Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Jordan Cooper - Rev Q&A Round III

Jordan Cooper continues to enlighten us on various Revelation blunders, oddities, and other useless knowledge we can't get enough of.

-DCXX

Straight Ahead being featured in ads for The Way It Is, yet not appearing on the comp. What a teaser. What gave?

I don't remember at all. Ray and Tommy were pretty close so maybe it was going to happen at one point, but the band didn't record in time. That might be a question better posed to Tommy or Craig. Maybe Duane or Ray would remember.

Similarly, Raw Deal being put on the back of The Way It Is t-shirts, and yet they were not featured on the comp. Any background on this one? Did Revelation even have anything to do with this shirt? I'm pretty sure it was designed and printed by the Boiling Point guys.

I think those were made by Tim Singer, but yeah, we had nothing to do with them. Then again, we did have that mistake where we put a picture of some of those guys and maybe the Breakdown guys on the GB page on the Together insert.

The Burn EP...how did this go to final press with the back cover listing the lead off track as "Shall Be Jugded"? Any story behind this?

There's no story with that at all. Everyone missed it, including me. It wasn't until at least the late Summer of 1992 that Alan Cage called me up laughing and pointed it out to me. From there on, it was our favorite typo until the "Farrside" postcard came out in 1995 or so.

The Ray and Porcell EP. This record has taken a buttload of criticism over the years. Dylan once told me it was a project to get Cappo to come and hang out like they used to. Did you dig the songs? Did it seem like a stretch, between the drum machine and even the title of the record? (ED. Note: We dig this record).

That's funny, I don't remember hearing that. I know Dylan was hanging out with Porcell a lot at that point and I think they even talked about working together on that project/band. It started out as a tape that Porcell made on his four track and I really thought it was cool and encouraged him to do more with it. He thought it was cheesy or something and didn't want to, but eventually came around, got Ray involved and did the record. At the time it did seem like a stretch. The Bold 7" (as you mentioned earlier) was one, Slipknot was another, Quicksand was another, Shelter another. Things were changing and I thought that if Porcell was getting into electronic music, that was news and should be documented. Plus, I thought it was good. The name I didn't really like, but Porcell couldn't come up with one that he liked. He originally called his first tape that he made "Track Four"but he didn't want to use that for the record for some reason.

The Old Smoke record. What is your recollection of how this record came to fruition? Did it seem like a stretch to you? Had you spoken to Mike since Judge? When was the last time you listened to it and what do you think. (ED. Note: We dig this record too, Mike Judge or not, no lie).

Yeah, this was the next big stretch after Ray and Porcell, definitely. The way this came about was that Mike was doing these acoustic songs and sending them to Porcell. Porcell lived out here and worked at Rev when I first moved Rev from CT to CA and he said that Rev should put it out. I talked to Mike every few months or maybe once a year and still do from time to time. Mike actually re-recorded the entire album for the second pressing, but we never ended up doing another pressing. We may end up putting that second version out digitally. I was actually never a fan of the bands that influenced that record, but with Mike doing music in that vein, I started to appreciate it. He got me listening to some old stuff that I never would have otherwise.

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