UPDATE -- August 18, 2003: Welcome to everyone linking to this site from the Nathan Hale 20 year reunion page. Take a listen to our songs, I hope they bring back happy memories (though I'll be happy if they just bring back any memories). There was discussion of an MP's reunion at the class reunion but sadly it was not in the cards. I'm living in Sydney now and can't get away too easily, and a few of us had reservations about singing Teenage Rebel 20 years on. We all want to do something though, so there probably WILL be a reunion -- someday. Stay tuned.

UPDATE -- July 13, 2001: Opened this page to the public, and added a few new scans from the past :p
UPDATE -- March 28, 2001: Added video of the MP's "reunion" in Nov 2000. Here it is. It clearly demonstrates that we are all now seasoned musicians!
UPDATE -- September 4 2000: Wow, it's been a while since I last updated. We've got a new permanant home now at oddtunes.com !  I also reencoded the MPs Basement sessions and the new MP3s sound a lot better. Real Audio is now streamed instead of downloaded.
UPDATE -- July 2 1999: Added our first "Photos" pages, thanks to Clay and Chris. Added a link to Mark O'Brien. Still trying to figure out whether I should write this page in the 1st person or if Steve should write it in the 3rd person....
UPDATE -- June 22 1999: Added "After the MP's..." section. Added a couple graphics.
UPDATE -- June 17 1999: Big thanks to Chris McClurken for contributing the 3 Granger recordings in MP3 format directly from a very tortured cassette tape. He also contributed a KDNA on-air interview and a scan of the MP's original business card.
UPDATE -- June 12 1999: Roman Mach painstakenly digitized his original cassette master recordings of The MP's and burnt a few CD-ROMs, which he sent to me here in Taipei. I've placed the best take of each of the songs on the web below, along with some of Roman's original notes.
UPDATE -- May 16 1999: Just found a better quality dub of some of the MP's tracks, I have replaced the previous versions here with the new versions.

My intention of making these page is to create a digital archive of the MP's material so no matter how moldy or worn out or lost our old tapes may become in the future, at least someone will have a MP3 copy on a hard disk somewhere, hopefully. All of my tapes are in extremely poor shape, and I have only one copy remaining of each of these recordings.I hope you all can write to me and tell me what tapes or other materials you have. Let's put them up here, and eventually I hope we can collectively create this online archive and open it up to others. It's almost ready to go live, but I'd like to get a MP's live recording online first.

On the track lists below, I listed the authors of the songs, AS I REMEMBER, which may very well NOT be the actual case. It has been over 15 years already, and I feel fortunate I can still remember anything from back then. My convention lists the lyric writer first, who was often the writer of the music as well. If you notice any errors PLEASE point them out ! Thanks.

For the curious, here's a link to Nathan Hale High School, where, as Tom will quickly point out, MOST but NOT ALL of us went to school. Can you believe it, Ms. Ripley is STILL there doing the yearbook?

BTW, please write to me if you would like to be placed on the MP's mailing list.

- Steve Fox
 

REQUESTS:
* The Triangle Studio recordings the MP's did in April 1984, right before I left to London. I've never had a copy of this.
* The MP's playing live !
* Any songs we never recorded properly - Roadhouse Blues, Peace Frog, Hey Bulldog, Slow Down, Monkee Business, Gonna Find my Baby...
* Scans of MP's gig playlists, telephone pole posters, anything written or printed about us
* Any of these recordings listed below, but with better fidelity. I will replace my copy with yours.
* PHOTOS would be great too. I have no MP's photos in my posession any longer. Someone please scan some photos and I'll post em. Should be good for a laugh! Anyone got a Nathan Hale '82 yearbook? :-)

TOOLS:
* E-mail me and I'll send you some links to a good MP3 encoder, CD ripper and Audio editor.
* If you need an MP3 player, download WinAmp for free. It's small and it's the best player available. If you only have cheap crappy computer speakers (like myself), don't bother with the MP3's and download the RA versions instead.
* To play the RA "Real Audio" versions you will need their latest "G2" player (Download it now by clicking here). If you have a slow net connection, the Real Audio versions will be more convenient, although the sound quality is not as good as MP3, if that matters to you. BTW, you can save the Real Audio files to your hard disk by right-button clicking on the link, then select "Save target as...". This method let's you play them back any time you want.

Photos.

We were probably one of the less photogenic rock bands in Seattle's rock history. See for yourself...

The 8-track Basement Sessions.

These tracks were recorded in March 1984 on an 8-track reel-to-reel at Rick Vaughn's Eggplant Studios on 15th NE. I remember we had at least two separate sessions, but I am not clear what was recorded when. I may be mistaken but I seem to remember we also recorded "Stud" there but for some reason it never ended up on any of my cassettes. I used minimal digital processing on these tracks.

Song Author (words/music...) Real Audio MP3(file size)
Accident McIver/Masco/Knowles/Fox accident.mp3 (2,295k)
For No One Lennon/McCartney fornoone.mp3 (1,681k)
He She City McIver/Fox heshecity.mp3 (4,217k)
I Feel Like Hitting The Fan Fox hitthefan.mp3 (2,095k)
Nail In My Ribs McIver nailinmyribs.mp3 (2,877k)
Revelation Blues Fox revelationblues.mp3 (5,268k)
Spanish Fly Fox spanishfly.mp3 (3,182k)

The Roman Mach Sessions.

These tracks were recorded during January and February 1983 by Roman Mach in Steve's basement. These are live recordings with no overdubs and as the tracks we're recorded directly to 2-track cassette, all mixing was done live as well. There were multiple takes made of most of the songs, and I selected the best take to put online here. In most cases, it was pretty obvious to me which take was best, unfortunately, School Daze only had one take recorded and it's a pretty lame take, although I seem to remember the drum machine was a last second experiment just to see what it would sound like. Oh well...

