"COLTON AVENUE"
THE SONGS

1. Mr. Downtown

Ross and I saw "That Thing You Do!" the night it opened and after that we threw around the idea of arranging one of the many great songs in the film.  It was between this and "Lovin' You Lots And Lots," but we eventually decided on this one, as there was more to do with the arrangement, and the solo would undoubtedly be a real crowd pleaser.  I'm not sure why I decided to throw in a bit of "James Bond" at the end, but the arrangement just seemed to beg that.  This piece became Jeremy's calling card and a staple of our "Grossmont serenades."  At one point we were going to perform this in concert with all of us wearing trenchcoats and someone operating a spotlight from the back of the chapel, but that proved to be an unwieldy idea.  Jeremy traditionally did a random spiel in the middle 8, and so when it came time to record this song for "Colton Avenue," it seemed only natural that he do an introduction of the "band," and that we place it at the beginning of the album.

2. Only A Lad

Cool arrangement that Devin brought in from his old Berkeley group Artists In Resonance.  This became a fan favorite and usually came near the end of our shows.  Sometimes I would go slightly nuts whilst singing the solo, to the bewilderment of the audience, I'm sure.  One time we performed an insanely fast, double-speed version of this song as an encore...I think I fell over at the end.  Matt and I tried various ways of adding slap echo on the word "fry" in the studio, but with our limited equipment we couldn't do it.  Then one night while I was mastering everything on my hard drive I messed around with it in one of my wav editors and realized that with a bit of sleight of hand, I could do it myself.  However, a magician never reveals his secrets...

3. Only You

The Flying Pickets' arrangement of the old Yaz(oo) song.  Pretty straight forward.  Occasionally Steve and Jeremy would change the lyrics in the last "only you"...the most memorable one being "Mountain Dew."  A handful of alumni performed this recently at the wedding of ex-Those Guy! Steve and Autumn Earle.

4. More Than A Feeling

Ross' obsession with Boston and other "hard rock" bands led to his arrangement of this classic rock tune.  Nowadays Ross will say that this arrangement lacked something, but most will agree that the performance is pleasing nonetheless.  Ross decided to cut the solo section out as the arrangement was already long enough as it is.  Ryan and I both tried overdubbing vocal percussion onto this track several times, to no avail.

5. View That Holy City

I arranged this song to be performed in the 1997 Feast of Lights, but because of the glut of new music, there was no room for it in the actual presentation.  Instead, we serenaded patrons as they entered the chapel, with this song and many others.  This arrangement was courtesy of the amazing New Life Praise Singers from Kiev (see track 13 for more info).

6. Ana Ng

Devin and I both tended to go for the obscure, and he threw this arrangement together of this classic They Might Be Giants song (apparently with my help, though I don't even recall being involved).  The solo was originally done by Devin, with me doing the "Annnnnnnnnn" parts in the chorus.  In one concert I ran around and yelled it from various places on the stage.  I've been a TMBG fan for over a decade, and I was happy to take the solo on this - the first song I had ever heard by the band - once Devin departed the group, with Joel taking over the "chorus pleading."  I had a while to work on my John Linnell impression between the time we did "Shoehorn With Teeth" and this track, though in retrospect it doesn't sound as if I improved at all.  We had a lot of fun overdubbing and mixing this one, though it took quite a while to get it just right.  We thought it might be fun for Matt to make a little cameo in the spoken part, and after some coaxing we got him to do it.

7. Somebody

Joel had a knack for whipping up tight, easy, effective arrangements on the fly, and this is no exception.  This Depeche Mode ballad proved to be the perfect vehicle for Tim's dulcet tones.  No, that is not a drum machine in the background...it is Ryan Duckworth's mouth, amplified *just* a tad.

8. Eine Kleine NOT Musik

This song - originally arranged by The Gas House Gang - had surfaced when I first entered the group in Fall of 1995, though we could never get it quite right.  For starters, it was lengthy, and the parts tended to be a bit acrobatic.  We toyed with it off and on, put it away for a while, and then at some point decided to unearth it and practice it proper.  I am really pleased that this song finally made it to one of our records and that the end result is so tight.  It wasn't until much later that we realized the original arrangement had been in Gb, as opposed to our key of G, and that if we had paid more attention us first tenors wouldn't have had to strain for those high notes.  Ah well.

9. International House Of Shoes (quadralingual version of "My Shoes")

"My Shoes" was one of our most popular songs in the early days, and would usually close our shows.  Devin's solo and Ross' antics were always something to behold.  The group was always trying to think up new things to do with the arrangement, after the tedium of performing it over and over began to wear thin.  One concert had Ross running up to the chapel balcony to sing his "my" at the end, then running all the way back down and up onto the stage - while singing - to join us for the final section.  At this same concert, Christopher Thaxter wheeled out a huge bass drum at the intro of every chorus, which I proceeded to give one loud whomp.  Another performance had four of us lined up to sing a shrill minor 7 chord for "my."  At some point, Devin and Thaxter hit upon the idea of doing this multilingual version, and Thaxter transcribed the lyrics into Spanish, German and French, respectively.  "Well, where is the fourth language?", you ask.  It's in the backups, where we were either too lazy or too busy to change the lyrics from English.  I can't remember now.  Devin had left the group in December of 1996, but we invited him back to reprise his classic solo for "Colton Avenue."

