The cover for 2008’s The Tribute Album. This cover art was permanently lost and only recently rediscovered in the FAM archives. (photo used without permission from Summer Burton)

Liner notes for Spare Parts and Spare Ribs: A Collection of Outtakes from Ten Years of Making an Album Every February

If any artist records for a decade, it is inevitable that a certain amount of usable sludge will get left behind. Included here are eighteen songs that couldn’t make the ten albums of the month recorded between 2007 and 2016, but deserve reconsideration. Maybe these songs didn’t try hard enough. Or maybe they ran into bad luck. Maybe they had a scheduling problem with the bus system and just couldn’t show up for the interview. Whatever the reason, they were left behind. This compilation is an attempt to swoop back through time, find all of those old lost feelings and ideas, smash time into one big new thing, and poop them them all out at once.

As with impurities that a body never fully flushes from its digestive system, only by splaying open a corpse can one fully inspect what lies buried inside. Over the past month, Jeff Rose and his research assistant Miles Shropshire have poured over hours and hours of digital files, listening to failed takes, forgotten jingles, and vomited-out instrumentals. Their exhaustive post-mortem revealed many disgusting things, of which these were the biggest and most notable musical kidney stones formed from this long period of drinking melody coffee and eating rhythmic magnesium pills or something. Each track has been remixed, remastered, researched, and presented here with context. Please enjoy these tidbits as you would any ground-up-and-reconstituted, diseased, chicken-organ product.

Compilation albums are by default incredibly collaborative. As the years pass and people come in and out of our lives, then back in and then back out again, we accidentally collect little things left behind by them: memories, pieces of advice, books, jokes, hair pins, grudges. As can be imagined, there are too many people who influenced this album to mention. We can’t be bothered to list all the inspirations, but here, at least, are the friends and family and direct contributors in order of appearance:

Emily Rose
Casey Cochran
Noah Poole
Amarin Enyart
Jeff Freeman
Lloyd Thompson
Paul Whitener Jr.
Nate Lineback
Aron Taylor
Wellington Chew
Dave Faloon
Jeff Fleischer

These people cannot be thanked enough. Thank them for us if you see them.

And without further ado, we present Spare Parts and Spare Ribs: A Collection of Outtakes from Ten Years of Making an Album Every February

Jeff Rose and Miles Shropshire

February 2007 The First Album Outtakes 

“Smoke-Filled Room”
A damning indictment of Bush-era torture policy, this song was never released because of paranoia that the political statement would make Jeff a target of the powers that be.

“Porky Piggin’ It”
This song was conceptualized as a tribute to Booker T. & the M.G.s during their high-school years, when they were still learning how to play music. It was discarded because the title is about being so slovenly that you don’t bother to wear pants.

“Oh Babe, I Know What You Need”
This wonderful, stream-of-consciousness song about awkward dating was not included on the album because of fears that the singer’s ex-girlfriend would find it too personal.

Proposed Homesteadin’ Cover

February 2008 Homesteadin’ Outtakes 

Two songs from a soundtrack for a fictional western named Homesteadin’. The rough demos were scrapped when other non-western-y songs were recorded and added to the playlist. Some songs from the original project remain on the actual album: “Pick Up Your Luggage with Confidence Traveller!” and “Nick Cage v. Bruce Willis.” Those two included songs are the only other remains of the abandoned sessions. Regardless of the results, the forward-thinking, thematic attempt is an artistic precursor to 2010’s Dyatlov Pass Incident.

“Shitty Wooden Cross Grave”
Inspired by Neil Young dropping his guitar for two hours in the movie “Dead Man,” this song was cut from the final album because of a strong wind piercing the microphone guard.

“You Better Have Clothes On Under that Blanket”
The more epic of the western songs, this time about a tall, nameless stranger who rides into town on a pale palomino, while chomping on a cigarillo and porky piggin’ it.

February 2009 The Tribute Album Outtakes

There were no outtakes from The Tribute Album because the album was perfect in concept and execution.

