Notes on the individual tracks:

Hellish Beat: This song originally had vocals but it was a lot of mindless yelling. I edited it down until it was nothing but really solid instrumental and then added in the cowbell at the beginning. The idea of putting an instrumental with a cowbell intro as the opening song of an album was hilarious.

Noise Reduction: Originally about 4 minutes long, which was way too long for what it was. Thus, I edited it down to a crisp 2:23 or so and added the drums.

I Coulda Been Somebody: This song was greatly improved by the over the top epic drums that sound like something from 2001: A Space Odyssey. There was some unintentional feedback in the vocals that I tried to edit out as best I could, but you can still hear a slight bit during the climactic title line near the end.

Knife: The original recording of this song was pretty rough, but I always thought there was a good idea in it. I finally harnessed in the best parts and ditched the sloppy stuff, and the drums also really drive this one forward in propulsive fashion. This is probably one of the more accessible songs in terms of traditional structure.

Smoking Rope: This one is the first single. I always felt it was one of my best, and the eerie and tripped out drum loop only adds to it. The video is on You Tube now as well.

Don't Take Away My Happiness: This song was originally one of the first things I ever recorded on my first, very crude, demo tape (and no, that one won't see the light of day unless there's a demand for it). There were two other versions I recorded but most of the finished version is the 2nd one, with maybe a sampled in line "I said" used from the 3rd version.

Jungle Bellow: One of the absolute hardest songs to put together, mainly due to the weird prog rock sections to it that required a variety of drum beats. The soft, whispered intro needed a softer drum beat, while the wild midsection needed a more booming drum beat, and then the even crazier feedback drenched finale needed yet another type of beat. I felt a bridge was needed between sections 2 and 3, so I added at first a military style drum beat (which later became the intro and finale to Beware of the Deep Voiced Commando). I edited that out and just added a typical drum beat that built to a crescendo, but there still was no ultra cathartic moment. I finally added in this mega loud scream from a song I wasn't using otherwise (Screaming Fool), and finally that was it.

Conception: This one was pretty easy to do. The original song was fairly clean since my recordings were getting better. Just added the drums and maybe edited them a bit until it worked.

What's the Meaning of This?: Honestly I thought about cutting this song initially since I wasn't all that happy with the 2nd half of it, which was too much of the same beat. But then I added the initial driving section of the song to the 2nd half, and now it very well might be one of the better songs on the album.

Pioneer Stock: Much like Hellish Beat this came from the same recording sessions, and yes, it had some really bad vocals that I edited off. I loved the sound of the keyboard itself on the demo though, so again I kept what worked and trashed the stuff that didn't. The drums were icing on the cake. The curious beginning and end beats were done purely by accident, a byproduct of drum after effects.

Cold Turd: This one was a headache. I always thought it was one of the best demo tracks, but the song's beat was so fast it was hard to play drums to it. I messed with it 3 or 4 times, scrapping various versions entirely before finally settling on the current one. I don't know that I am still 100% happy with it, but it is the closest to what I had in mind.

Sitting There: One of my brother's favorite tracks, he just cracks up at the booming vocal yelling at the beginning. The drums were desperately needed here however since the original was so barren sounding. The static intro was originally from a track called Revolting, which I just couldn't get to sound right and abandoned, but I always liked that part so I used it here.

Bon Jovi Sucks: One of my favorite tracks, it's just so booming and propulsive. This song is a keyboard style take on some of the more fast and insane sounding songs on In Utero (Scentless Apprentice for instance would be an influence). The drums initially sounded a bit tinny so I added some bass boost to give it the crunch it has now. The drum sticks at the beginning were originally from Sitting There, but the static intro worked better there and the sticks work better here. The song has nothing to do with Bon Jovi whatsoever...I just loved the title.

Beware of the Deep Voiced Commando: As noted in Jungle Bellow, the military style drum intro and ending were originally a bridge in that song, but it fit the commando theme here better. The rest of it was in pretty good shape initially and didn't require much else in the way of editing/mixing.

Sherlock Homeboy: Much like Cold Turd this was one of my favorite demo songs for years, mainly because I always liked the deranged feedback drenched anarchy in the last 30 seconds. In truth, the initial drummed version still sounded like it lacked punch, so I double layered the keyboards during certain sections. And yes, much like Cold Turd I am not 100% sure I like the mix on the final version.

Mardi Gras: It was easy enough to add a nice little drum beat to this one, yet when I ran noise removal it made the track sound distorted at times. Thus it became necessary to run normalizing on certain sections to get rid of the blaring sound (think of a TV with the sound up too loud and mediocre speakers).

The Banshee: This one was not hard at all, the drumming fell into place easy enough. I maybe added in the cymbals at the beginning since otherwise it just sorta begins with no warning.

Space: I almost abandoned this track since the vocals in the midsection just couldn't be raised high enough due to the vocal and keyboard being initially recorded together on one track. I got it fairly audible. It is a fun little minute and a half song.

Metamorphosis: Where do I even begin? This was originally a series of unrelated instrumentals done on a single demo tape, but I never quite knew what to do with any of them. I knew the Submarine songs (parts 1 and 5) were always meant to go together somehow, but not the rest. Ironically, the original song called Metamorphosis just wasn't working so I cut it out and replaced it with a different section (Chaos, part 4). Anarchy (part 2) was originally a 5 minute long piece of mayhem that was easily the most extreme thing I ever recorded, although it was edited to under 2 minutes here. Scrambled Brain (part 3) was complete lunacy and a blast to lay drums down to. The idea of doing a multi part prog rock 9 1/2 minute long epic came to me while lying awake late at night. In theory the five sections should work in circular fashion like this: A slow, ambient introduction (Submarine), then things start getting crazier (Anarchy), then descending into total madness (Scrambled Brain), a violent and mayhem fueled recovery (Chaos), and finally an even eerier and haunting finale (Submarine 2). I worked on this constantly. It took more editing and mixing than the other songs combined.