10. Tips For Teens

I'm a big fan of new wave, and Sparks - though not necessarily a new wave band, per se - is one of my favorite bands of all time.  I was throwing around the idea of arranging several of their songs, but this one is the one I kept coming back to.  It had energy and harmony, and the lyrics were rather silly...though many fans weren't entirely sure what we were singing in the chorus (it's "TIPS."  T-I-P-S).  The voicings are pretty much the same as the record, except for some chord inversions.  In retrospect, maybe I shouldn't have arranged this one, as it was really obscure, and I'm not sure many people in our audience "got it."  (I've only met a grand total of two people who really liked it).  But Devin and I generally never had any fears about arranging something too obscure.

11. Duke Of Earl

This was just one of those songs - like "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" - that we decided to throw together.  We decided we had strayed too far from the classic literature we used to do, so we needed a few old standards like this one.  I'm not sure what possessed me to throw in my beat box-ish percussion, but after seeing The Knudsen Brothers do this one in a similar manner, I can safely say that they take the taco with their version.  We decided to put the mix in near mono because it seemed to suit the song well.

12. Talk To Me

Ross cooked up this very challenging arrangement with some really tricky harmonies in it.  This was another arrangement that was brought in to the group, worked on, shelved, and then brought out again.  There were moments when we felt we wouldn't be able to pull it off, but we worked at it and worked at it, and eventually it became the piece you now hear on the album.  This was the last song to be recorded at the "Colton Avenue" sessions, and the result is one of my favorite performances on the album.

13. Everything Gonna Be Alright In Christ

This piece has a bit of a legend to it.  All of us were in awe when the New Life Praise Singers from Kiev came and visited our University.  I purchased one of their cassettes and we all hit upon the idea of doing one of their arrangements for the upcoming Feast of Lights.  Ross started the arrangement and I finished it.  At that time the solo was sung by Larry Klimek and the "chestral percussion," as I like to call it, was by Devin.  After our performance in the second night of the Feast, our choir director, Jeff Rickard, broke tradition and burst into spontaneous applause.  The audience quickly followed, and we recieved an ovation on the next two nights as well.  That performance can be heard on the "Feast of Lights 1996" CD, but alas, the applause was edited out.  (I always wanted to get ahold of that archive recording with the applause for my proposed Those Guys! "Rarities" compilation.)  At any rate, this studio recording features Steve doing a great soulful lead and me on multi-tracked vocal percussion.  We had fun with overdubs on this one, and I think the final result is thrilling.

14. Living For You

Pretty obscure Boston ballad, courtesy of Ross (again!).  This proved to be another challenging arrangement, because of its length and the fact that we needed "roadmaps" to find our way through.  In fact, to the best of my recollection, we never even performed it live.  This song was one we attempted on the first day of recording but after achieving mediocre results decided to return to in the last session.  This song proves that, when under pressure, Those Guys! could really pull it together and deliver.  After much rehearsing, and with a bit of luck, we finally nailed it.

15. Switching Channels: The TV Theme Song Medley

After the success of the "'80s Medley," someone hit upon the bright idea of doing another medley.  (It may have been me.  I'm not sure.  I suspect it was Ross and I collectively.)  We all voted on the songs we'd like to include, which was far more democratic then the way we had handled the "'80s Medley."  Additionally, we completed the arrangements in about half the time it took to arrange the "'80s Medley," but unfortunately didn't have quite as much time to rehearse it.   It was my original intention to have us "perform" commercials between segments for the concert, but we just didn't have enough time to throw them together.  Fortunately, with the release of "Colton Avenue," the medley can finally be heard the way it was originally intended.  All the members of Those Guys! are featured soloists in this piece.  The "TV Medley" concert was a lot of fun - with all of us dressing up as various television characters - but didn't quite recapture the magic of the "'80s Medley" concert.  However, we did learn a bit of a lesson from our experience with the "'80s Medley," deciding to make this one only 12 minutes instead of 18.  Har har har.

16. Lullabye (Goodnight, My Angel)

As I said before, Joel had a way of coming up with these tight little arrangements, and his arrangement of this tender Billy Joel ballad put Joel "in the history books," as Teron once said.  We often used this as a closer - naturally - and for our "Grossmont serenades."

BONUS TRACK: 17. Easy (live)

This is one of my favorite recordings the group has *ever* done, and was actually added to the album as sort of an afterthought.  It's also probably my favorite arrangement that I've ever done, and one I had planned to do for quite a long while.  This was the closer of Teron's wonderful Junior recital in May of 1999.  Teron had several Those Guys! alumni join him for this performance, though I can't remember exactly who.  It sounds a bit quiet in places, since it is a live recording, but the sheer tightness of the backups and Teron's amazing lead vocal made this a welcome addition to the "Colton Avenue" lineup.  You may hear some laughter during the first "ahhhhs"...this is because the baritones spread their arms out to the audience while singing them.  Perhaps it's fortunate that "Colton Avenue" took so long to produce, or else this recording may never have seen the light of day.

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