Time To Make The Donuts

Time To Make The Donuts

(Morgan-Minken)

Let me tell you about Mindflux.

You could argue that this whole thing had its roots at Syracuse University, where a bunch of young smartasses got together and worked on a campus sketch comedy TV show (we called ours “Null and Void”, and I believe an incarnation of it is still going at SU today). As teenagers do, some us decided that we wanted to be ***ROCK STARS***. The real problems is that most ***ROCK STARS*** are sexy, can play their instruments well and/or are very clever songwriters & performers. For Sook and I the first two options were right out and we really hadn’t had any experience with the latter, so we decided to do what many great bands throughout the ages have done: we faked it. (Hey, if Spinal Tap and the Sex Pistols could make a go of it, why not us?)

We decided to go heavy on the humor and maximize what few assets we had while pulling in a few ringers from the TV show: Scott Hewitt and Andy Hammond jumped in on guitar (the latter especially had a facility and fondness with the Led Zeppelin catalog), Dave Minken joined as “intense bass playing guy”, and eventually he drafted a friend named Mike Wyenth for drum duties on our live show. I appointed myself keyboardist as I had spent approximately 3 months noodling around with a cheap Casio synth I got for Christmas, and both Sook and I grabbed the vocal spotlight whenever we could.
The whole thing might have stopped at a few quirky bedroom jam sessions if not for another buddy of ours named Phil Chernack. Turns out he and his roommates had rented a house and built a full ½” 8-track recording studio complete with isolation booths! Sweet! Phil was a good guy and magnanimously recorded our fledgling unit when paying gigs for the studio weren’t happening. After that, we were bitten by the recording bug and the rest is history….(i.e. Mindflux evolved/devolved into Pop Machine, which activated Osmium as a recording concern, and eventually led us to this very site. Hurrah.)

This particular track was an early signature song (or rant, to be more precise). We punked it up pretty good for our second time in the studio and I pulled out a passable Johnny Rotten impression (which I have been refining ever since). It’s really a snide whirl of ad slogans, many of which you youngsters may not remember, but enjoy nonetheless. Some of my once and future bandmates may blush a bit at having such old skeletons come out of the closet, but may I remind everyone involved that A) I warned you this was coming, B) I have 365 days of songs to fill and C) This is MY site, dammit, and if you don’t like it get your own site or perhaps a court injunction. Me, I think the stuff is fun for what it is. Ah, youth!

Al: Vox, laughably monotonous drum pattern
Scott Hewitt: Ryhtym Guitar
Andy Hammond: Lead/Slide Guitar
Dave Minken: Bass

Engineered by Phil Chernack (Note: this version is taken from Phil's original mix.)