This is the first of several works by Thomas Yates I have to upload. When I first became aware of Thomas, it was around 2007. He was fairly well known around town for being that kid that made racket everywhere from shows at the Ice House to house shows to guerrilla gigs in the local mall here in Clarksville. His self-released cassettes had titles like Black Templar and Crowd Scalper. It was unlike anything else here. Irritating and inspiring, Thomas continued in his own particular fashion, unhampered by what was cool or popular and made something incredible.
This recording was the first time I really hung out with Thomas outside of shows and whatever else. We went down to his mothers basement, a cramped grotto that you expected some kind of inter-dimensional creature crawl out of. This was in his "fast sounds" stage and this is when I was playing in TEETH. Thomas showed me his guitar with a tuning of his own design and certain frets painted gold, showing him where he should play. We plugged up, I droned and Thomas employed his fast guitar technique.
After two tracks, we put away the guitars and began a more abstract jam, which culminated up to three short tracks and the finale, OPVS VI. After, Thomas and I talked until about four in the morning, talking about politics, World War III, human nature, and music. We agreed that even though this was the first time we hung out or played music together, we felt like the spirit of our individual music, he and I and Billy Rich (Thomas's partner in making Fast Sounds), had been inspiring each other since we started playing out and putting our music on MySpace. I left that night, carrying this piece of gold on my cassette.
I mixed this a long time ago, so I don't exactly remember how I did it. I know for a lot of the recording, I'm in one ear and Thomas is in the other. I'm pretty sure I switch it around and combine the two in mono though. Enjoy.
Part I
Part II
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