I'll Tell You The Secret Word August 25, 2003 - The Phish Archive Press By Julia Mordaunt (inside in being blended) If you were to buckle yourself into the front seat of a time machine and travel back to the year 1999, you might find a musician named Mike Gordon tirelessly working on an album that four years later would become Inside In. If you were to lean forward on the dash board of the time machine and re-adjust the dials to transport you back into 2003, you might find a musician named Mike Gordon tirelessly working on ways to fix the Y2K problem that enraptured our planet. Inside In is Mike's first solo album and the long-awaited CD complement to Outside Out, his first full-length feature film. Using themes from Outside Out as a launching pad, Inside In plays through like an audio movie, unfolding as a series of intertwined aural dreamscapes. "The experience of music lies in some indiscernible space between being asleep and being awake, so I really love the fact that the album is dreamy," says Gordon. "I wanted it to flow in a certain way. It's supposed to unfold like different dreams in the same night or parts of the same dream where you're in different settings." 1. Can you please write a haiku about Inside In? Potter, demon clay Find yourself a curve to play Cover up your start 2. What is the most consecutive hours that you worked on Inside In, in one 24 hour day? If you count all phases of recording, probably about 16 hours in one day. That would have had to do with preparing the initial music tracks for the movie, before they were warped. Warping is faster than the birthing, except always. As you see, I am answering these questions with only nouns, like you said I could. (inside in hiding in a plant) 3. What type of food, if any, should an Inside In listener be eating when they put the album in for the very first time? This is a good question, because I can see you know I'm going toward mentioning nutritional yeast. It's not so much the kind of food, but that it must have nutritional yeast sprinkled on it. It should be vegan, and have nute-yeast on it. 4. Are you wearing socks right now? I most certainly am. Today's are socks of virgin, unbleached cotton. That didn't add to their original cost, but, rather, subtracted from. Don't get me wrong; plenty of days find me swimming in chemical baths and pesticides. 5. Do you have a favorite track on the album? Well, it depends who you ask. If you ask ME what my favorite track is, it may be, today, well, hmm. Admoop, if only because of my current mood. But if you ask yourself what MY favorite track is, you'll find that it's the last track. 6. If you were to stand up right now, take two steps backwards, turn to your left, take two steps forward, turn to your right, take 8 steps backwards, turn to your right, take 4 steps forward, turn to your left, take 24 steps forward, where would you be? I would be cramming myself into the kitchen garbage bucket. 7. Which came first, Soul Food Man or Steel Bones? (inside in - midst a chess match) The only reason I guess Steel Bones is because I had a similar experiment in a jam session in my house years before Outside Out. Except I wrote it for steel to slide with slide-trombone not knowing the 'bonist would be playing valve trombone. In recording for the movie itd've been Soulfood Man, but that was just the background vamp. Steel Bones was more intactish in the movie, whereas Soulfood Man was torn a new a-hole, with words and sounds. Of course Steel got miscontorted in the central section. I can't know. 8. Who were some musicians on the album that were your favorites to work with? Jeff and Jared, because we sat there for hours on end. We laughed and then shuddered and then laughed again. This was all within the Oct-state area. 9. You suggest that the best way to experience Inside In is over headphones in a darkened room. If I were to be able to see the light from the moon through the window, would this be acceptable? What about the light from a black light? Or a glowing nightlight? (inside in enjoying a martini, dry) The moon is acceptable, as is the black light, as is not the nightlight. We here at Cactus Unlimited can be quite flexible when it comes to allowing such listening environments. Driving at night is super-appropriate too. The problem is that these settings can actually make all albums sound good, even crappy ones. But that doesn't mean one that's sounding good there is necessarily crappy. Not according to the laws of logic, and that's what Inside In is: a new way to define the laws of logic. 10. If Inside is "in" and Outside is "out" what is Inside Out? Inside Out is In Slash Out. 11. Y2K? I would also like to like to comment about Y2K and just express my concern for those getting hit by Y2K now for the first time. Hopefully you kept receipts for stuff like calculators. Good luck. [ the phish archive top six ] 1. Best for your death bed: Take Me Outro 2. This guitar's gonna fuck your face: Couch Lady 3. Lyrical genius: The Teacher, The Lesson, Exit Wound 4. Best Mood: The Beltless Buckler, Admoop 5. Instrumental Flux: Bone Delay 6. Haunting Instrument: Pedal Steel, trombone, bass, blue button Article © 2003 Julia Mordaunt, Mike Gordon Photographs © 2003 Julia Mordaunt