I found the early masters of our albums F***ed Up and Very Rough Mix. I decided to re-convert them to (higher quality) mp3 and ogg formats and make the full albums available for free. This is not the final (released) version, it is just a nice snapshot of a work in progress… If I recall correctly this master is right after dumping the tracks off my old Teac 1600 reel-to-reel deck.

These masters are not cleaned up and tweaked (and normalized) like the actual albums were, but I think it’s worth a listen. If you like them I can probably dig up a copy of the release version of the album and get you a copy (for a small fee), the production values on the final versions were a bit higher.

Very Rough Mix was kind of our second demo album (we had a demo album entitled Rough Mix, but it’s out of print at this point) and we had a good time writing the songs on this one… Lots of late nights and early mornings. Many of the songs were written ‘on-the-spot’ and it’s a pretty good representation of our improvisational side.

We had many different friends help us out, we used to have jams in the studio every weekend (we worked in a large musical instrument store at the time) and it kind of set the basis of our rotating lineup (Kevin and Jer who later joined the band used to come over and jam with us all the time back then).

I used to work in a digital studio and the lo-fi style is intentional, I was growing tired of the loudness war going on and I prefer the way things were recorded in the late 60’s and early 70’s and was really into bands like Pussy Galore , Boss Hog, 20 Miles, and Honeymoon Killers, so I went for a certain sound that some will like… others will not.

I converted them as HQ VBR mp3 and ogg, so they are a bit bigger than a lot of low bitrate mp3’s that you may be used to, but the frequencies are all there… =)

OK, here is the early (pre-release analog) version of the album Very Rough Mix from 1999 by The Beckament Band.

1. Crazy (mp3 - ogg) - music: Chris. Original instrumental ‘demo’ version… You might like the version on the F***ed Up album better.
2. ASoda (mp3 - ogg) - music: Chris, percussion: Chris and/or Erik (I don’t really remember). I called in sick from work to record this.. It is really just an intro for the song Blue.
3. Blue (mp3 - ogg) - music and lyrics: Chris. Original ‘demo’ version… You might like the version on the F***ed Up album better.
4. Tomtom (mp3 - ogg) - music: Chris and Erik, vocals: Chris, drums: Terry. This is the ‘demo’ version before Crystal joined the band (I like this version, but think that Crystal made it a lot better on the next album).
5. Great Escape (mp3 - ogg) - percussion: Chris and Erik, vocals: Chris, bass and guitar: Chris. Our drummer took his drums home and we really felt like writing a song so we slapped some microphones on a street sign (resting on a keyboard stand) and did the percussion ourselves (fortunately Nate left his drumsticks at the studio). Another song that was greatly improved when Crystal joined the band.
6. HighSchool (mp3 - ogg) - spoken word: Jaffi Galac, vocals: Chris, music: Chris, drums: Terry. Jaffi (from KAOM) called me on the phone and I recorded the conversation, he can really write some interesting stuff…
7. Juice (mp3 - ogg) - guitar: Chris and Erik, drums: Brandy. Brandy was more of a percussionist (she just got her kit a few weeks before recording this one, but she has a good understanding of timing and rhythms. I consider this song ‘incomplete’ (this was our demo album after all) and plan to finish it up some day. I believe she left the band to go the Berkley school of Music (I recorded her solo composition for her application so maybe I helped her in some small way).
8. ASlow (mp3 - ogg) - Erik gets credit of this one… He wrote most all of this song, I just added some incidental stuff and helped arrange it. It’s worth noting that there is no bass on this song, just me playing the guitar… -Chris

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