February 2010 Dyatlov Pass Outtakes

“What Could I Ever Do?”
An outtake from the Dyatlov Pass musical. Recorded early in the month before the decision was made to replace synthesized strings and keyboards with real fiddling. The song was never fully realized and the lyrics never finished. This song is about when Lev’s girlfriend compound fractures her leg and dies in his arms. He holds her body as his comrades dig a grave. Later in the musical, they dig up her body and eat it.

November 2010: Lullabyes and Advice Outtakes

Proposed Lullabyes and Advice Cover

An album that began as an album of lullabies with parenting advice. The project died within two days when it discovered that it wasn’t February.

“Bababye”
The creative process requires unabashed experimentation and improvisation. This raw little uncut diamond, recorded just days before a calendar was properly used, is a unique look into the creative process of the album of the month.

“Spare Part”
A song transparently written after watching a reality show about hoarding. This song follows ploddingly in the already rutted footsteps of songs like Paul McCartney’s “Junk” and Tom Waits’ “Soldier’s Things.” This song was never revisited or replayed because it’s weaksauce.

February 2011: 34-Year Bluegrass Outtakes

Five incredible songs from an early February bluegrass jam-out featuring a reunion of the original lineup of “Can I Punch Your Baby?” The all-night-all-day-all-night-again session featured eighteen recorded songs that could not be used on the final 2011 album because of a legal dispute after the songs were mistakenly copyrighted to Enyart/Freeman/Rose/Lineback/Taylor/Thompson/Whitener, Jr. instead of Enyart/Freeman/Rose/Lineback/Taylor/Thompson/Whitener Jr.

“Nothin'”
Thematically, the second-most-relevant song to this set. The disembodied voices captured as a moment in time sing wistfully about the things that slip, oh so softly, from your grasp as one turns to look the other direction. We always think that a pillow will be there to rest our heads on, and then one night, we get to our beds and find that the pillow, the one we used all these years, the one drenched in head sweat and hair grime, has mysteriously disappeared and left us to hurt our necks when we try, uncomfortably, to sleep with our skulls pulled too far in one direction to reach a bare mattress. You know what I’m talking about.

“Killer”
Before Jethco Heathcomb died in the process of trying to build a wood-powered missile, he had openly disagreed with the song “Killer,” calling it “a bunch of panty-waist libtard bullshit about the men in blue.” So it probably would not have made the cut regardless.

“Who You Used To Be”
Amarin Enyart: “It’s impossible to sing harmony with you because you sing the words the way they spill out of your brain.”

“Thinking of You”
This laid-back track was ruined when some asshole neighbor entered the room and started talking.

2010 34-Year Bluegrass sessions

“Tobin Spirit Guide”
When you get a whole lot of talented people in one room and set them in the same direction, the torrential outpouring of creative energy can sometimes overwhelm good sense. “Tobin Spirit Guide” is a song that requires between fifteen and sixteen consecutive listens to fully grasp and appreciate, even for the most discerning ear.

February 2011: 34-Year Bender Outtakes

“Husk”
Recorded in a late February session at the same time as “If I Quit Drinking I’d Be Home By Now” with the Rotten Liars on back-up, this electrified version of “Who You Used to Be” was rejected because it was too similar to another song on the album.

February 2011: Ubasute Outtakes

The 2012 album was started with the decision to teach oneself piano and evolved into an album with a very dense wrapper, to try to cover for the fact that the album was just an attempt to teach oneself to learn piano.

“Etude 41: Outtake”
A song for parts of the fictional transcript that were cut from the fictional audio book. This song was cut from the final album when the part of the fictional audio book it was supposed to accompany was cut from the fictional transcript. The fictional transcript part is printed here:

***

NARRATOR: I suppose I understand this:  For most of us fail in life, the same way that my father failed at being a songwriter. We half-ass it in public. We can burn inside with creativity, passion, and energy, but once we have a moment to share it or use it, push it or play it, we shrink. We are enormous inside and tiny in the world. Maybe it’s because we shy from disapproval or fear success. Maybe we simply can’t translate our own language. Perhaps that’s as it should be. After all, we all remain small whether we stand at the base or have climbed to the peak of the holy mountain.

