| Curriculum Vitae Trolley was born out of the Freak Brothers Society from a cocktail of space rock, jazz, rock, and dub. One night in the summer of 1993, basking in the glory of a great sponsorship for my PhD (which never materialized), Ali (drums) and I decided we were going to form a band, I was going to spend my grant on keyboards, and Rick was going to be the guitarist. Luckily Rick agreed when we told him, and we collectively persuaded Mark to dust his bass off and join us. At our peak, we had over 2 hours of original compositions and played to packed student events around Birmingham. Ultimately however, our 'personal and artistic differences' led to our gradual disintigration only 18 months after we first jammed together. But what a time it was. For Rick and I, trolley was often the only lifeline in a crazy world. Some of the lyrics can be found here. |
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CD Graphics Front: Pre-gig setting up in Berlins nightclub, Birmingham University. Inside: The band (clockwise): Bendy Andy, Ali, Mark, Rick. Back: Birmingham University, info and the track list. Click here to see the original cassette case design. |
| MP3s Available for Download: | |
| Decide | Trolley's finest hour. Rick came to a practice session with some riffs, some words, and not many ideas how to put them together to make a song. We jammed for some 20 minutes, during which a tape machine was miraculously recording. Rick notated the recording and 'Decide' was born. |
| Psychedelic Milkman | Hmmm, Space pop, perhaps? I dunno, but dang fun. I was extremely pleased with myself to have written a guitar riff, even when Rick altered it for practical purposes. I was also very pleased with myself for dealing with heavy modulation on a thick organ sound, something I am scared to death of going out of control. |
| Mushroom Down | I always loved this song. I still do. We never quite got it right though, partly because my somewhat shakey singing, and partly because of our abilities. We just didn't know how to play slow, lilting things. Mind you, this remix hides a lot of our problems after some heavy editing and effects. |
| Breathe | Building on the success of 'Decide', Rick brought us 'Breathe', which was a natural Trolley song. Heck we could play this space rock stuff good. I always wondered if 1 1/2 minutes was a bit much for an intro, though... |
| (I Don't Want to) Save the Whale | Trolley was never meant to play pop songs. Whenever we tried it somehow went disasterously wrong. Save the Whale was tabout the best we ever managed. |
| What Did You Do When You Were With the Pixies? | Fast and weird. Perhaps a little beyond our somewhat limited talents, but when we got it right, it rocked. This remix has a LOT less effects on the vocal than the original. |
