Outtakes of The Gods

Ah, here's one that got away. It's "Spin Cycle" -- on balance, pretty much my favorite song of Gerry's ever.





We did this in the Floor Models for the longest time, but for some reason we never demoed it and if there's a live tape of it, it hasn't surfaced. In any case, it has a sort of Buddy Holly by way of Nick Lowe or John Hiatt feel that I find irresistible.

The version above, however, was done by a later incarnation of the band, after Andy's departure; the basic instrumental was done 8-track at some rehearsal studio we were using in the late 80s, and the final overdubs and mixing were done on 16-track at Target Studios in Delaware, with our pal Marc Moss engineering, in what became the sessions for our 1995 indie album as Gerry Devine and the Hi-Beams. I'm including it here because 3/4 of the Floor Models are actually playing on it, Gerry's doing a very nice approximation of Andy's 12-string stuff from the old days and, as I said, I just dig the song the most.

That's me doing the hopefully effective organ stuff; I was trying my best to sound like Bob Andrews of Brinsley Schwarz.

I should add that the track got left off the aforementioned indie album because Gerry, for reasons inexplicable to me to this day, felt it was somehow too lyrically...I dunno, diffuse or something, for the concept of the record. I disagreed vehemently, as you might imagine, but in the interests of intra-group harmony I conceded the point. I still think it should have been on the record, in case you're wondering.

I should also add that I was even more irked about the omission when I heard Replacements' guitarist Slim Dunlap's 1996 album Times Like This, specifically the song "Girlfriend."



Which sounds to me like a punkier and slightly shorter version of "Spin Cycle." But I'm over it now.