The Making of Gas Food Lodging


We cut the record at El Dorado Studio in LA, right next to the Palace Theater at Hollywood and Vine. Things are very Disney around there now, but back then you could get a blowjob as easy as a milkshake and they cost about the same. The studio's sound was a bit dirty, like a pub that doesn't clean their beer lines enough. What the hell, the price was right.

There was a beautiful harpsichord in the studio office, and I was obsessed about putting it to use, you know, like the Beach Boys or something. The producer and engineer was Paul B. Cutler, who really was the unsung hero of so many LA records back then. He basically was a vampire, of the Mormon variety. We met him through the Human Hand's David Wiley (1954-1988), who was kind of our consultant and pot dealer. Paul and David were cactus heads (Arizonans), just like most of us in Green On Red. Our drummer, Alex MacNicol (1958-2004), had come to LA from San Francisco, while the new guitar player, who we called the Kid, was still living up in S.F.

Alex and I shared a house rented by our girlfriends, and we both worked shit jobs down on Highland Blvd. Bassist Jack Waterson also was doing time on slavery row while keyboardist Chris Cacavas was selling paint over on Vine. No one really knew what the Kid did, outside of hustling student loans and playing in a band that had opened for us in Berkeley. We poached him right quick and chewed on his name... Chuck Prophet, the fourth no less.

Chuck came down to LA thinking we were making a new record for big bad Slash Records, but he stood there slack-jawed as I told Bob Biggs to go fuck himself. After the critical acclaim but commercial indifference of Gravity Talks, Biggs wanted us to go do demos with some loser named Mitchell Froom... yeah right, that guy will never amount to anything. Jack promptly rang up Bill Hein at Enigma Records, Slash's cross town rivals, and said "guess what, we're going in the studio tomorrow and you guys are paying for it". Jack also hustled some equipment money and Chuck went and picked up a Telecaster, money well spent I reckon.

The sessions were a breeze, the only real tension was dividing up solo sections between Chris and Chuck. Chris wasn't used to competition, he had always been the best musician in whatever band he played in. Actually, he still was but youth and guitars must be served. The sessions had a sense of transcendent beauty; the addition of Chuck had lifted us out of a Pearls Before Swine trough and into Big Pink territory. Me and Jack would light up a joint and listen to Chris and Chuck riff back and forth and just beam fuck yeah, that's rock n roll. Of course, it was I who played the best lead on the record, just ask Neil Young about The Drifter.

The record ends with We Shall Overcome, a huge cause for embarrassment today, but actually quite fitting back in the post-Darby, pre-Wonderland killings of 1985 Los Angeles. I had pilfered the old hymn out of a tattered paperback, tearing out the offending page in a thrift store. Gas Food Lodging had been out for months when I finally put two and two together. Staring at the TV one night, I came across some documentary footage of anti-war protestors burning draft cards and such. A stoned hippie was playing the song on a pathetic little acoustic when a pig ripped the guitar from his hands and smashed it to pieces. Oh, that song... The Weavers, March on Washington, Reverend King. Holy fucking shit. Now please dont tell anyone, its a secret.


Dan Stuart
London, 2006