There is exactly one recording of Life Out Of Balance for the entire year of 1989, and on that recording is exactly one single song. Clearly, Life Out Of Balance was not in the habit of recording their rehearsals that year!
Other than the January 10, 1990 tapes, this is the only recording of LOOB with Howie Rabach. Howie was not only a sensitive guitarist but a dedicated band member, often driving out from Fort Lee, New Jersey for rehearsal. I had met him at college - he had a huge Tom Waits "Rain Dogs" poster in his room. At that point, Hubie, Ted and I were obsessed with "Frank's Wild Years", so that was good enough for me to invite him out to play!
On top of the fact that it was great to have a second guitarist - and also a strong harmony singer, giving us the opportunity to arrange all sorts of vocal parts - Howie
was very handy in corralling me to rehearsal! I was prone to blow off
Life Out Of Balance (as was Hubie). We were both at school, both had
girlfriends, both had jobs, both had social lives. It seemed LOOB would
never get its act together, so it was way down on the priority list.
But Howie's enthusiasm and dedication definitely kicked it up a notch -
and because we went to the same school, it was harder to weasel my way
out of showing up!
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| See what I mean? My brother, future LOOBer Steve Goodman, gives me the message. |
We rehearsed pretty regularly with Howie, and worked up a bunch of songs, some that were never recorded. I've written elsewhere about a gorgeous Hubie song, "Conversations", that had the two guitarists spangling away on chorus'd guitars, you'd feel like you were underwater. With typically beautiful harmonies from H, T & M. Also "She Loves Your Knees" comes to mind, never recorded.
What was recorded was a the second run-through of a new song of mine, "Some Other". I had written "Some Other" in a batch of songs, one night, in my mother's living room. I think I was waiting for Ted to pick me up, actually. Probably thinking "Velvet Underground" and "college radio rock", I quickly wrote this droney song that speeds up and slows down again. As you can see below, I didn't do much work on the lyrics! No cross-outs! All the other songs written that night (including future LOOB curiosity "I've Got An Onion") have cross-outs galore. I seem to remember I wrote the whole thing in 5 minutes, and didn't think much of it.
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| original lyric sheet for "Some Other" which I will no bequeath to its greatest fan, Dave Engelhardt! Don't ask me what it all means because I do not know!!! |
Ted, however, DID think much of it, or at least something of it. Adding to the fact that it's a really simple song to play -virtually the whole song is just E - I brought it to the band. Because it was so easy, it sounded perfect immediately. Probably amazed that I actually had a song of mine sounding good with LOOB, I quickly got a tape out of my bag - it turned out to be the end of a tape that contained my first "solo" show, April 1989 at CW Post. (interestingly enough, the set I performed contained 21 songs - not one ever attempted with Life Out Of Balance, I'm sure the band members wouldn't recognize a single title!). Anyways, as there was a little room at the end, I tagged our second run-through of "Some Other" on to it.
And that's all there was to it! I don't even think we played "Some Other" that much with Howie! Years later, in 1992, we resurrected the song, not for any love of the composition, but because it was so easy! It became an unlikely favorite of Dave Engelhardt, who has recorded at least one - if not more than one - cover version of the ditty. So...just goes to show me!
* I recorded a demo of "Some Other" when I wrote it, and again in 1992, probably just as we were going to start doing it again. LOOB played many versions in 1992 and 1993. But the definitive version of "Some Other" was undoubtedly an 8-track demo recorded with Frank and Steve (on bass!!!) in the studio out back, behind his father's house. Tragically, the recording is currently lost! But that's the version.
As I said, I never had much of a feeling for "Some Other". If it wasn't for Ted singling it out, it probably would never have been played by Life Out Of Balance! If it wasn't so easy, it definitely wouldn't have been resurrected by Life Out Of Balance! Given my druthers, I'd have preferred hearing something else played by this lineup. But the boys always did a great job with "Some Other", and certainly this version so....thanks Hubie, Howie and Ted! I'm heartbroken I didn't record us more!!!
Rehearsal, Rocky Point Studio, 5/7/89
Some Other
Hubert Poole - guitar
Howie Rabach - guitar, vocal
Ted Schreiber - bass, vocal
Michael Goodman - drums, vocal
mp3 and lossless flac (delete lossless flac if you don't want it)
https://www.mediafire.com/?em2m83lccvaqhex