***

Alternate cover for Spare Parts and Spare Ribs

February 2013: The Outtake Collection Outtakes

“Ubasute: The Audio Book Credits Song”
A fake outtake from Ubasute with lyrics about the album about the audio book about the story about a series of songs about a legend about a Japanese forest. This unlistenable painful haze of navel-gazing, recursive self-indulgence was cut from the songs for 2013’s Spare Parts and Spare Ribs and therefore isn’t included here.

Google search for “Jeff Rose album future”

February 2014: ??? Outtakes

“????????????? (Faloon Remix)”
The future is a strange and unpredictable place, full of twisted cyborg versions of people you loved and now struggle to see any remaining humanity in. Remember that when you think you have something relevant to say to your children.

February 2015: The Live Album Outtakes

“Hey Marci”
While David Bowie and David Byrne are clear influences throughout all of the songs on all of the albums created for February, the failed vocals of this song only bring those influences more to light. This song didn’t make 2015’s live album because it wasn’t live.

February 2016: The Last Album Outtakes

“Ten Years”
Although very relevant to this collection, this song did not make the final 2016 album because it wasn’t recorded in February 2016.

Download zip file

Title: Ubasute

Music to accompany an audio book.

Tracklist
Etude 10 (In the Bed of Lake Michigan)
Etude 23 (Secret Waltz)
Nocturne 31 (Sea of Trees)
Etude 33 (Comb)
Bagatelle 30 (El)
Sketch 33 (Father Composing)
Nocturne 2 (Cave of Ice)
Sketch 28 (Song Written In Empty Apartment)
Nocturne 20 (Food Underground)
Bagatelle 14 (Apology)
Etude 3 (Aokigahara: In The Shadow of Mt. Fugi)
Nocturne 4 (The Arthritic Hands of Izanami)
Etude 5 (A Short Conversation)
Nocturne 19 (Yomi)
Berceuse 5 (The Old Turntable)
Nocturne 34 (Cave of Wind)
Sketch 15 (Personal Files)
Bagatelle 27 (The Strength to Snap a Twig)
Etude 26 (The Antique Piano)

Excerpts from audio book “Tower of Waves”:

NARRATOR: In 1973, my father bought a three-room one bedroom, fourth floor apartment in north Chicago for twelve thousand dollars. Nothing about the purchase itself is interesting, really. He was forty-six years old and probably interested in drawing a little extra monthly income from rent, and even though my family lived near Kalamazoo, it wasn’t unusual for Kalamazooians to make investments in and business trips to Chicago from time to time.

What is unusual is that he kept this purchase, and any financials from it, secret until after his death, nearly forty years later.

***

NARRATOR: The bottom of Lake Michigan probably, most likely, nearly assuredly, has more once useful stuff than could possibly be imagined – and not just things that were once useful in Lake Michigan. Beyond boats and fishing nets, poles, lures, what-have-yous and never-could-catches, there is almost certainly an entire history of things that Chicago no longer wanted or simply lost grasp of: shoes and suits, bicycles, cars, vast storerooms of furniture, city blocks of storerooms, entire neighborhoods of asphalt chunks and old hydrant caps, cut-down saplings, arbolist equipment, light posts and street signs, not to mention crime evidence, weapons, bodies, and God-only-needs-to-sees. Tangles and tangles of the past, all sunk and sleeping in the rocky muddy bed. Sometimes I wouldn’t mind taking a U-haul of my baggage and just backing it in there myself. They should have paid helicopter flights for this reason, flights where you get about two miles out and then hover offshore and just throw your bullshit out the windows.

***

NARRATOR: The water bed took up the majority of the bedroom and the grand piano took up the majority of the living room, and other than an end table, a couple of lamps and enough of a kitchen to microwave an occasional meal, there wasn’t much to his father’s secret apartment. In fact, it was hard to understand why it was a secret at all.

“It’s a little tacky that he had a waterbed. Maybe it was always here or something.”

Rena paused on the other line. “Do you think that he, well, you know?”

“I thought that he might have, well, you know. In fact, I was pretty sure he had, well, you know. But looking at it, it looks like he came up here, ate frozen pizzas, wrote tons of short little piano songs, drank too much, and then slept crappily. It’s impossible to not wake up every other hour in that bed. No wonder he always complained about his back,” I walked back to the tiny bedroom and looked in. “It’s a little tacky that he had a waterbed. But if he was trying to impress anyone this wasn’t the way to do it. Maybe it was always here or something.”

