Credits
1. "There's
A Lot of Love In This Room" (Lloyd)
This recording
was one of the first from my home studio. I finally got
around to making that plunge in 1993. I started out with
8 tracks and it grew to 16 and then 24 as a few years passed. Nevertheless,
this was done on 8 stacked tracks and appeared originally on
the power pop compilation, Yellow Pills Vol.2 in a different
mix. I did the whole thing at home with a drum machine
and assorted guitars.
2. "Contact
High" (Lloyd / Baggett)
This one was
co-written with a good friend, Scott Baggett. Scott is co-producer
and engineer on a good many of my recordings. This one was recorded
in the sessions for Giants but I couldn't find the right
spot for it. The reaction I got from folks when another
mix of it appeared on the NashPop sampler on Not Lame
in 1998 leads me to believe that I goofed by not including it
on Giants. Speaking of goof.. it's got some goofy lyrics,
of which I take responsibility.
3. "Step
Inside" (Clark-Hicks-Nash)
From the Hollies
tribute album on Eggbert in 1995, this track was billed as Bill
Lloyd and the Nashville Pop Co-Op. I co-produced the track with
Brad Jones, who played and sang along with other Nashville stalwarts
of the the pop community like Pat Buchanan, Bill DeMain, and
Brad Talbot. I was really tickled when Allan Clarke of The Hollies
made mention of it in his liner notes for the tribute. Brad
Jones always encourages me to play drums and I'm glad he talked
me into it on this one.
4. "Ring
Around the Moon" (Lloyd /Baird)
Former Georgia
Satellite, Dan Baird, moved to Nashville around 1992 or so and
we hit up a friendship fairly quickly. Besides really loving
his records (solo and Satellite), he's a great guy, a real talent
and (although I can't say I've met Keef..) has the truest rock'n'roll
spirit of anyone I've met in my years of obsession. We've
stabbed at writing a handful of times over the years and this
is the one we finished. The recording ended up sort of
a cross between The Byrds and The Gin Blossoms. It orignally
appeared on Fireworks Volume 2 on the Sound Asleep label
that's run by my friend, Jerker, in Sweden.
5. "How
Can We Go On" (Lloyd / McFadden)
The one and
only song collaboration I have with Jerry Dale McFadden. Dale
played keys with The Mavericks for years, recorded a couple of
solo albums, and is also in the Nashville-based pop band, Swag. I
recorded this mournful piece of pop before Swag did, but got
to see them do it live on one occasion. This was also on
Not Lame's Nashpop compilation.
6. "The
Shortest Distance Between Two Points" (Lloyd / Wynn)
Another track
from the home studio days where 8 tracks and a drum machine was
what I had to work with. It was recorded specifically for
an East Side Digital compilation called East Side Story featuring
a slew of folks on the label (The Bottle Rockets, Terry Anderson,
The Schramms and others). The song was written with Steve
Wynn in one afternoon. Many co-writing appointments in
Nashville are set up by publishers and our meeting was arranged. Still,
we had plenty in common (a fixation on Big Star for starters)
and I enjoyed the collaboration.
7. "Goin'
Nowhere Tonight" (Smalley / Carmen)
This song was
always a favorite because it reminded me of the Beatle songs
that had country overtones ("Baby's in Black", "I Don't Wanna'
Spoil the Party," etc..). On the Raspberries record you
can really tell where Eric Carmen put in one of his Beatle bridges.
Brad Jones told me about this Raspberries tribute and we got
together with my longtime friend and drummer, Marc Owens, and
recorded the basic track at Alex the Great. I ended up having
to mix it myself at home to make the deadline. This arrangement
was more of an early Who treatment with some Scorchers on top
as opposed to Beatle Country.
