The SPENT BUTANE project, by the grace of which every previously unreleased Thunderegg four-track song will be mixed and posted here. Songs are drawn from a wooden cassette case manufactured by the Napa Valley Box Company. These Maxell XLII's contain the masters for the first eight Thunderegg albums, from Universal Nut (1995) to This Week (2007).

The number XXYY preceding each song title represents the overall sequence of recording. XX is the number of the master tape, and YY is the song within that particular tape.

To download, right-click on the song title and select "Save Target As." Mac users, hold down the Control key and click the song title.

Updated March 21, 2008. Look for the stuff marked (NEW).

OUTTAKES FROM "THE ENVELOPE PUSHES BACK" (2000)

3701. "What We Enjoy" (2:19) September 26, 2000. Featuring the soothing voice of Nantucket painter Kerry Hallam. Chronologically, this was recorded between "Planetarium Pt. 2" and "The Second Coffer."

OUTTAKES FROM "THUNDEREGG" (1997)

(NEW) 2101. "You Showed Them to Me" (take one) (4:20) February 18, 1997. I originally wanted this song to sound kind of like Stereolab. But I didn't have the Farfisa, first of all, and the beat on this version needed more balls.

(NEW) 2102. "Of Rock 'n' Roll Not Dying" (1:48) February 1997. In which the standby "Uranus" double entendre finally makes its Thunderegg debut.

(NEW) 2201. "Fortunate Son" (3:54) April 1997. I was feeling bad about myself because my parents paid for my ($45) keyboard.

(NEW) 2301. "The Ballad of Larry Corcoran" (1:04) July 1997. Around the house, I'll sing a version of this song about ten times a day. Ask Jen.

(NEW) 2302. "Ephemeral 97" (3:09) July 1997. I thought it would be cool to record a four-track version of this that approximated a bad-ass band with two guitars, bass, and drums. When I first played it for my dad, he thought I had used a kazoo. On listening now, it seems that's an honest mistake.

(NEW) 2303. "Xantippe 97" (4:40) July 1997. See Universal Nut outtakes below. There doesn't seem to be a way to shine this song up.

2401. "The Clergic, the Allergic, and the Lysergic" (3:10) July 15, 1997. Same music as 1995's "It Gets Worse." Experimenting with a new (used) Boss compression pedal that didn't work out. The lyrics are very silly, but I gotta admit I like that keyboard sound.

2402. "Jetlag" (2:51) July 16, 1997. Originally 4:39. Still too long.

(NEW) 2501. "She Sells Seashells" (4:45) August 1997. I wrote this on the beach.

(NEW) 2502. "Forgotten Interlude" (0:37) August 1997. No recollection.

(NEW) 2503. "What Was I Gonna Do?" (version one) (4:23) August 1997. Recorded in my parents' house in Princeton; the only apperance of my mom's upright piano, which was shipped off to my sister's place in San Francisco a couple years later.

(NEW) 2504. "The American Standard Is Slipping (and It's All Your Fault)" (version one) (3:07) September 1997. You'd think that I would've adjusted the key the second time around, since I was having so much trouble hitting the high notes here. But I didn't.

(NEW) 2601. "The Mighty Battlecat" (acoustic) (2:52) September 1997. I forgot about this first version. I remember thinking that this wasn't a very good song, but the second, more rocking version turned out to be one of the more popular Thunderegg numbers.

2701. "Robert Earl Hughes" (outtake snippet) (0:13) October 14, 1997. Ideal for ringtones.

OUTTAKES FROM "PERSONNEL ENVELO-FILE" (1997)

1501. "Can't Pull the Trigger" (1:09) June 1996. Terminology borrowed from John Sterling lamenting a batter who struck out looking. I listened to a lot of baseball on the radio that summer. I wasn't planning on shooting myself or anything.

1502. "Chimney Climbers" (2:38) June 1996. You can feel some conviction here, but I was just trying to bluff my way through some seriously vague lyrics. I think what I was getting at was that I felt like a number, but Bob Seger said it better.

1601. "Anything Better to Do" (2:33) July 7,1996. Just kind of riffin'. Later recycled some of these words for the song "My Mad Hatter."

1602. "High Falutin' Cowboy" (3:01) July 20, 1996. I remember writing the words during a Friday-morning history seminar my junior year of college. I was always sleep-deprived because I worked at the weekly paper and had to pull all-nighters on Thursdays. I don't know what the leather banshee is supposed to be. It doesn't even sound cool.