“You almost sound disappointed.”

“I guess I had hoped …. I had hoped Dad was having fun or something. It’s kind of a male thing to think. I mean, Jesus a waterbed? I understand it’s some kind of eighties thing, but can you imagine fucking on one? I don’t know how you would get any leverage. Like trying to push a car out of mud while standing on a skateboard.”

***

NARRATOR: Myra shifts uncomfortably from foot to foot and I’m afraid she’ll fall over. She’s top-heavy like a cartoon bulldog. Our conversation has gone on longer than she intended and I think she’s trying to come up with the perfect nice innocuous thing to say to wrap it up.

Sometimes, she says, my father’s melodies still get stuck in her head. “I suppose that’s what happens whenever a song gets cut off unexpectedly.”

***

NARRATOR: The shower with a matted clump of hair in the drain. Tops of buildings lost in fog. My morning comes in half-awake snippets. On the El, pressed in with commuters, sometimes I imagine that we could all fall asleep at once and then wake with a jolt only to find that we’d tangled ourselves together in a big rat-king-like ball.

Some things completely go together for a short time and then just come apart naturally without any sense that they once fit at all. Take an icicle, for example. There’s one that hangs from a clogged gutter, up near one of my dad’s old windows – a dirty little dagger, an object completely defined by the temperature. When the sun hits it for long enough, each drop of water melts off and runs away in its own direction, depending. I don’t know that that means much. It’s something I still think about from time to time.

***

NARRATOR: There is a Chicago legend from the 1930s of the lost ice boy. Apparently they used to have a public ice skating built on the water around navy pier, until one year some greedy racketeering boys let a group of schools out on the ice in November, before it was really ready. The ice cracked and the kids made a mad scamper for the boardwalk. One of them didn’t make it back up. The local fire department spent three days cracking holes in the tops of the ice trying to fish around for his body. They never found it.

For years after that, they say that if you are out on the edge of Lake Michigan in the dead of the coldest winter, when the waves of water have frozen in mid-crest, and Lincoln Park is quiet and still as a cursed forest, you can hear an soft but persistent pounding noise coming from deep below the surface of the ice. It’s been explained as pockets of air and rock being pushed around by the undertow, but many people still say it’s that boy under the water, hoping to let you know where he is so you can let him out.

***

NARRATOR: The estate sale was for a former Park Ranger in the Aokigahara National Park. Everyday he’d wander the Japanese suicide forest, hoping to find people that had wandered away from their families and had set up camp in the stumbling tangled mess of roots and dark leaves.

If you look up the Aokigahara on Google, you’ll find pages of images of dead people. But that isn’t what the Park Ranger usually found. Mostly he’d find the left-overs. Bodies and suicide notes: these were the easy things to return to relatives. But often small things lay scattered about – once useful things – that had been taken with the person to the forest. Objects to pass the time until they died.

The Park Ranger collected these things from the unidentifiable and unclaimed and set up a little museum in his house. It grew and grew over the years. He moved it with him and his family to Chicago. Now his family was selling it off.

One bad idea could split in to endless variation. His collection was lined up on plastic folding tables, rows and rows of little sad thoughts from another country, each individually priced, each with a little card with the date that it was found, and each with a description of where it was. There were iPods and magazines and books and books and books. Lots of toys, dolls and trinkets. Strange collections: A bowl full of little saws. A jar of barber combs. Little remembrance bracelets. A baby booty. And many musical instruments.

***

NARRATOR: My father was an angry man, it seemed, a lot of the time. Like a malfunctioning radio, it would pop out of him in little bursts of static. Frustration, I suppose, was more what it was. I would have had no idea that he spent any time playing an instrument, let alone trying to write any music.

I wonder what it is about the arts that cause people shame. Why would my father wander off to Chicago and hide in anonymity just to play piano? Was he afraid that he wouldn’t let him play piano around him? If he didn’t want us to hear him on piano, why try to write out the music? Why record himself on a tape recorder?

