The Waydowns were a band from 1994 to 1995.  We played shows in the west with guitars and Boss DR-550 drum machines.  It ended when we left Olympia for college.  This compilation has most of our output and two songs that were never released.   

1. 

In summer 1994 we recorded seven songs at the Red House, a red house near the public library.  Tim Green engineered.  Punk In My Vitamins released all seven songs on a15-minute cassette.  Two were also on the first Wantage USA compilation LP.  Beau Boyd gave me his copy of the PNMV cassette in 2023 (I had lost mine years before).  As far as I know, the only digital version of any of these songs available before now was on a YouTube channel called EV生産コスト低減策.  Four subscribers, complete mystery. 

2. 

In late 2022, Tim unearthed and digitized the eight-track reel for the 1994 Red House session and another from early 1995 (one song, released on the Kill Rock Stars / Lookout! compilation A Slice of Lemon).  I remixed all of the Red House recordings for this release.  The drum tracks for the seven songs that became the PNMV cassette were originally recorded straight to tape.  In autumn 2023, I added reamplified tracks recorded in a brick-and-concrete stairwell in Gowanus, Brooklyn.  I also put in some Korg MS-10 tones and replaced the outro for the last song with one taken from a live set on KAOS FM.  Why not. I’m confident there are no Waydowns purists out there.      

3. 

In late summer 1994 we played on Michelle Noel’s Color Outside the Lines radio show on KAOS FM.  Diana Arens engineered.  Live tracks on retrospectives and discographies are mostly chaff.  But that set had an early performance of a song that later came out on a PNMV 7” that I think is okay. Mercifully, it didn’t yet have vocals.  And it’s a fair picture of how we sounded live.  Josh Vanek dug the cassette out from a box and mailed it from Missoula.  Sadly, the Lice set from the same night wasn’t on it. 

4. 

Our7” on PNMV was released in summer 1995 on clear vinyl.  One side of that record also came out on a PNMV compilation CD sometime later.  I tried and failed to get my hands on the 16-track reel for the session, which was recorded by Tim and Ben Kyle at a house in Hawks Prairie. The tracks here are from the CD and from my copy of the 7” (avec surface noise).  This record was also somehow on EV生産コスト低減策 but otherwise was not available digitally as far as I know. 

5.  

After Tim found the Red House eight-track reels, I looked up Pat Maley, who now runs a therapy practice, and who had engineered our last-ever recordings.  These were made at the Capitol Theater in Olympia in July 1995, a few weeks before our last show, and were never released.  I think they’re some of the best Waydowns recordings. Pat had us run the drum machine through our Kustom PA from the stage and put up two spaced pairs of mics way back in the theater seats.  The two songs here were remixed in 2023, from ADAT stems.   

6. 

Thank you to Tim, Pat, Beau, Ian Vanek, and Josh. All looked through attic boxes.  Thanks also to Frank and Ted and Clare.  Craig Bowen removed clicks and pops from the tracks transferred from vinyl.  Vern R. requiescat.