Album Archives: Light At The End Of The Tunnel 1996

This album took a long time to complete.  Recording started on December 12, 1995 at Broadcast Manor and ended February 29, 1996, with drum tracks recorded March 1-3.

The 3rd and final of the Clarice Musel  Trilogy albums although in hindsight, the fifth and final album of the Broadcast Manor years. Which I recorded at the duplex on N St.  At this point Clarice and I were still a item, still in love and still having fun, although being together for almost two years there was some talk about moving in together somewhere down the road.  When you're in love with somebody at some point you have to include them and their own into more time together.  We talked on the phone if we weren't together but the time of writing songs that would become Light At The End Of The Tunnel.   I had to deal with infidelity issues from her, when you work second shift and then come home and trying to write songs with the guys, I certainly didn't have time for another woman.  The band was changing as well, Mark McClelland came in to replace Ken Miller at bass and would become a part of the band for the next decade, for better or for worse.  Most of the time I would trade ideas from Geoff Redding and Jack Orbit too and we would transcribe, and jam and add words to music.  It actually came together quite nice despite distractions from my girlfriend.

The usual crew was there, Brian Mullahan  co produced.  Richard Dennanbaugh recorded it during sixteen different sessions recorded between December and February, but after December 12th, we would not get back to record the album till the new year.  I think overall, the guitars and vocals were probably the best we ever recorded, and I found a way to separate the guitars left to right.  It's real cool to hear the introduction of Railroaded and having Geoff in the other speaker.  Plus the right amount of echo was inserted into the vocals to make it somewhat mysterious

The songs themselves: Disappearing Act and Late Night both came from lyrics that I wrote when I was working third shift processing Pell Grants at the old National Computer Service in 1985 and found them in a pile of unused words.  I wrote some witty lyrics back then, and these two songs came out of boredom.  Return To Town's Edge is yet another song about my city is gone and coming to the conclusion that it's never coming back.  I'd Rather Not (aka I Don't Think So) was a call and response about things in life.

It's interesting to note that at this time I was listening to John Coltrane and although the music doesn't reflect it, there's a bit of his influence in the songs that we did.  The blues type of Take It Easy, the odd time of Know Your Man, was influenced by hearing both A Love Supreme and Blue Train.  But there's more of a punk rock  new wave sound as well.  And of course kudos to Crazy Horse, the band more than Neil Young.  Although Clarice and I were starting to show growing pains being together, I did write some love songs about the way I felt toward her, Spark Of Life (that keeps me going) and especially Listen To Love, one of the more pure love songs about anybody that I wrote about.   But there was a counterpoint, like Know Your Man which was basically a warning to trust me a bit more than what she was doing.  Or Unfinished, which really wasn't that much about her, but the way I felt that things were not going so well.

A week after celebrating my 35th birthday, I had to go to the emergency room after suffering from a burst appendix and they had to operate on the same day I went to the doctor's office.  So that was a life changing event. Here I was in the middle of recording the new album and all of a sudden I'm on the operating table being sedated and not knowing if I'll finish the record, or being alive for that matter.  I recall when they were putting me under I was yelling at the Hawkeye/Indiana game and then finding myself looking at a crescent bright light from afar.  I don't think I was dead but it could have been the great white light they talked so much of when you pass on.  Next thing I know I was recovering in bed, wanting to go home bad and looking outside and seeing a blizzard going on.  There was a man who was slated to have open heart surgery in my room being a good sport and talking to me while I kept going in and out of consciousness.  I managed just to stay there one night before going home the next day and holding his hand and thanking him for his helping me through those trying times.

For the first four days, I laid on the couch, eating pain pills and watching Perry Mason reruns and the TV.  Clarice watched over me for a while but then she did two things that changed our love together.  One day, she went out on a got a 1994 Corsica and helped me co signed on the dotted line, and then later on, was trying to get me to buy a new trailer house, which I didn't have the finances to do so, not just yet.  I remember half crocked on meds and being in pain as she drove that car up and down the highway saying she needed a new ride.  I told her if she can handle the payments I'd help her but not the trailer house.   Even in pain, I still was trying to come up with new songs, but couldn't record anything till the 9th of February when I came up with Borrowed Time, which basically was a rant and rave about my situation of being cut up open in the stomach and in the wallet.  When you think about it, we all are living in borrowed time and nobody knows when their time is up.

It was a very interesting time with the Hale Bopp Comet in the western skies as well.  Our final session ended on February 29th with Forever Indebted To You, a song thanking my friends for supporting the music and Clarice as well.  She really did at that time inspired me to write better songs when she came into my life.  And as far as I know, she did enjoy the songs that I did write and played for her.  The question remains if she didn't have her boys if things would be different, they would be, but I knew all along that her boys came first and I respected them enough to let her do the disciplining of them.  And I'm glad that she was a part of this life for at least for the first 2 years together, she was everything I ask for from a woman and more.  Sad to say the year and half starting with a Forth of July blowup would eventually become our downfall and our love was no more on Valentine's Day 1998.  It would take another year and half to get things out of my name and I ended up taking the Corsica payments in 1999 to which it would live another 15 years before rusting away and given to the junkyard this weekend.

