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Posted to the MONKEYHOUSE SONGS website: 23rd March 2004

I'd like to add a few words to shed light on the appearance of Modern Man in Monkeyhouse. It was October of 2002 and I'd just begun with some recordings for my phase 1 tape (East). One night I decided to get in touch with Modern Man about helping with some music for the project. Although I'd never worked with Modern on a recording, I'd heard many of his compositions and considered him with the absolute highest regard as a musician/artist. I explained to him the concept behind the tape-exchanges and we agreed to get together later that week. On a very cold Friday night around Halloween, I spent a fun, adventurous evening at Modern's studio in downtown Fargo recording the foundation of what would turn out to be [8] "The enemy Is You!" (disc 2), a song that Mod had been noodling around with for some time. It was a combination of chaos and control, but ultimately musicianship and genius that wrought a wonderful result by the end of the night (On a whim, I'd even got to record a trumpet part around a melody Mod hummed out for me.) I slipped our recording into my phase 1 tape; hopefully an interesting turn for the next person who'd get it.
          The next month, when I inherited Pat's monkeyhouse West tape, I decided to get in touch with Mod about recording some more. He was glad to help out, only this time, I gave him a complete copy of the Monkeyhouse West tape and encouraged him to add whatever came to mind. After only a few days, Mod called to say he'd finished with the tape. I went over to his studio and he played for me a mind-bending 30 minute soundscape he'd superimposed over the west tape. It radically augmented the already freaked-out character of Pat's phase-1 tape. For the remainder of the month, I worked to patch together Pat's original tape, Mod's soundscape, and additional parts I had recorded. The resulting 2-track quiltwork was dubbed by its phase-3 recipient as "...a friggin' Rubik's cube!" Heh, heh, heh.