8. "Baby's
Breath" (Lloyd / Buchanan)
Both Pat Buchanan
and I are real fans of the angular, sweetly dissonant pop rock
that XTC have done for years and I think that there's a good
bit of inspiration from them here. We cut the drum track
(me, again) in Pat's basement and I took the tracks home and
added guitars,bass, keys and voices. Pat's original electric
12-string is in there too. When we wrote the song we had
the melody first and then sang all these oddball phrases that
seemed to fit the mood. Eventually, we made a nice little
story out of it. A different mix of the recording was on
a CD sampler that came with Pop Culture Press magazine
in 1999.
9. "Let
Her Dance" (Fuller)
From the Bobby
Fuller tribute cd out of Japan in '99. Featuring a stellar
cast assembled by superfan, Izumi Ito, I don't think the CD was
ever released in the U.S. I'd already heard several good
covers by Marshall Crenshaw, Phil Seymour and The Incredible
Casuals but when she asked me to do "Let Her Dance", I thought
it would be really fun. And it was.
10. "Work
In Progress" (Lloyd / Allen)
I met and became
friends with 20/20's Steve Allen when he moved to Nashville with
his family in the early '90's. The first song we wrote
together sounded absolutely nothing like what one might expect
from a couple of guys associated with power pop, which is good
since nobody wants to be just one thing. We did, however,
write and co-produce this track which does fit more of what might
be expected. Like track number 4, it ended up on Fireworks
Vol. 2 in Sweden.
11. "The
Lottery Song" (Nilsson)
Taken from For
the Love Of Harry- Everybody Loves Nilsson. Well, I certainly
did .. and owe a public thank you to Al Kooper. It's
really through him that I was able to take part in that fine
tribute album that featured Randy Newman, Brian Wilson, Jimmy
Webb, and Ringo among many others. Actually, both Al
and Danny Kapillion, who worked at Music Masters, were supportive
and liked my version of Harry's "Lottery Song." It was
one of the first things I did in my newly acquired home studio
in '93. Eight tracks all stacked up. The sound
of the crowd on the verse about "we could make a record..sell
a lot of copies.." are the screams of the girls from the Ed
Sullivan show featuring The Beatles. It only seemed right.
12. "Anytime
the Time Feels Right" (Lloyd / Terry)
Another very
early home recording of a song that Pat Terry and I wrote. It
was on Jerker Emanuelson's first compilation CD called Hit
the Hay. It sounds like a hillbilly version of The
Cars to me now. The chords are very Fab.
13. "Lonely
You" (Ham)
Originally
on the Badfinger tribute cd on the Copper label out of Houston,
Texas. They managed to get a really great group of folks
on that CD. Like most all of the tribute records and compilations
that these tracks were originally on, they've been out of print
or not available for awhile. Marc Owens played drums for
me on this one and I did the rest at home. Brad Jones was
nice enough to mix it for me at he and Robin Eaton's Alex The
Great studio. The arrangement here reminds me more of a
crunchy Big Star or dB's than Badfinger.
14. "There
You Are Again" (Lloyd / Lowenstein)
Co-written
with Evan Lowenstein of the brother act, Evan and Jaron, this
song ended up as the opening track on their album for Island
produced by Danny Korthmar. The album didn't really create
the kind of stir one would wish for, though I just saw their
cute mugs in an industry paper not long ago (8-2000)... so they're
still out there working. This is the same version that
I sent to Evan that served as a work demo for their pre-production. Yet
another Japanese superfan, Maki Kobayashi, requested a track
for her Lazy Cat label and that's where this one ended up (Postcards
From The Other Side-1999).
15. "I Don't
Want To Tie You Down" (Rundgren)
This track
was on the very first tribute album I participated on back in
1990. It was recorded at The Castle, where I've worked
on and off for years. Byron House engineered and co-produced. He
was a pro on the Fairlight which was what we used for keys, drums,
strings, etc. As a big Todd fan, I wanted this track
to be more like The Beach Boy's "Feel Flows" as I didn't want
to cop his version outright. The tribute CD didn't get
much in the way of exposure, to my knowledge, but there were
some standout tracks and artists involved. The CD was called For
the Love of Todd on the Third Lock label. |