Nevertheless, Light would be the last album recorded at Broadcast Manor and there would be no new Townedgers albums till 1998's live at Wittier's The Art Of Deception in November of 98. And the last album of the 1990s Land Of Abandonment which we'll continue the conversation later.  Outside of that I love Light At The End Of The Tunnel, it's basically ends the classic years of 1991-1996 on a high note.  It is a double album, but it's very listenable and like a good book the songs go into each other quite well.  Brian and I listened to the songs and put them into sequence.  While some of the leftovers didn't quite fit on the album, they did find new life on other comps, most notably Life And Times.  The drum sound is a bit suspect, but they don't overpower.  Richard and I did a remix of Late Night on the CD reissue to get the drums to at least sound like they are there but looking back on the mixes, the drums were not recorded very loud at all.  The sound of Light At The End Of The Tunnel fits the mood perfectly of how I was feeling and I think we all knew that this record would be the last time we would ever get this sound and feeling of spirit together again.  To which that, this record remains the original fitting finale to a decade that really wasn't that bad.  Even with my shirt bloodstained from ripped stitches getting into Borrowed Time, I think it was worth it.


The Sessions Themselves:
Recorded By Richard Dennanbaugh, Assisted By Hugh McConnell, Rod Smith

Session 1-December 10, 1995
Life And Times
Session 2-December 12
Unfinished (Version 1), Late Night, Disappearing Act
Session 3-January 8, 1996
Material Eyes
Session 4, January 14
Midnight Blue (Incomplete), Railroaded, Exhibit A
Session 5, January 18
Losing Game
Session 6, January 19
Who's The Fool Here, I Rather Not, Midnight Blue (2nd Version)
Session 7, January 20
Unfinished (Version 2), Take It Easy
Session 8, January 21
Years Of Tears, Lovers Night Out
Session 9, January 27
Know Your Man
Session 10, February 9
Borrowed Time
Session 11, February 10
Listen To Love
Session 12, February 16
Return To Town's Edge
Session 13, February 17
The Waiting Club
Session 14, February 26
Spark Of Life, Weak Moment
Session 15, February 29
Forever Indebted To You, You're Gonna Miss Me


The Track List: (Comprised as a 2 record set)

Return To Town's Edge (Smith/Orbit)  4:38
Late Night (R.Smith)  4:33
Disappearing Act  (R.Smith)  4:00
Material Eyes (Smith/Redding) 2:40

Railroaded (R.Smith)  3:59
Exhibit A (R.Smith)  3:10
Losing Game (Smith/Redding)  4:11
I'd Rather Not (Smith/Orbit/Redding/McCarren)  2:30
Unfinished (R.Smith)  3:30

Listen To Love (Smith/Redding/McCarren) 2:48
Take It Easy (Smith/Orbit)  3:50
Years Of Tears (Smith/Redding)  3:32
The Waiting Club (Smith/Redding)  3:30
Spark Of Life (R.Smith)  3:44

Know Your Man (Smith/Orbit/Redding)  3:17
Borrowed Time (R.Smith)  3:13
Weak Moment (Smith/Orbit/Redding)  3:00
Forever Indebted To You (Smith/Orbit)  3:31
You're Gonna Miss Me (R.Erickson)  3:27* (Tapier Music BMI)

*Bonus track on LP and Deluxe CD version

The Band:  Rodney Smith, Jack Orbit, Geoff Redding, Mark McClelland (known as McCarren due to legal technicalities at that time) 

Produced by Brian Mullahan And Rodney Smith
Recorded by Richard Dennanbaugh, with Hugh McConnell and Rod Smith
Recorded at Broadcast Manor, CR IA from Dec 1995 to March 1996
(Between colds, flus, appendectomy, etc)
Final recording and fine tuning were on March 2 through March 17, to which final drum tracking and mixing the songs to tape were done.  Kyle Guttenburg helped on the mixing at Studio 66, Marion IA

"in the darkness of  uncertainly, there is always a light at the end of the tunnel"

Thank you's- GOD, J.C., John Coltrane, Monk, Kevin Salem, Blue Mountain, the guy who thought I played in Blue Mountain, Mike Davenport, Heidi Waterman (this woman who laughed her ass off when I ripped my pants at work), Darryl Coble (RIP), Irene Leeson (I miss you), and of course to the woman that won my heart at that time Clarice Musel, this record is for you.

And as well, to Beverley Madden, Denny Ballard and the late Danny Bowman.  And last but not least to Greg Nutter, ex Router and bass player extraordinaire.

Not to be forgotten: Ron Glaringon who left for the great white light of beyond February 2, 1996

"remember don't expect perfection. Sloppiness is art. That's what make great albums stand out.  And don't forget to support your local starving bands at any bar that lets them play music".


Released as Maier Records MRK 24976 Light At The End Of The Tunnel, April 1996