COMMONERS/WIVES: A SHORT HISTORY

Commoners and Mafia Wives were a couple of names Jason Chau and I used for informal recordings when we were in high school, between about the ages of 16 and 18. Initially we were just amusing ourselves, including one session (sadly lost in a hard disk crash) where we were joined by "third Commoner" Helen on flute. Later on Jason and I met at his house to kick around ideas for our one and only concert, which took place on November 11th, 2001 at the bottom of a four-band bill at Holy Joe's on Queen Street. This was where the name "Commoners" was first used. We played a one-chord instrumental, essentially based on the riff from the Velvet Underground’s “Murder Mystery,” for 40 minutes, with Helen on drums. Halfway through our set, Jason set his Stratocaster down against his amplifier and left the venue; he returned a short while later with a slice of pizza from across the street, which he ate while continuing to strum the one chord. This performance was not recorded (none of us could scare up the $10 fee), but “Spectrum Jam” from around that time gives a sense of the aesthetic.

Soon after this, I gathered up a little more courage about showing Jason the songs I was writing, starting with “Hanna Says.” Subsequently, Jason got out his Ovation acoustic guitar, we acquired the requisite Tascam four-track tape recorder and microphone, and over the spring and summer of 2002, we worked up the bulk of these tracks.

Generally, Jason played rhythm guitar and had all the equipment, handled the digital transfers, and played the decisive “filtering” role in determining which songs we focused on. Jason was actually a much better guitar player than me, but for some reason I insisted on playing lead, which I was, alas, wholly unprepared to do technically. Jason’s rhythm guitar remains the best thing about these tracks. He also made arranging and structural contributions, and provided the occasional backing vocal (as on the Mafia Wives classic, "Ass"). And in between Commoners sessions, he composed, performed, and recorded the untitled wah-wah instrumental that is included here, which nobody (not even me) has heard since it was recorded in early 2002.

This isn’t quite everything we did. As I noted above, at least one digital recording (called “Something More Beautiful”) by a trio version of the Commoners was irretrievably lost in 2004. Additionally, most of the original Commoners four-track tapes were already missing as early as 2003. I’m not entirely sure what else might have been lost on these missing tapes, besides the unedited “master” take of “Hanna Says.” As things stand in 2022, I only have two of the original Commoners tapes: one with just “Nighttime Falling Between Elder and Dufferin,” and the other with “Jason’s wah-wah instrumental,” a rejected early take of “Hanna Says,” an abortive attempt at a backing track for something called “Airport Song,” and finally “Spectrum Jam," in that order. I think these tapes survived because all of the above tracks were considered unfinished (plus Jason didn’t like “Nighttime Falling,” as I recall), and thus were still awaiting mixing. All the other tracks had to be assembled from ancient, decaying CD-Rs and even mp3s. "Ass," from the early pre-Tascam sessions, was preserved because it was uploaded in 2001 to a now-defunct song competition website called Garageband, where at one point it was seriously in the running for the title of the "Stupidest Song" on the platform. So I guess you could call it the closest thing we had to a hit. (It was, if anyone wants to know, a send-up of a song composed by one of our classmates, the same one who arranged the concert at Holy Joe’s.)

The first Commoners demo CD, "distributed" (there were no more than 5 copies) in fall 2002, consisted of "It Happens Each Day," "I Was That Young Once," "I Gave Her a Rose," and "Hanna Says." Shortly afterward, a second version substituted the then-new "dumb fingerpicked song" (I forgot the actual title many years ago) for "I Was That Young Once," and renamed "I Gave Her a Rose" as "Eveline," probably to distance myself from a lyric I already found embarrassing! But the recordings and order were otherwise identical. This second "pressing" again likely ran to no more than five copies. A third version, with new recordings of some of the same songs, was considered – by me at least – in 2003, but it never happened. It was becoming clear that we had both lost interest. By then, we had both graduated, and were no longer hanging out as much, nor dreaming (as we once had) of indie stardom. That spring, I struggled through two songs at an open mic – "It Happens Each Day" and the dumb fingerpicked song – under my own name, and that was the end of the Commoners. We were not yet 19. After that, I didn't play or sing in public again for almost a decade, and it would be 15 years before I made another recording for public consumption.

