Go Figure: DELUXE EDITION

Shortly after graduating high school, I recorded an album with my two best friends, Andrew Weiss and Jim Berry. We came up with the quirky band name “Go Figure” to match the odd musical fusion brewing within the sound. It was a real team effort, with Jim layering multiple trumpet / flugelhorn lines, Andrew writing most of the lyrics, me playing guitar & bass, and all three of us taking turns at keyboards and vocals.

During that era, we would often head down to play open-mics at Roy’s Bar in the Roger’s Park neighborhood. We’d go most Thursday nights, and they’d always put us last on the list, so we were free to play the remainder of the night. We were underage, but nobody seemed to mind. I remember Jim threw a fairly conspicuous 21st birthday party at the bar years after we’d been playing (and drinking) there. The scene was admittedly sketchy back in the early 90’s (think: guys coming in off Glenwood Ave. trying to sell freshly-stolen car batteries). Somehow, we weirdo suburbanites fit right in.

Recently, my friend Alison posted Go Figure as part of a Facebook “important album of my life” game. As if that wasn’t nice enough, much to my enjoyment (and surprise), a few of her friends commented they remembered the record, and even quipped about some of the lyrics.

Why have I never put this album out in the digital domain?

Inspired, I grabbed a Go Figure cd from my closet last night and ripped the files to my desktop. I brought them into Adobe Audition and cleaned the tracks up with better tools than we had on hand in 1991. I started uploading the album to my digital distributor, when it dawned on me that I could add a little excitement by adding three tracks of the band playing at the famous Roy’s Bar! I dug those tunes up, removed some of the hiss from the recordings, and presto! We’ve got a Deluxe Edition. Also included is the Creative Commons .OTF font of the Go Figure alphabet, created for the album artwork by Andrew.

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