All of these tracks range somewhere between the production of the 1999 recording sessions and the final release of I Get Wet (November, 2001 – UK). It’s amazing that 14 years later we’re able to gain further insights and context into the recording process of Andrew W.K.’s hit album. Listening to how these songs progressed over time is truly fascinating.
Before we get started it might be beneficial if you head over to the Media Archive and see how the following four CDs fall into place with the rest of Andrew W.K. history. Been there, done that? Then read on…
Track Analysis (my commentary)
The only tracks I’ll be paying attention to from this CD is the first four. The last seven tracks are nothing new and are simply taken from the S/T Full Length Album Promo. So for the sake of redundancy I’ll pretend those don’t exist for this analysis. Based on the sound-progression of these tracks when compared to the “Chop Shop” CD, I placed it first chronologically (there’s no date labeled on the CD). To me, reason suggests that the more bare-bones tracks would come first and then it was taken to “The Chop Shop”. Upon careful listening of this CD and then to the Chop Shop CD you will hear the Chop Shop has added layers of effects, guitars, vocals or drums to each song. For example, compare the :39 to :45 second mark of She Is Beautiful from the two CDs. While this first CD has fast guitar strumming, on the Chop Shop you can hear added effects over it.
It’s really cool to hear and have so many iterations of She Is Beautiful. If you listen to the Steev Mike Radio Commercial there’s a very unique mix of “She Is Beautiful”. Normally we hear on the album; “I Ain’t Got Nothing To Lose, Going To Throw It Away And Talk To You” & “I Ain’t Got Nothing To Lose, And I’ll Never Forget When I Saw You”. But instead we hear “I Ain’t Got Nothing To Lose, So I Do What I Want And I Want You” x2. Well we finally get to hear the full mix from which these lyrics were pulled from if you listen at the 2:52-3:10 mark. If these lyrics sound familiar it’s also because they were later used on The Wolf’s “Really In Love”.
The version of Free Jumps on here sounds very heavy compared to other versions of it, the Chop Shop version lightened it up a lot. The intro to Party Hard’s vocoder effect reminds me of the much lower and a little more human-like version of CCWBW’s vinyl song “We Will Boogie”. This version of Fun Night is my favorite, even more than the “enhanced” Chop Shop or album versions. You can hear very clearly the “Four on the floor” dance beat (see here for more explanation). And the very distinct synthesizer (I think that’s what you’d call it?) sound in the left-ish channel. All in all it just sounds more clean to me.
Tracklisting
- She Is Beautiful
- Free Jumps
- Party Hard
- Fun Night
- We’re Not Gunna Get Old – (1999 Recording Session Version)
- Kicks and Bricks – (1999 Recording Session Version)
- It’s Time To Party – (1999 Recording Session Version)
- Girls Own Juice – (1999 Recording Session Version)
- Your Rules – (1999 Recording Session Version)
- Don’t Stop Living In The Red – (1999 Recording Session Version)
- Tear It Up – (1999 Recording Session Version)
2000-12-07-The Chop Shop [Demo]
The Chop Shop is a recording studio inside of Scott Humphrey’s house in Los Angeles, CA. He is well known in the industry and is one of the music producers on I Get Wet. All of these songs are enhanced from the prior CD and sound more finalized. It’s dated December 7, 2000. I’m not going to go into detail with these because if a picture is worth a thousand words than so is listening to a song. Just check these out and contrast them with the previous CD. There’s plenty of room to talk about them in the forums.
Tracklisting
- She Is Beautiful
- Free Jumps
- Party Hard
- Fun Night
2001-01-20 #1 Andrew WK [Demo]
This next CD is dated January 20, 2001. Which happens to be the month and year the We Want Fun album on Bulb Records was supposed to be released. By this point in time though it had obviously been canceled. Just like some of the tracks from The Wolf demos we archived, these two tracks sound to me like they were created for a specific purpose in mind. For example, perhaps a member of the band needed to hear a part of the song in order to learn it. That wouldn’t be the first time we had evidence of that. Any other ideas on why these appear this way?
Tracklisting
- Girls Own Love
- Ready To Die
2001-01-20-#2 8 Tracks In Work [Demo]
These nearly completed tracks are sure to make a big splash. Fellow friend, partier and author of Andrew W.K.’s I Get Wet (33 1/3), Phillip Crandall gives details on the first track “Get Black On”:
Technically, this is just an earlier demo version of “Take It Off,” which is track 5 on I Get Wet. But with “Get Black On,” you get those three titular words deeply growled at the beginning (rather than the group-sing-along shouts of the eventual title). Even crazier is what precedes the build-up to that growled line: a horn intro that sounds right out of James Brown’s “Get Up Offa That Thing.”* Mark Morgan, a friend and former roommate of Andrew’s, says of the early version, “It’s basically the same fucking thing, but I really like it a lot more when he sang ‘Get Black On.’ I was like, ‘fuck yeah, this is amazing,’ then he changed it to ‘Take It Off,’ and…I don’t know. I like it the other way.” (Andrew now says that “Get Black On” is a better title, and he wished he had called it that.)
Has anyone else noticed that the intro to this song is used at the beginning of the Party Hard music video? Next up is “I Love NYC”. This track is very similar to one I already had released on the site. However, you can easily hear that the drums kick in a lot sooner on this version (@ the :10 second mark). This version of I Get Wet is relentless. The horns in Got To Do It are turned up and really blow you away. I LOVE this version of Ready To Die. I think I even like it better than the album version. It just seems to cut a little harder. Girls Own Love is missing verses of lyrics and only contains the chorus. Maybe they were still finalizing last minute changes to wording. Your Rules is cool because… wait what?! “Your Rules” was going to appear on I Get Wet?! I have had a “finalized” version of Freejumps since around 2006. It’s sourced from a 4 Track promo. And I even asked Andrew about it when I interviewed him. But not until now did I ever know that Your Rules was seriously considered for the album. It is really cool to hear it in this form. And lastly, I’m glad It’s Time To Party was further fleshed out into a song for the final version. But this version is cool too because it just get to the point ya know?
Tracklisting
- Take It Off
- I Love NYC
- I Get Wet
- Got To Do It
- Ready To Die
- Girls Own Love
- Your Rules
- It’s Time To Party
So there you have it, the bomb has been dropped. And 4 CDs, 18 tracks & 57 minutes later you’ve gone through an amazing musical journey with me. Thanks for partying and tell everyone else what you think in the forum!