Recorduroy

Recorduroy

2001

The year 2000 was slow for Cloister. We played a few gigs, our first, thanks to Tony Renner was at the Way Out Club when it was on Cherokee Street opening for Tiger Mountain. However, we were finding out it was tough to reproduce our recordings. We didn't have a drummer or bass player and the sound didn't always translate live. The end of 2000 was spent working on a new batch of recordings. I had a pretty good grasp on the digital recorder and the songs we were writing were getting better. Also during this time we started hanging out at Frederick's Music Lounge. The owner, Fred Friction, took pity and offered us some regular gigs. This was a chance to figure out how we can translate what we're doing on recordings in a live setting.

By March of 2001 we were getting more confident in playing live and we were satisfied with the new CD we produced. Once again I "engineered" and "mixed" it in my basement. It got a number of nice mentions in the local press and helped garner a Riverfront Times Music Award Nomination (we lost to Grandpa's Ghost). One of the most interesting things that happened when we put that disk out was the attention we got from an Internet radio station called 3WK. The station was one of the first (if not the first) Internet radio stations known globally that was playing independent music or Indie Rock. It had a stellar reputation and was by chance located in South Saint Louis. The owner and programmer, Jim Atkinson, had started playing a couple songs off of "Recorduroy" and we began hanging out at the station together. Another friend, Martin Garner, produced an Internet video (pre-YouTube) for one of the songs on the disk called "Operator Malfunction". The last gig of the year ended on a high note as well. It was an event put on by Eric Hall then organizing the Third Lip Cabaret shows that were held in various locations around the city. This show was on Thanksgiving at the Galaxy and the bands included were The Highway Matrons, Fred's Variety Group, Julia Sets and members of Grandpa's Ghost. Playing at that show is a highlight of my life. By no means was this a runaway success, but all these things made for a very encouraging year and by December we were back in the basement working on new material.

Mike Cook - drum machine programming, keyboard, moog, vocals
Garrett Fronabarger - guitars, keyboard
Dana Smith - guitars, keyboard, organ, vocals

Track listing

1. Possibilities

2. Rubbing the Curb

3. Cars/Changing

4. As Small As Your Pants

5. Operator Malfunction

6. I See You

7. In The Countric

8. Shooting Eyes

9. Drunk

10. Burrows