Eclectronic
In the words of Bob the Robot, Eclectronic is the "new, exciting release from 404 Not Found!" Years in the making, this CD involves more contributors and sounds better than any previous release.
The official press release is now available for online viewing.
Table of Contents
CD Artwork
Track Listing
Band Members
About the Tracks
How This CD Was Made
How to Order
CD Artwork
Click here to see the artwork of the Eclectronic CD.
Track Listing
- Welcome from Bob the Robot (2:17)
- Slam the Competition (2:48)
- Death by Impaling Wound to the Vitals: A One Minute Trio for Clarinet, Oboe, and Piano (1:00)
- Space Creatures (4:09)
- Please Ignore Me (1:58)
- Something Raided (3:38)
- Birthdays (1:56)
- Space Creatures (Space-Age Jazz Remix) (3:42)
- Mongoloid Think Tank (V.404) (3:42)
- Industrial Penis (1:28)
- Welcome from Bob the Robot (EuroPop Version) (2:26)
- Tim's Amazingly Big Bottom End (1:31)
- Every City (3:30)
- Welcome from Bob the Robot (Fanatic Drums Remix) (3:17)
- My Penis on Planet X (Ver 2.0) (6:42)
- Death By Impaling Wound to the Vitals (Von Karajan Remix) (3:18)
- Eclectronic Medley (2:32)
- This Definitely Ends the Broadcast Day (3:07)
Total Time: 53:49
Band Members
These are the people who contributed their talents to Eclectronic.
Todd Bradley
todd@toddbradley.com http://www.toddbradley.comelectronic keyboards
drum machine programming
electric guitar
electric bass
voice
recording engineering and everything else
Bob the Robot
voice
sexual favors
Dirk Mewes
saxophone
Josh Russell
jrussell@frank.mtsu.edu Author of Yellow Jackvoice
words
street cred
Steve Genoff
steveg@sni.netvoice
permission to be silly
Scott Siders
scottsiders@hotmail.comwords
voice
motivational speeches
Chad Marks
cyperion@cyborea.comAmerican voice
Alessandro Perucchini
European voice
François Giorgianni
techno remixing
Byron Jacquot
thescum@surfree.comdrum programming
Doug Cornell
bass programming
Stamen3
words
voice
Steve Haugh
drum programming
Marshall Applewhite
voice
inspiration
About the Tracks
In the words of Todd Bradley:
Welcome from Bob the Robot
I think this is pretty self-explanatory.
Todd Bradley: words
Bob the Robot: voice
Slam the Competition
Steve Genoff involuntarily provided the wonderfully improvised vocal track. I set it to music. People love this song, for some reason. Even Steve loves it!
Steve Genoff: voice
Todd Bradley: music
Death by Impaling Wound to the Vitals: A One Minute Trio for Clarinet, Oboe, and Piano
I wanted to write a piece that conveyed the sadness of having your liver ripped out on the head of a metal-tipped pike. This is it. To some degree, the song was inspired by my "weekly" GURPS game, and by Elric the Younger in particular.
Todd Bradley: music
Space Creatures
Chad is serious. In this song, he tells you about several of the types of extraterrestrial life forms with whom we share the earth. I found the text on some random aliens site on the web.
Chad Marks: voice
Some freak on the internet: words
Todd Bradley: music
Please Ignore Me
This song started a few years ago as a poem written by a Swedish guy (who has since become moderately famous) participating in some sort of newsgroup or email list that I was on. His poem was a reply to another participant who wrote a test message that just said (as they often do) "Please ignore me". I thought the poem was so funny I put it away and then eventually wrote some music for it.
I had always imagined the voice track being done by someone with a European accent (German, in my mind, so the whole thing would sound like Kraftwerk). But I didn't know any Germans, so I got Alessandro Perucchini to do the voice track. People sometimes tell him his accent sounds Eastern European, for some reason, so I guess it fits.
Master Zap (Håkan Andersson): words
Alessandro Perucchini: voice
Todd Bradley: music
Something Raided
This is the ultimate in self derivative works. I took the final audio track of "Something Is Wrong With My Penis" from the first CD and fed bits and pieces of it into a piece of software called Sound Raider. After quite a bit of tweaking to get just the sound I wanted, this is what came out.
Todd Bradley: first generation music and second generation re-music
Birthdays
Based on a wonderful spoken word piece that Scott wrote, this is one of my favorite tunes from this whole set.
Scott Siders: words and voice
Todd Bradley: music
Space Creatures (Space-Age Jazz Remix)
High among the Alps lives the president of the Federated Swiss 404 Not Found Fan Club. He asked permission to remix some 404 Not Found songs and I gave it. This is one of the results. In reality, Mr. Giorgianni's creations sound to me almost totally original, but there are some connections to the originals. They're just not remixes as you normally think of them. One thing's for sure, and that is that they sound great!
