It’s Mr. Tardy. Red Quiet is not dead. Red Quiet is away for now playing with synthesizers, tape loops, and other electronical things.

In July 2007 Dr. Q, Chucky Bronson, and I spent many humid summer afternoons spinning the greatest hits of Dionne Warwick in the basement of an abandoned house in Cambridgeport. By August the song “Heartbreaker” had eclipsed everything else in our respective lives. It was an obsession. We worked tirelessly trying to master it. It got to the point where our live rendition was virtually indistinguishable from the recording. We even played the random scratches and pops of the record perfectly on cue with the aid of a spray bottle and hanging phone book.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wc5vPwD1OL0&feature=fvw

One morning we realized we couldn’t take it any further. Thinking about my childhood and remembering how a puzzle could be made even more challenging by flipping all the pieces over I suggested we play the song in reverse. So we spun the record backwards and started all over again. The new backwards chorus became “beware of the gerbil with the fuse coming out of its ass.” Once finished a peculiar thing happened; we found we could not remember a single note of the forward version. Without hesitation Chucky B. shattered the record into smithereens. It was as though we had arrived into a new world, delivered from a silvery birthing machine made by angels smelling of Junior Mints.

Eat Local. Eat Junior Mints. I have to go #2 now.

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