I took Roman's digital copies and made only a few modifications -- on all tracks I used a subtle level of harmonic enhancement which added just a bit more brightness and dynamics to the recordings. I fixed a couple of Clay's guitar riffs near the beginnings of Lust of Course and She's No Fool by pasting a version from a different take over the original flub. Also added a little compression to Jimm's voice on Hit The Sack in a couple places.

Listening to these tracks today I feel they are probably not the definitive versions, at least compared to the 8-track versions we did a few months later, but they do give a good idea what the MP's sounded like live (or at least in rehearsal). I think Roman did a fantastic job at capturing the real MP's sound. We weren't always the tightest band in town, and our style was all over the map, but for a bunch of 16 and 17 year old kids, I think we were pretty damn good.

The following is an excerpt of Roman's original notes made right after the recording sessions:
Vocals recorded in adjoining room
Drums behind waist-high partition
All guitars close miked
8 mikes used total
Peavey 8-2-1 mixer for all mixes
Sennheiser HD222 for monitoring
BIC T1 @ 3 3/4 IPS dolby off for rec
high-hat/snare close miked
cymbals - mike hung from ceiling
bass drum - pillow miked
r-s echo/flange for voice
old r to r (sony) used for long echo
p-e parametric used occasionally
recorded at near concert levels

Song Author (words/music...) Real Audio MP3 (file size)
Lust, of Course McIver/Masco/Knowles rmlustofcourse.mp3 (3,732k)
I Wanna Hit The Sack Fox rmhitthesack.mp3 (2,578k)
I Used To Be Amazed (Now I'm Just Confused) Fox rmamazed.mp3 (3,362k)
She's No Fool McIver/Fox rmshesnofool.mp3 (2,163k)
Push It Fox/Knowles rmpushit.mp3 (3,347k)
Accident McIver/Masco/Knowles/Fox rmaccident.mp3 (2,739k)
I've Got To Prepare For A Storm Fox rmprepare.mp3 (3,578k)
Spanish Fly Fox rmspanishfly.mp3 (2,980k)
At This Point McIver/Fox rmatthispoint.mp3 (2,436k)
I Feel Like Hitting The Fan Fox rmhittingthefan.mp3 (2,368k)
Fool To The End / Happy Today McIver/Masco/Knowles/Fox rmfoolhappy.mp3 (3,157k)
School Daze Chuck Berry rmschooldaze.mp3 (2,987k)

The Granger Sessions.

The road trip to Granger took place over the weekend of September 2, 1982. These are the earliest recordings of The MP's on this site. I know of an earlier recording at Clay's house (with Phil on drums, no Hone yet) but that tape has been lost for good. The engineer on this session was Joe Hamelin, who also interviewed the MP's live on the local radio station, KDNA.

Song Author (words/music...) Real Audio MP3 (file size)
Teenage Rebel McIver/Knowles/Masco/Fox cmteenagerebel.mp3 (2,890k)
Sterno the Ug McIver/Knowles/Masco/Fox cmsterno.mp3 (3,078k)
Push It Fox/Knowles cmpushit.mp3 (4,596k)
KDNA Band Interview A Guy named Joe cminterview.mp3 (5,372k)

After the MP's...

Ultimately, I hope we can get hyperlinks to all the personal or band web pages featuring ex-MP's. Let's start off by trying to remember all the bands -- Lumpy, Mono Men, Game for Vultures, Ice-9, Pages From Ceefax, Jughead, Riboflavin, Jimm & the Boxes, The Life... What else am I forgetting? Send me some hyperlinks!!

Here's what we got so far:

Site URL Description
Steve Fox http://www.oddtunes.com/ Full MP3 and Real Audio tracks here, plus lyrics and a recent (2000) photo. Most of these tracks were written and recorded on my notebook PC in Taipei, Hong Kong and Sydney from late 1999 to June 2001. Supporting me on several tracks are Clay and Tom on guitars, and Jimm on vocals.
underride http://www.underride.net/ Clay's current band, where he can still be found sporting his legendary MP's alias "Rex Nomad". MP3's are here, careful you don't blow your speakers, these guys rock!
Mort http://www.thinkatron.com/ Mort's company's website, which BTW, is pretty cool. No music here, but don't miss his daughters' personal home pages! Strangely, the Estrus Records website does not have a working link for The Mono Men.
Mark O'Brien http://www.mp3.com/obrien/ Mark O'Brien lives in London and is a brilliant singer/songwriter. Shortly after Steve Fox moved to London in 1984 he auditioned as a bass player for Mark's band. He didn't make the cut but a few months later Mark was once again looking for a bass player and Steve was still looking for a band. Steve joined but the band almost immediately broke up and became a duo and called itself "Pages From Ceefax" and Steve took up keyboards instead. Mark and Steve recorded several of Mark's songs in London, many of which are available in MP3 and Real Audio form at Mark's MP3.COM homepage. If you like Mark's stuff, you can buy his CD online.

Here are a couple miscellaneous tunes I dug up recently. Both of these songs are quite unique and not bad. Both of these songs were recorded in my apartment in Seattle in 1989, although I did little more than produce them. These are essentially one-off solo tracks, which probably would have been totally forgotten by now, if not for me, he he he he...

Song Author (words/music...) Real Audio MP3 (file size)
Don't Leave Us McIver doneleaveus.mp3 (2,825k)
Here Comes Mr. Christmas Knowles mrxmas.mp3 (3,681k)