On the hundreds of random music staffs, each page shows his anger. These notes sound more like my dad than the recording itself. Quickly scribbled and crossed out. “Why would anyone listen to this bullshit? It sounds like loose pieces of dead skin.” and “The Berceuse is like listening to someone slowly die from Alzheimer’s.”

But the sounds on the tape recorder are different: halting, unsure, kind of hollow. It’s like listening to someone learn to speak with stutters and hesitation. The upstairs neighbor is wrong – there is nothing about this music that I find relaxing. His piano playing come and went in short twisted paths, in series of uncomplicated melodies, ticking out tedious simple rhythms. All I hear from the tape are lost moments. At the very best, I can say that if one of the songs disagreed with me, I could count on the fact that it would end quickly.

***

NARRATOR: According to at least one source, the demographics for people most likely to survive a hurricane includes people that own waterbeds. It’s a wild list of random connections without real cause or correlation behind it. Beyond people that own waterbeds (88% likely), there are dog owners (82%), people with two or more can openers (73.2%), women or fish (68.2%), and men that rigidly obey flag protocol (63%), among others.

Years ago, I had a girlfriend that found this list in a New Orleans tabloid and cut it out to give to me. She said, “Translation: Whatever you decide to do probably doesn’t matter very much.” Then she broke up with me two months later. Man, I could probably write ten years worth of songs about that girl. I won’t. I have things I have to get back to.

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Original email/liner-notes to undisclosed recipients:

Howdy! Or as they say in the Mexican Americas, Holao!

INTRODUCE YOURSELF AND EXPLAIN WHY YOU ARE WRITING THE ALBUM NOTES

Just cause Jeff had planned on traversin’ Costa Rical this last week, I was left to put together all the pieces of his album of the month so that’s why I’m writin’ these notas an not him. But before I get ahead of myself. Let me introduce myself, I am Jethro Heathcolb and this email has links to the country album that Jeff and me done wrote in the month of February 2011. He left some smart instructions for me of what to write and where and whatnot. So that’s what I’m doing writin’ to y’all.

EXPLAIN HOW THE ALBUM WAS MADE

Before I get too far, I need to mention that this year’s album included many contributions from The Rotten Liars recorded at breakneck speed in Austin Texas to give the album a more realistic country favor that Jeff couldn’t get by himself in his cake-eating liberal paradise in Chicago. The Rotten Liars may be Cory Plump, Jeff Freeman, Nathan Lineback, and Wellington Chew. Special mention must be made to Amarin Enyart, whose southern fried voice is like a blazin’ sun when coupled in harmony with my dim grumbly monotone star.

WRITE A LITTLE ABOUT THE ALBUM

Yes. Me and the Rotten Liars are the best parts of this here mix of twelve songs all of which were written in February, exceptin’ for one which was lonely and destitute and just seemed right at home around all of the others here, so it was dropped in. Jeff had wanted it to be a half and half album city/country type thing, but I done cut most of his songs cause they were too pussy to be put on the same album with the hard truth that I like to be singin’.

GIVE THE LIST OF SONGS AND LINK

The various inpidual themes included in this album are misogyny, alcoholism, ignorance, drinking, alcoholism, and bad sex. The overarching theme, however, is love. And not just small love either. Big fat love for friends, family and females of all shapes and hair color. Don’t let no one tell you that Jethro Heathcolb don’t have no tender side.

Oh yeah so here’s where I need to write the damn song list

1 I might (maybe he will)
2 Chicken chow mein
3 Moon
4 Quit running your big city mouth (and come give me a kiss)
5 I hear you talkin but you ain’t sayin nothin
6 Doing you was doing more than just doing someone new
7 I’d stop drinkin but I’ve already started
8 Put the yodel in my country song
9 Hello from Austin Texas
10 American Proud
11 Jesus Song
12 I just came back to remember why I left

THANK THEM FOR LISTENING

Why is he sendin’ this to you? He’s under some delusion that y’all’ll enjoy hearing from him. I tried talk him out of it. At any rate, thanks for listenin’, if you listen.

Yours with the Lord,
Jethco

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