the old stuff

(recorded before time began) our first release was a dinky two song demo we recorded with don's boombox in ian j's basement. the songs on this little wonder are: love of hate thoughts these were played REALLY slow and the recording quality was as good as could be expected from the recorder. we only made about 15 copies of this one and of those that were sold, only don for sure has a copy left. (recorded spring '94) the "irony" ep was our next venture into recorded music. this sucker was recorded on a four track in ian j's basement again. it was produced by pioneering engineer extrordinaire dan liberman and took a day to record. the songs on this one are: grilled cheese thoughts 20/20 vision love of hate heartless goodbye we also got one of our friends, jendi, to read a neat little story after all the music. live at the phoenix (spring '95) happythoughts took off on tour to california in 1995. our journey took us to petaluma (which i didn't think was a real town), and we were lucky enough to make the acqaintance of gabe (from tilt and ground round) who let us play a show with the catnips, m-blanket, ground round and (trumpet fanfare) fifteen. the phoenix is a really neat place to play, and it was our first "big" show. we never really played through a PA with monitors so it was great being able to hear ourselves. this is a really good live recording but unfortunately the vocals aren't very loud. all in all, it was a good show. songs include: um. heartless popularity death of straight edge love of hate looking wishes dream (252.5k .wav file) dialogue the demo in the summer of '95 we decided to record most of the stuff that we knew. we rented an 8 track from a local music store and set out on recording. unfortunately, none of us knew a damn thing about multitracking and we wasted the first day trying to figure out how to do overdubs. the next day we decided to record everything live, instruments, vocals, the whole bean burrito. in all we got 16 tracks to tape: same old dream um. wishes wonder leave her alone dream dialogue memories death of sXe heartless popularity love of hate looking 20/20 vision grilled cheese transparency (235k .wav file) satisfaction w/ fuk shit up also known as the "don's living room outtakes", these two tracks are songs that we recorded at the same time as the demo. we recorded these just for fun, but ian k. put them on a special single for a friend. there is (fortunately) only one copy in existence. (lyrics and music traditional for both songs). satisfaction fuk shit up!! don's compilation I one fine spring day don took the old practice tapes and the previously mentioned tapes and compiled a fine little exit177/happythoughts mix tape. the happythoughts/exit177 side includes the following songs: jeremy's mom (a pre-happythoughts romp) love of hatred (from the two-song demo) heartless (from the demo) don's theme song (from a practice) death of straightedge (from the petaluma show) fashion show (from the last happythoughts show) geekgrrl (from a practice) leave her alone (from the demo) love of hatred (from petaluma) transparency (from a practice) runaround sue (a cover) (from jamie b.'s b-day party) marin (from the last ht show) john thomas and me (from a practice) dream (from petaluma) goodbye (from jamie's b-day) my life with happythoughts (the story from "irony") don's compilation II late in the autumn of 1997, don decided to create a memorial to his newly defunct band, exit177. he made a jazzy little 60 minute compilation tape with new material from exit177 practices. then they got back together again. check out the line up on the tape: nice guys never win (exit177 practice) heartless (happythoughts demo) fashion show (happythoughts last show) tear (exit177 practice) umm (happythoughts petaluma show) polaris (happythoughts practice) chewing ice (happythoughts last show) maile(tion) (happythoughts practice) marin (exit177 practice) geekgrrl (exit177 practice) leave her alone (happythoughts demo) john thomas and me (exit177 practice) don's theme song (exit177 practice) fruitcake (intro only) (exit177 practice) dream (happythoughts petaluma show)

goodbye (happythoughts "jamie's birthday" show) the sound quality is far superior to don's compilation I and each song is surrounded with nice little samples from various sources. the tape comes with a lyric sheet and the blessing of the pope. updated september 5, 1998.