Don't Expect a Call

Ben Niven

This song was recorded in 1999 with my most recent band, Hoss Williams. The recording took place at the studio on the Webster University campus in St. Louis, Missouri. We were the subject of two audio program students’ recording project, and we tried to track three songs in about four hours. This one took up most of the time and the other two we barely finished. I was taking audio classes at Webster at the same time and was able to obtain the multitrack tapes later on and book some studio time to try my own mix, and that’s what we have here. I did this in four hours, and if I had it to do all over again I’d have spent at least twice as much time tracking the song; there are some definite timing issues going on with the vocals, and I am moving around in relation to the mic enough that you can hear it. Tracking it was fun and I generally like the sound we had going on, but wish we’d run it down more times and gotten a better take. As on “Bleach + Bald Snow Tires,” it’s me, Ben Niven, on electric guitar and vocals, Brian Roth on acoustic guitar and backing vocals, Dave Stallman on bass guitar and vocals and Frank Reynolds on drums and vocals.