François Giorgianni: "remixing"
Chad Marks: voice
Todd Bradley: original music
Mongoloid Think Tank (V.404)
This one's a multiple collaboration. The main voice track was done by Stamen 3 of San Francisco's own comedy band Anarchy Steering Committee. He put it up on MP3.com with a note encouraging other artists to take the track and do something with it. Similarly, another MP3.com artist, upon finishing a new song called "One of Me", made the MIDI file of the drum and bass parts available on the net for inclusion in other songs. And it turns out that drum part was actually programmed by another guy. It's all so confusing!
I saw these two public domain bits and decided I had to put 2 and 2 together. I did lots of editing of the whole thing, added a few samples and some music, and this is the result.
Stamen 3: words, voice
Doug Cornell: bass programming
Steve Haugh: drum programming
Mike Roadifer and The Voicemail Guy: short voice samples
Todd Bradley: drum programming, additional music, arrangement
Industrial Penis
This is more what Chad had in mind when he suggested the title for 404 Not Found's previous hit, "Something Is Wrong With My Penis". This new arrangement evokes more of the angst of having one's manhood (or robothood in the case of the original recording) caught in a bicycle spoke.
For those totally unhip to modern "industrial rock", the music and arrangement is a parody of a song called "Suck" by an angst filled musician who needs to ride more bicycles. Bob could kick Trent's ass.
Todd Bradley: words, voice, music
Welcome from Bob the Robot (EuroPop Version)
François Giorgianni: "remixing"
Todd Bradley: words
Bob the Robot: voice
Tim's Amazingly Big Bottom End
For a long time I've been wanting to write and record a song that would exercise my friend Tim's very expensive audiophile sound system. This is the one. I couldn't help but throw in a little nod to Led Zepplin.
Todd Bradley: words, voice, music
Every City
The first 404 Not Found CD, called Something Is Wrong, featured the instrumental version of this track. I finally got Josh to send me a tape of his recitation of the short spoken word piece he wrote that inspired this. You'd never know it, but I spend literally hours cleaning up that voice track. I think he recorded it by putting a cheap boombox on the other side of the room and reciting the words as fast as possible, so I had to do massive digital noise reduction and I slowed it down to make it intelligible (and so the song would be longer than 30 seconds).
Josh Russell: words and voice
Todd Bradley: music
Welcome from Bob the Robot (Fanatic Drums Remix)
François Giorgianni: "remixing"
Todd Bradley: words
Bob the Robot: voice
My Penis on Planet X (Ver 2.0)
I spent more time on this song than on any other song I've recorded in my entire life. Scott, the eternal pro, just came in and recorded the perfect voice track in one take. But getting the music to sound just how I wanted it was 99% of the battle. In the end, I'm quite pleased with the results.
Scott Siders: words, voice
Byron Jacquot: drum programming
Todd Bradley: the rest of the music
Death By Impaling Wound to the Vitals (Von Karajan Remix)
François Giorgianni: "remixing"
Todd Bradley: original musical inspiration
Eclectronic Medley
This track is made of audio and MIDI clips from most of the other songs on the CD. As usual, I had to assemble the sound bites in such a way as to sound most offensive. I'm sure when Chad recorded the voice track for "Space Creatures" he expected the word "Uranus" to be misused as "your anus", and I just couldn't let him down.
Todd Bradley: assemblage
This Definitely Ends the Broadcast Day
The main vocal track was generously donated by Marshall Applewhite, leader of the Heaven's Gate cult. I cleaned it up as much as I could and then recorded the music with Dirk. You may recall that Marshall left the earth in 1997, which makes his prediction of the "End of the Age" coming in "a couple of months or the next year or two" interesting.
By the way, I didn't ask Marshall for permission to use his voice. I believe this is the only significant copyright violation that occurs on the entire Eclectronic CD, but I'm not too afraid of him sending his lawyers after me.
Marshall Applewhite: words and voice
Dirk Mewes: saxophone
Todd Bradley: words and voice, music
How This CD Was Made
Most of the tracks were recorded in Cakewalk Pro Audio (versions 6 and 8). Then, they were mixed down to 16 bit 44kHz WAV files. Trims and fades were done using Goldwave. Then, the resulting WAV files were burned onto the pre-master CD using Sonic Foundry's CD Architect.
Simultaneously, the front cover artwork was done using Adobe Photoshop. The resulting file was then imported into Corel Draw, where text was added. Then, it was all imported to Corel PhotoPaint to be converted into JPG files.
The whole bundle was then sent to MMS in Toronto and they took care of the rest.