Bad Stupid Delerious [sic] was my first album. I didn't really know what I was doing, and I'd only been playing guitar for a year. I recorded some of my songs on my roommate's portable tape recorder (a couple were recorded on a karaoke machine I got later) and put them on a tape. It was Jake Berendes who inspired me to embark on this project. Guest stars include some of my friends from high school.

The CD-sized cover art above was made in 2007 using this photo from Flickr. The original cover art was a cassette-sized foldout strip with black-and-white line drawings that were pretty bad. The notes below are a combination of contemporaneous notes and notes from 2007.

To download the entire album, see the OGG and MP3 directories.

Track list

1. National Anthem/New and Improv-ed: High school friend Carlos Tarango sings the national anthem to start off the album, and then I improvise a little nugget of bitterness. These were, incidentally, two different feats of recording spaced far apart in time and space. (OGG)
2. Beef: One of the better-aging songs on the album; mainly because unlike most of my mid-90s songs, it doesn't take itself at all seriously. It's based on a button Andy Schile gave me, the text of which is the first line of this song. Events take a sinister turn in the final verse.

   Kristofer Straub's explanation of the button: "It's like something a drunk trucker would say in a coffee shop at 3 AM. `You know, fellas, I've been all around this great big world, and I've found that... somehow, nothing satisfies like beef.'" (OGG)

3. Epoxy Sunrise: Good song about emotional instability, which as a teenager I was an expert at! In my opinion this is the best song on the album, and I should do a decent re-recording of it. (OGG)
4. Memorial to Pedro's Demands: Song mostly taken from "some old stuff I found in one of my sketchbooks." (OGG)
5. Dear Life in These United States: A cover of a song by Jake Berendes's high school band, which song I had never heard before because it took forever to Jake to send me the tape. I liked the lyrics so much I made up my own punky melody for it. (OGG)
6. Techno Schmeckno mit DJ Generik: Not a bad satirical effort, but very poorly recorded on Jesse Ocegueda's synthesizer (that's him chanting "Dance, dance, dance, dance"), and taking aim at a very easy target. But when you're young, the easy targets don't look so easy. (OGG)
7. Gingerale: I'll just quote 1997-me: "I don't really have anything to say about this song, except that it's not addressed to anyone in particular and that the title doesn't have anything to do with the song." (OGG)
8. Oh, Bosco! (A noise extravaganza): In February 1996 I bought my first guitar from the classifieds. My English teacher had a recording rig set up in her classroom (for some radio production project we never actually did) and I went in to practice every day at lunchtime. "Oh, Bosco!" is what happened when my friend Dario Espinoza went in with me. Listen if you dare. The tape this is from also has me trying desperately to play "Lump" by the Presidents; just so you can get a little historical perspective. (OGG)
9. Come On Down To My Boat/Funkytown: Around 1998 I stopped recording and playing other peoples' music because it's just not worth it to me, but this is pretty fun. It's based on the stand-up-comedy-esque premise that the 60s classic and the 70s classic have very similar basslines, and it takes both songs into the 90s with hard-driving power chords. I just realized that today this would be called a mashup. Good job anticipating future trends, previous me! (OGG)
10. Just to Hear Him Sing: A jazzy song about my now-ex-stepfather Roger, whom I never liked that much. Not the least of my reasons for not liking him was that for a long time I was afraid that I was going to turn out to be like him. Eleven years after writing the song, I'm pretty sure I avoided that fate. Great ending solo. Get another glimpse of that teenage isolation and emotional instability while you're at it. (OGG)
11. Spunk: Before the song I'm impersonating (pretty well, if I do say so myself) a Bakersfield DJ with the nom de radio The Real Bruce Wayne. TRBW is still working for KRAB Radio and now has a MySpace page. Said impersonation was inspired by the glee TRBW always took in announcing "Wynona's Big Brown Beaver". I never cared for old Bruce, but he did play Primus and Devo and Weird Al Yankovic when other KRAB DJs had playlists crammed full of Smashing Pumpkins and Silverchair, which was about as exciting as things got in Bakersfield.

    Anyway, the song itself is a musical version of those ridiculous 80s movies of teen angst, an idea that I'd explore more competently with my college friends in After School Special. (OGG)

12. Uncle Billy Hippy Bob: A spoken word piece about a drugged-out, borderline insane uncle who is nonetheless entertaining and inspiring. I wrote this on the bus on the way to the state Constitution Competition.

    This song has a drum part (by Jesse Ocegueda) and you can't hear it at all because just like with Techno Schmeckno, the sound quality is awful. Also, Carlos forgets to speak in a falsetto when he's Betty Sue. In retrospect, not a big deal at all! (OGG)

13. Novelty Act: A pretty good song in response to apathy and restlessness. Most of the songs of my teenage years were this earnest, but this at least has some decent lines. I remember my teacher-mentor Candice Irby really liking this one. (OGG)
14. Latest: This song started out as a throwaway, but it's one of the best songs on the album, and one I should re-record. (OGG)