Hey! You can see his underwear! The Won Out album - a great leap

 

                                        Won Out, the album that refuses to die. 

The working title of the album was Whatever You Want. I had already designed the cover art - a cartoon I'd drawn of two stick figures with huge, misshapen heads fighting each other. I had written a long, complicated song with the same title I had planned for the end of side 2 - my A Day In The Life. In true Beatles fashion it was ultimately not used, turning up later as the B-side of a bonus single. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

I'm not going to get into too much technobabble but there are some fun and interesting things I'll mention along the way. Recording started in January of 1975 in the safety of my living room. I had 4 tracks to work with so usually I had vocal and guitar (recorded together) on track 1 Bass (and sometimes another vocal) on track 2, drums on track 3 and track 4 would be left over for lead guitar, keyboards, harmony vocal, cows mooing , neighbors fighting or whatever. I could have taken a page from the Beatles book and bounced down to make more room - that is, mixing the tracks onto another machine and putting the mixed tracks back on one or two tracks on the original machine, giving me 2 or 3 more tracks to work with - but I avoided that because my equipment was too primitive and limited to prevent the sound from degrading and I was clumsy and lazy. I only used that method on a few songs. By March I had over a dozen songs in various stages of completion. Many were Bonkeenie numbers I'd written in the last two years but several were composed during the sessions. Because I was a purist snob my initial mixes were all mono. I wanted the album to be released in mono only. Good enough for the Beatles, good enough for me. I probably would have recorded well into the summer had everything not come to a screeching halt when almost all of my equipment was stolen at the end of March. People can be so mean! Consequently any songs on the album that feature electric guitars and drums are from those 1975 sessions.

Did I mention that I like, admire and try to imitate The Beatles?

After that unfortunate event, the Whatever You Want project slowed down as I recorded when and wherever I could, sometimes paying for studio time, sometimes recording live at home, usually with me singing and playing guitar with Arlene playing whatever keyboard instrument was there at the time, playing with friends at a party and other random occasions. I tended to record everything. At some point I decided that the purpose of recording was not to make an album, but to collect demos of my songs in hopes of interesting a label or publisher but later went back to the album idea, figuring a completed record would be a better demo then a tape. As I go song by song I'll point out which are which, who is who, what is what and why or why not, but songs that ended up on the finished album are mainly from the early '75 sessions, a day-long live at-home recording session with Arlene in the summer of 1977, a weird, disjointed afternoon in a guy's garage in Orinda and recording here and there in '77 and '78 at Mike Cogan's Bay Records studio in Alameda.

For an album with only 9 or 10 songs and barely 25 minutes of music the process of recording Won Out was an extremely complicated and convoluted, a stop-and-start effort. It took over 3 years to complete, ultimately resulting in a finished album that I ended up pulling back and re-doing. It's an interesting story that I'll talk about as each song is revealed along the way. 

Won Out, and all of my subsequent releases, were on our Sparlene Records label. "Sparlene" was the name my friends had given us because we were never apart. It was not meant as a compliment.

Whatever You Want became Won Out because...I don't remember. Sorry. It might have been when I decided not to put the title song on. But there's no song called "Won Out" so that's probably not it. It might have been a play on words - it was my first album so I had "one out" but gaaah that's bad so probably not. Maybe it was referring to a battle of my many personalities in which the Sparky part "won out". But that's a no because as far as I'm aware I've only got the one, however flawed, personality. Most likely it just popped into my head and I liked it. I could have been that I just didn't think there would be another record out there with the same title (there was no internet so I couldn't Google it). 

The cover...I wanted the album to look like one of those tossed-off early 60's jobs with a goofy color cover and a slap-dash looking black-and-white back panel. The picture was taken on a high school football field that had the middle fenced off for reseeding. I grabbed my guitar and leapt gracefully over it (contrary to some stories I did not slip and fall upon landing. In fact I spun around and leapt the other way - a shot that was long ago lost in the fog of time and memory). The back cover was me and Arlene on our front porch being all cozy and stuff. You can tell the difference between the first and second pressings because, besides the bonus single (which is almost never included with old copies that show up on eBay and other places), there's an insert which, besides including a funny story about hunting bears, attempts to explain the changes and, most tellingly, two songs on the second changed places on the record but not on the way-too-expensive-to-redo cover. All of that and a few of the songs were switched out for different mixes or completely different takes. Sadly most copies of the first version were destroyed before they ever got out and are extremely rare. I don't even have one although I've got a test pressing somewhere. The first LP was released at the end of 1979, pulled back, re-jigged and put out again in early 1980.

Won Out was sent to college radio stations around the country. Back then most stations were independent and had their own program directors. We focused on college stations - they were more willing to listen to and play music by independent and unsigned artists if they found them interesting. Each album went out with typed letter of introduction, a 3-page "interview" with comical questions and answers (there were two versions. In one I was kind of a jerk and in the other I was sweet as pie) and a stamped and addressed postcard the station could send back with any comments. The college program directors were very responsive - I got a lot of the postcards back with compliments and promises to play. Many stations sent copies of their top 10 or 20 requested songs and Won Out tracks were high on many of them. I was so proud when one of my songs was number one at Saint Mary's college here in the Bay Area (program director was named Peter Parker) and another institution of higher learning in Boston.  Arlene and I did everything by hand - typed the letters put the packages together, and took them to the post office. I'm not sure how many demo copies we sent out (each one carefully stamped with "promotional copy. not for sale" and the Sparlene Records stamp) but it was at least a couple o' hundred. We also sent copies to record labels and management firms in the hope that it might find the right ears. We did get a bite - a big one - but that's a story for another time.

Back cover of the LP "all cozy and stuff"

                                                   Yeah, it's blurry - but you get the idea

Won Out was released on CD twice, in 2004 with different cover art and 2009 (special 30th anniversary limited edition sold only the celebratory performance!) that more closely resembled the original LP. The CD versions included bonus tracks and more detailed information.

The cover of the first CD was kinda clunky-looking...

 

...but the booklet included detailed recording information and the infamous insert (insamous infert in the Latin, of course)

Won Out has had a remarkable afterlife. Copies have turned up around the world from Italy to Japan and I've received fan mail from faraway places like Vietnam and Great Britain. It has become a prized collector's item, at one point selling for as high as 100 bucks for a mint copy. There continues to be a demand for it although prices have dropped - last time I checked there was a (slightly dog-eared) copy on ebay that could be had for the princely sum of 25 smackaroos. You can buy the album (even vinyl copies when they're not sold out) at
https://sparkygrinstead.bandcamp.com/ 

           So that's my story and I'm stickin' to it. There's a lot more but I'll bring it up when it matters. Let's get to the songs...

Igloo for now!

More stuff: My life is full of odd coincidences like this one: My lovely wife, Allison, remembers hearing me on the Bates College radio station in Maine when she was a hot little coed. 

Found on the wall at a used record shop in Oakland!

Won Out has been performed in its entirety only 3 times - 1. The celebrated 25th birthday party in 2004 (I'm pretty sure) 2. A live broadcast from Ex'pressions Music College 3. Kurtis Strange hosted a performance at his Electric Household in San Diego The first two performances featured The Backorders and the third was something of a Bonkeenies reunion with Greg and Olga joining me and my daughter Kristie. (the band was actually called New Old Stock. 

     Sparky. Greg and Olga rehearse for the San Diego show in an amazing mashup put together by Greg