NearlyANerd.com

Big Orange Torpedo

So I “managed”/roadied for the now defunct band Big Orange Torpedo in the mid 90′s.  The group cycled through a small list of members but at it’s core were John Webb, James Kline and Phil Balsman (pictured left to right).  The guys attended Perryville High School and their tunes, like the times, roared with angst. Good times.

Well, I dug up an old MiniDisc copy of their first EP Abracadamnit recently and was compelled to transfer it back to the computer for all the world to hear.  Free glorious MP3s and commentary from James and Phil, after the jump.

Abracadamnit by Big Orange Torpedo

1. Abracadamnit
2. Switch
3. Bitter
4. Suicide Tree
5. Psychosis

(The above links are mp3s.  To download, right click and choose “save as”)

James Kline emailed me recently about how their second EP is a mere memory:

The second BOT EP [unofficially titled, Fireball: Code 76], recorded in 1996, is lost to the ages. As far as I know, I had the only copy (on tape) and it was ruined (got ate up in a cassette player.) Had Riverside Recording Studio not gone out of business ten years ago, it may have been possible to get the masters. (It sucks, because it was my favorite of the three EPs.)

James weighed in with some production notes about Abracadamnit:

The Abracadamnit EP was recorded & mixed in 8 hrs. at Riverside Recording Studio in Cape. Why, I’ll never know, but we allowed the guy running the board to add a digital chorus effect to Phil’s bass and reverb to his vocals on every song. To me, it always sounded like shit. It totally ruined the songs (as did the electronic drums.) We could have recorded with a real set of drums, but it would have taken at least an hour to mic all of them, so we went with the electronic ones – which was a huge mistake, because at least five times in every song, when Kyle Flengte (the drummer du jour) would step on the bass drum pedal it would double-trigger. Oh well, it was a learning experience. I think if we’d have done the drums & audio effects correctly, all of the songs (except track 2: Switch) could have sounded like a lot of the stuff being played on the radio (circa 1995.)

Phil notes the recording technology of the mid 90s and comments on some sound elements:

. . . CD-Rs weren’t that common then, and even though it was recorded digitally, process-wise, I think it was actually physically recorded analog, if that makes sense. God it sucked to be doing that kind of shit between one generation of recording and the next. Fuckin’ kids today don’t know how good they got it. The only version of these that I have is an old two-track tape–and I don’t even have anything that plays tapes.

God, my bass was extra farty, the drums were…well, Kyle was trying, and my voice was not done dropping from puberty. Ah, good times.

I didn’t get a chance to contact John or any other members.  Well, there you have it.  BOT RIP.

UPDATE:  James writes in to say, “Abracadamnit is BOT’s 1st EP, not second. The second EP (unofficially titled, Fireball: Code 76) is the one that no longer exists.”  So, I’ve went back and fixed the refering info above.

UPDATE 2:  Further info on Fireball: Code 76 from James Kline:

Back in the day, Phil had a cassette tape of BOT playing live at Jeremiah’s in Cape (Nov. 96). With that said, there is the rare possibility that live versions of the Fireball: Code 76 songs still exist in a “live” form (but the studio EP is gone.)

Fireball songs:

1. Propaganda
2. SuperPal
3. Reach
4. Company
5. Little Fish
6. STFB
7. Nuclear Family Traditions

UPDATE 3:  Fireball: Code 76 Unearthed!  Well, some of it anyway.  Phil found a tape with three of the songs.  Download/listen to them below:

• Propaganda
• Reach
• Nuclear Family Traditions

And if that’s not enough, Jim dug up an additional demo track:

• G.I. (Demo)

Jim had this to say about the demo:

Amazingly, while I was going through all of my old cassette tapes I
found a portion of the song G.I. in demo form. I think we must have
just turned on a tape recorder (in the middle of the room) and hit
record. It’s basically a sonic clusterf**k, but it’s kind of fun
listening to the chaos!