Ringlets & Gaskets / The Catskills Tape

Ringlets & Gaskets sessions recorded between 1988 and 1990 in Jersey City, NJ The Catskills Tape recorded in 1994 in Chichester, NY track 1, track 3-14, track 32 - previously unreleased from the Ringlets & Gaskets sessions track 2 – originally appeared on the Yeti Nine compilation tracks 15-17, tracks 30-31 - originally appeared on “The William Berger Ringlets & Gaskets Cassette” – edition of 4 copies. tracks 18-24 , tracks 26-29- previously released as download only on bandcamp as The Catskills Tape track 25 - previously unreleased from the Catskills Tape sessions “During the mid to late 1980s I was using a Tascam 4-track Portastudio as a cassette tape sketchbook, throwing down sounds and melodies with reckless urgency between bouts of drawing comics and oil painting in a top floor loft in Jersey City. The idea was to fuck around with sound and music without regard to any rules or production concerns. I just got stuff down on tape to see what came up. Any recording was better than no recording. I had met the home-taping pioneer R. Stevie Moore by chance in a Sam Goody record store when I was 17, and his records, with all their little glitches and splices and insanely hooky hooks really did it for me. Low-fi held the magic. When the Tascam became a thing in the 80s there was nothing holding me back. Cartoonist (and then WFMU DJ) Kaz moved in, and our loft became a buzz of 24 hour psychedelic energy. Bill Berger’s Low-fi radio show emerged in response to the growing home taping scene. Mike McGonigal started up his legendary Chemical Imbalance. Generator Music Gallery opened in the East Village and sponsored live shows with Arcane Device and Conrad Schnitzler. On 8th Street, Psychedelic Solution put original underground comic art and blotter acid on the walls (we met R. Crumb and Charles Burns!). Steve Cerio worked there and came over to collaborate on a few recordings using my shitty drum kit which had been rescued from the trash. My crap 35 dollar Telecaster guitar copy was a mainstay in those days. I made instruments out of drinking glasses, rubber bands, butter knives. And I had somehow gotten a hold of an old red and white 60s Farfisa organ, which I put to constant use. In addition to collecting ambient sounds with a Walkman cassette recorder and a little stereo mic, I gathered musical instruments of all kinds. I had a double pipe zummara, a bombard, a clarinet, a trombone, a buck call, a jaw harp, a banjo and a banjo tuning pipe. I had a busted, re-glued nylon acoustic guitar, a bunch of cheap mics, and an original wah-wah pedal. There were piles of books, stacks of cassettes, all the vinyl of course, a sturdy Remington typewriter, and plenty of wires going across the floor. Once a tiny magic mushroom sprouted from the moist wooden edge of our kitchen countertop where we had previously split up a bag of them. 25 O’Clock by Dukes of Stratosphear had recently come out, and Bam-Caruso was re-issuing all those lost 60’s gems. My songs came together piecemeal, often in long, late night sessions sitting cross-legged on the floor with headphones on and instruments all around, bouncing tracks to make room for more tracks. I couldn’t play the drums to save my ass but didn’t care and would lay down the drums ahead of time without knowing what the song was yet. My only high-end instrument was a Rickenbacker bass guitar because, well, Chris Squire right? Oh god, yes, we had heaven.” Alexander Ross, 2023