German Spider

German Spider (2008)

While this technically isn't one of the lost songs since it is on the eponymous album, it has somehow disappeared from our live performances in recent years, which is kind of a shame, because it was pretty cool!

When I first came to Germany in 2007, I would often lie awake at night looking at a large spider that had made its home in a corner of the ceiling over my bed. I am not squeamish about spiders at all, but I also didn't know if German spiders bite. One of my roommates at the time assured me that it wouldn't bite, but even if it did, German spiders have teeth too small to break the skin. Somehow this turned into an ukulele rock song that features numerous kazoo tracks.

My recording methods at the time were both pretty rudimentary and lazy. I was using the built-in mic on my computer and making copious use of the copy/paste function. The resulting overall sound quality is what I would affectionately call "lo-fi" or, on less generous days, "hot ass."

Nevertheless, this song brings back fond memories of carefree times when the future seemed wide open and recording 50 different kazoo takes was considered an appropriate and necessary use of a weekday.