When I lived in Baltimore and D.C. I used to make a weekly trek to a West Baltimore basement to record with the amazing SKURJ! I played guitar and recorded while Allen played bass and Dan and Malcolm rapped off the top of their heads. I would hit the record button and hope whatever happened would be awesome. I would then tweak the tracks over the next week and mix everything down before the next session. After a month or two we would have a compilation to duplicate and hand out to our small but loyal group of fans. Aside from from our Baltimore base, Dan says we were big with some high school kids in Jersey.
We were never a big deal and we never even tried to be. All of us just loved trying make the other guy laugh. So the music reflects that. We never took ourselves too seriously, and that is why Skurj still exists after more than 10 years. The fact that we respected the humor and we couldn’t wait to hear what was next kept us going. Get us in a room with some party favors and hit record. We will give you an album with at least one good song.
When I first started playing with Skurj, I approached the situation from the perspective of being a big fan of Ween, Beck and Sebadoh. I was way into the whole 90’s D.I.Y. recording thing. Skurj was just the right situation to actually do that. I started out recording on a 4 track and graduated up to a Roland VS-880EX. Technically it was a huge pain in the ass by current standards, but I captured the sound. Now Allen has a roided-out PC with numerous recording programs and I only record on my computer. Anyway, that means there is a bunch of SKURJ sitting around on tape. We did our first 2 years analog, and none of that is online….Watchout!
Well here is a classic that captures our late 90’s early 00’s sound. I guess this was recorded eight years ago? I can’t really remember. I’m sure Dan or Allen might. I miss those guys on Sunday afternoons.
This is only my first Skurj post. In the future I will be posting rare tracks from the past.
www.myspace.com/skurj