THIS COLLECTION & BONUS TRACKS

The entire surviving Commoners/Wives recorded legacy is presented here, but not in chronological order. For one thing, I don't really remember the chronology, except that "VU Jam" (winter 2001, I think) and "Ass" (spring 2001?) are early digital recordings, the former without Jason, while “Jason’s wah-wah instrumental” was the first thing recorded to four-track tape—without me—perhaps in early 2002, and the "dumb fingerpicked song" must be the last thing we recorded together, perhaps in fall 2002. Everything else is in between those latter two dates. (I vividly remember burning my hand on the control plate of Jason’s Telecaster as we recorded the master take of “Hanna Says” one particularly sunny afternoon in spring 2002.) There is, however, one significant exception to that timeline: in spring 2003, with the Commoners idle, I appropriated Jason's Tascam PortaStudio and, on a guitar borrowed from my first-year university music professor Lenka Lichtenberg, redid "It Happens Each Day," with different lyrics and a new bridge. This remake, intended for a third Commoners demo but never actually finished, closes the main program.
Since I have the original tapes for "Nighttime Falling," "Spectrum Jam," “Jason's wah-wah instrumental,” the rejected early version of “Hanna Says,” and the 2003 remake of "It Happens Each Day," these have all been freshly transferred, mixed, and edited for this 20th anniversary edition. The first of these is also included in its original, subtly different "vintage" mix as a "bonus track" in the download version of this collection. Another bonus track is the full (very rough) take of the Beach Boys cover "Keep an Eye on Summer" that at some point in 2003 got tacked onto the end of "Nighttime Falling" as a coda – I'm no longer sure why. It follows “Nighttime Falling” on the tape, but was recorded on a boombox, not the Tascam.

Because we were recording on a four-track tape machine with only one input jack, it was not usually possible for us to record more than one instrument or voice at a time. Consequently, there aren’t many examples of us playing together “live,” in the way that we often did to entertain ourselves and enjoy each other’s company. (“Ass” is an exception, recorded "live" – necessarily in mono – into a mixer. Jason was holding up the vocal microphone, and improvised the backing vocal.) To make up for this, I have included a raw “underdub” mix of part 2 of “Spectrum Jam” as a bonus track. In this mix, one microphone captures both Jason’s amplifier and my keyboard part (distorted by running it through a cassette dictation machine and, I think, a set of computer speakers), playing together “live.” The sound of the keyboard in the room was deafening during that original performance, but when we ran the tape back, we were disappointed to find that it wasn't really captured, so an overdub was deemed necessary. The “complete version” in the main album program was the result of us going back and dubbing a second layer of distorted organ (I think through Jason’s guitar amp this time) on top of the original “live” performance. But for some reason "Part 1," or roughly the first 3 minutes, was considered satisfactory and left undubbed. Perhaps at the time we thought of "Part 1" as a rehearsal for the "real" take, which became "Part 2." But when I put together the first edit and "mix" of the track in 2003 -- actually just the two tracks in equal mono, the running time cut approximately in half -- I used both parts, the last 1:30 of part 1 and the first 3:30 of part 2.

The story of the Commoners is really the story of "Hanna Says," the first song I wrote that Jason expressed enthusiasm for. It was also the song that we spent the most time on. It is notable, for example, as the only song we recorded two "complete" versions of, although the first version – identified here as “rejected” and included as a bonus track – must have been quickly recognized as deficient. No-one has heard this version since it was recorded, and indeed I had forgotten it still existed until I found it on the tape containing “Spectrum Jam.” The later "master" take only survives in the edited version included in the main program, with the original guitar intro cut and faded for being out of tune; the earlier “rejected” version retains it, although a drop-out evidently preserves a record button mishap. One last “Hanna Says” artifact is my original arranging idea for the song, which started it all. This snippet is also included as a bonus track.

As a final bonus in the download version of the album, I have included a tape of our attempt to record a basic rhythm track for something called "Airport Song." As you can hear, it doesn't work. But spirits remain high…ish. Unfortunately or perhaps fortunately, I don’t remember the lyrics or melody for “Airport Song,” nor were they ever recorded, as should be evident from what survives. But this "studio argument" is probably more entertaining than the song would have been anyway. And the tambourine you might just barely be able to hear was borrowed from our high school music room.

-Aaron, November 2022