracy

I was so happy when I learned that Jeanne had made recordings of the one and only time this particular group ever convened - you see, Paul Sidore, my regular jammin buddy along with Dave Daniels and Lenny (in a group known not only as Sheep but also as Wagner-Twelvetone Overdrive) had moved back to L.A. for some reason, and this time like really right into the heart of L.A., like Mexi-L.A., man. So Lenny & Dave & I had agreed, like people do when their band breaks up, to promise to get together again despite the loss of Paul, and here we did, bringing in Jeff’s frequent musical collaborator John Gluck to do the guitar.

The stereo Walkman recording at Sylvia’s Diner in West Oakland (Jeff & my’s home) is not too bad, these performances being the only times we ever played the songs, any of us. A lot of that may be due to Lenny’s amazing faking abilities on bass. Jeff sings The Pretenders’ arrangement of “Stop Your Sobbing” effortlessly, having studied Chrissie Hynde onstage so many times. This tune is preceded by the short piece that exists of me wailing Tom Petty’s “When the Time Comes” - too bad more of this didn’t make it to tape. I think we fake the Moody Blues’ “Ride My See-Saw” wonder-fully - please remember we are totally faking it. Dave helps me fake the words, and the sound of dual tambourines by Jeff and Jeanne (and Tracy?) make it sound practically PHIL SPECTOR! (Tracy Rhoades was probably staying with Jeff & me at the diner at the time - he was a gifted dancer and now he’s dead. I miss him.)

Another good song culled from this tape, “Hey Bulldog” by The Monkees, will eventually appear on the Bands Box compilation, I swear.

23. A HARRY ADVENTURE (2:58)

Recorded: November 1989 • with Jeanne & Harry

I made another dig into the pile of tapes Jeanne loaned me in order to find any early recordings of her with Harold Harrison - her hubby-to-be. I mean, we can’t very well get the whole story without his part of the puzzle, now can we?

At last, among the tapes Jeanne had sent me from her road trips of the era, she began to make mention of the man. And then of course she lets the tape roll on and on and on so for your benefit here I have whittled the mildly interesting story WAY down... It gets kind of like rap at a few points. You know, “Rap.”

THE KWWT CHRISTMAS SHOW (OFF THE AIR):

24. SHOW CLOSING (Excerpt) (:31)

25. “THE RING SONG” (3:18)

26. “SHARE THE WEALTH (I CHANGED MY NAME TO GRETA GARBO)” (1:13)

27. “MANGLED FLESH” (:47)

28. “BYE” (1:19)

Recorded: December 1990 • with Danny, Chris, Jeanne, Harry, Mike, John, Rob, Lillian, Steve & Erin

Jeanne & Harry had, apparently, moved back to NoCal at this point and even purchased a goddam house, can you believe it? In Berkeley! They may not have been married yet but it was inevitable. So for Christmas of 1990 they managed to get most of the Sheep gang up there, including Steve, who had never flown (in a plane) before (and hasn’t since), Even John and Lillian managed to make it - and let me tell you, they won’t travel the 400 miles to visit these days despite the fact that Jeff & I go down there to see THEM like three times a year AT LEAST!

Well I started this segment by excerpting a bit of the actual “Christmas Show” recording - part of the end of the show, actually, to give y’all context. You see, doing a recorded faux “radio” show each Christmas was a tradition begun by me & Danny long, long ago with the completely fake and meaningless call letters “KWWT” identifying our “station.” Now you know.

Afterwards, when I was certainly not gonna set up & tend to any recordings any further, Jeanne opted to continue to roll tape and captured this stuff, the “Post-Show.” More people attended the main party, but here you’ll hear only the drunken die-hards: me, John, Lillian, Rob, Mike, and very very little of Steve, Jeff, Jeanne & Harold in the background. And of course Danny was ready to keep the party up with his dinharp, and Erin Connelly is rearing to go with some songs they had written not all that long before this.

CHRISTMAS PRE-SHOW PARTY AT THE DINER - Sheep

29. “SUSPICIOUS MINDS” (1:57)

30. “CHANGE THE LOCKS” (2:31)

31. “CYCLES & CIRCLES” (2:10)

Recorded: December 1991

• with John, Lillian, Erin, Danny, Jeanne, Mike, Harry, Chris, Jeff, Rob, Cheryl, Paul & Monique

So a whole year had passed and as we all saw less and less and less of one another, the occasion of another Christmas-sy party seemed rare enough and necessary, lest the olde “Sheep” gang just never bother to convene at all.

I also just finally figured out that these recordings, all from Jeanne’s video of the event, came from a jam at the Diner that happened early THAT DAY - before the night’s party at Jeanne’s (again). So this was not a typical “Post-Show” per se - but rather, a “Pre-Show,” one might say.

There were like a hundred people there that day: Jeff & me (we still lived there), Jeanne & Harry, Paul & Monique, Danny & Erin (whose song here is one I never heard repeated before or since), John & Lillian (oh my GOD they traveled all the way up here AGAIN!), Rob & Cheryl, and Mike. And Dave Daniels might have been there earlier. The music we played was awfully rough and unfocused, being a free and loose thing, ya dig? Today Danny told me that the song Erin sings here was not written by him and her as I would have assumed, being that they were writing many many Mad Coccoon songs at this point. Instead, turns out it’s from a short-lived TV series from the early ‘80s that starred Cindy Williams - it is she that wrote and originally sang “Change the Locks,” as its theme. Fascinating? The fact that we played John & Lillian’s “Cycles & Circles” live at all, EVER, is a pretty rare event.

(COLLECTOR’S NOTE: A good live performance of “Will Ya” was released from this session on the B-side of Sheep’s “Mother’s Cabinet” in 1996.)

32. SUM OF MANY ENDINGS (WHEN ANY END’LL DO) (1:49)

Recorded: 1986 & 1989

And that’s that. Now, don’t you feel like you just spent a whole bunch of time with your actual friends? That’s the wonder of audio tape recordings. “You are there.”

See you there again, next armfull...

The End!

(Liner notes by Chris Matthews, 2000)