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The Story : |
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The music of Steve Watt and Neil Ayer comes from a time of deep involvement with the Knowledge revealed by Maharaji and his meditation community in Denver, Colorado. I met Steve in Denver and we began composing and practicing original music. We used to play small venues in Denver like Free Weavers and the Bare Tit. For a while we had a regular gig at the Cafe Nepenthes, a legendary Denver coffee house and restaurant. Eventually we had enough material to make a recording. In the spring of 1978 we borrowed a TEAC four track tape recorder from Jimmy Dale Gilmore and some microphones and drove up into the mountains outside of Boulder to Jimmy Macrea's house. Jimmy was kind enough to let us stay for a few days and record in the beautiful, round, domed, resonant main room of his house. We were very fortunate that my girlfriend Carole Benet (now Carole Ayer) came along for the session and brought her camera to take pictures of the session. Her good friend Jacquelyn also came along to support the project. After recording the basic tracks, I went back to Denver with the four track and added the bass and EBow parts in Jimmy Dale's basement. I borrowed a bass from Nick King and and echoplex from Fuzzbee Morse. I made a rough mix to cassette and made a few copies for myself and friends. In late 1978, Carole and I moved to Massachusetts, taking the four track master with us. In 1980, I was a student at The Recording Workshop in Massieville, Ohio. I took the four track master with me and used the studio there to remix the music. The result was a two track quarter inch reel from which I made a few more cassettes for myself. In 1984, Steve contacted me from Boulder, asking for the master tape. He made his own mix and submitted it to Homer Smith at Cornell University for inclusion on a videotape of animated fractals produced on the university's supercomputers called "Mandelbrot Sets and Julia Sets". The video is still available from Art Matrix. The music was also included on a follow up video called "Nothing But Zooms". Steve returned the tape in 1985 and it sat in a box in my house for twenty years. |
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Crown of Thorns |
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In 2005 I decided it was time to finish this project and make the music available on the web. I sent the tape off to a studio with an old TEAC four track to be digitized. Once I had it in digital format on my computer, I was able to remove almost all of the tape noise and perform the appropriate editing. Now, twenty eight years later, I am happy to say that this project has been completed. Carole and I are still married, Jacquelyn visits us regularly, but Steve has disappeared. My hope is that he will find these pages and get in touch with us. We miss you, Steve. Neil Ayer
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