I realize I have been remiss in giving you some context for my music, so I thought I would take you way, way, back to the very first song I ever recorded. I was 18 years old, a freshman living in Ogg Hall (RIP) at UW-Madison. I had been trying to make up songs for the previous six months using a walkman my brother Aaron had gotten at a drug store years before. Sometimes I would wake up in the middle of the night and whisper an idea into the recorder, so as not to wake up Phil, my roommate. Sometimes I would wake up in the middle of the night and whisper an idea into the recorder, so as not to wake up Phil, my roommate. I would try to either just play along to the track I recorded on the walkman, or attempt a sad multi-track situation by playing the tape back on Phil's tape player and recording a new part while the old one played a few feet away. I was ready for the next step! http://www.andrewyonda.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/04-Matt-Van-de-Bogert.mp3
I begged a ride from Aaron in his '83 Toyota Celica to Ward-Brodt Music Mall and spent exactly $500 on a Fostex 4-track. I still remember how excited I was, squeezing into that little two-door car with this big box of musical potential. To record I used an old cassette tape I had sitting around, and I used an old pair of headphones as the microphone. I got a bunch of friends in my tiny dorm room and we collaborated to make this genius little ditty about another guy on our floor (Matt) who wasn't there that night. It starts with Reid and the first rapping is by Jordan. I handled the beats (on my Casiotone 501) and the chorus at the end. I didn't even know how to record separate tracks at the time, so every track we added just went on top of the last, so I couldn't edit levels or anything. Ahh, they were exciting times!