1701. "Quaran-teen" (2:02) Summer 1996. Surely it was the balls-out reggae experimentation here that led me to conclude that I needed to buy a bass, stat.

1702. "Smelly Feet Interlude" (1:02) Summer 1996. The first Thunderegg song recorded with a bass. I had just bought one, an Ibanez Roadstar, from Andrew Park, then of Holiday, an actually successful band. Commercially speaking, I was obviously home free from this point on.

1703. "Waste of Tape Interlude (edit)" (0:30) Summer 1996. Deep, deep in the pocket on this one.

1704. "Another Waste of Tape Interlude (edit)" (2:00) Summer 1996. This is merely a taste of a serious jam. As usual, it all went to hell once the wah-wah pedal came in.

1901. "Liz Phair Is in My Spit Chain" (4:31) October 1996. Sorry. Drunk. Never mind that it would be impossible, given the described sequence of events, for Liz Phair to "swallow an atom of my spit, yeah." I could have swallowed an atom of her spit, maybe, but not the other way around.

1903. "Coming to the Chorus" (1:50) October 1996. Biting cultural commentary. R.E.M. had just signed that huge record deal with Warner Bros.

1904. "St. Joan" (0:45) October 1996. I used to have a hymnal lying around; "St. Joan" was the name of the melody I swiped here. A guy named Coller wrote it. His first name is not important.

OUTTAKES FROM "NEW ENGLAND MUSIC" (1996)

0701. "Day After Day" (2:04) September 1995. A cover of the classic Badfinger number. Or a defilement, depending on whether you appreciate the sonic clarity of the 9-volt-powered mini-amp I had just bought at a yard sale for $1.

0702. "O Little Town of Bethlehem" (0:54) September 1995. I should probably feel worse about this, but at least it's a fairly accurate representation of my hometown congregation's style at the midnight Christmas Eve service. Plenty of spirit(s).

0801. "Planetarium (demo)" (2:09) October 1995. This song was first included on Thunderegg, but the delay-pedal thing had been kicking around since the Larry days. Larry guitarist Justin Weyerhaeuser coined the song title long before lyrics were actually written.

0802. "Interesting (Gnarly)" (2:59) October 1995. If you couldn't get enough of that "Day After Day" guitar tone, here it is again, now interpreting a Larry crowd-pleaser (without the funky breakdown at the end, alas).

0803. "Harmonica I" (1:26) November 1995. Not a song, really. What was the "it" I was referring to, anyway? Disaffection? Ennui? Cafard?

1001. "Trippy Song (edit)" (1:03) November 1995. Kind of along the lines of "Some Beer-o's" (below). I guess I was listening to a lot of Spacemen 3, even if I didn't have the wherewithal to replicate their sound.

1002. "The Lord of the Empty Beer Bottles" (3:33) November 1995. This sums up the period perfectly.

1003. "Leeza Gibbons Has Been Briefed on Slack" (4:01) November 1995. Wait, no, this sums up the period perfectly.

OUTTAKES FROM "UNIVERSAL NUT" (1995)

0101. "Rangement Verticale" (2:50) June 8, 1995. First song ever recorded on the Tascam Porta07. Kate Seward, rhythm guitar. Tyler McGlashan plays the saucepan and then whines that he can't hear anything through the Walkman headphones we were using.

0102. "Xantippe" (5:31) June 1995. Smokin' whistling solo in the end.

0103. "Pillowcase (take one)" (1:58) June 1995. Without bridge.

0201. "Badness (to the Tune of Bad Dog)" (3:39) June 1995. Instrumental.

0202. "Just Like Heaven" (4:57) July 1995. Don't listen to this. It's troubling.

0301. "Some Beer-o's" (2:33) July 1995. Psychedelic instrumental experimentation with Tyler McGlashan (percussion). Originally almost seven minutes long and titled "My Penis Is Melting." Some suspicious sounds of Bic lighters and prolonged inhalations on this one.

0302. "Hold Myself Up (take one)" (5:46) July 1995. Edited from its original 7:58 duration. You're being spared the wah-wah freakout at the end.

0501. "Sexy Swineherder" (5:49) August 1995. The erstwhile dorm-room jam finally gets its moment here. At the time I really did think this was a pretty good song.

0601. "Her Shotgun Life" (4:59) September 1995. Another Larry song. True to our full-band performance style, I blew the change.