Nobody Else Sounded Like This, And That Scared Us

The east coast tour in February ’93 would be our last together, ending with a harrowing drive through a nighttime blizzard in the Pocono Mountains and one hell of a yelling match the morning after at a snowed-in truck stop. We survived the weather, but the road would take its toll and make for some trying recordings sessions at The Terrarium in Minneapolis later in the year.

In the studio, self doubt plagued us as it became clear that the breadth of styles and the rapturous tone of our new music was not in synch with the era of post-punk and grunge. Nobody else sounded like this, and that scared us.

Fans will recognize a few of these songs from the versions we later recorded for 1994’s PARLEZ-VOUS FRANÇAIS? album. But most will be completely unfamiliar, unless you’d happened to catch a show in ’92 or ’93. In fact, even we had forgotten about them, until a spate of archival work for a deluxe version of PARLEZ-VOUS turned them up. Twenty-one years later our “lost sessions” finally see release.

Looking back, the tracks illuminate the unique musical vision of a band who’d spent years whipping audiences into a state of wonderment. Whether in the US or Canada or even the Virgin Islands (no blizzards there), we should have embraced our weirdness.