Okay. Huh. Well, after Shave The Baby came out, I was looking for a new thing to play with. While driving with The New Bomb Turks to New York for a mini-tour, we were expounding on the brilliance of Pere Ubu's debut LP, "The Modern Dance." I don't know who said it, maybe it was even me, but the sentence "there oughtta be a tribute" floated around in the air, and by the time we were home, I was halfway thorough making a list of who I would ask to be on it. This was late 1991.

Well, after contacting, screwing around, and swearing I wouldn't allow anyone to do "Final Solution," I was ready to approach financiers. Dutch East India of New York City raised their hand, and I drove out to meet with them and get everything sealed up. This was February 1992.

(Totally irrelevant side note. I drove out with Tim Llanza, who besides taking the pictures for this here Ubu thing, runs the Rohauer Collection, an archive of amazing silent and older films, including the majority of Buster Keaton's work. He was going out to see Bill Frisell perform a live score to Keaton flicks, a project that Tim had worked months to arrange. The Frisell scores are out on CD, and the Keaton Films are on video, thanks to Tim.)

Well, the Dutch East meeting went well, and I got home and started to get stuff hammered out. By the time I got something resembling a song order together, "Ubu Dance Party" was over 2 hours long, and had nearly 40 bands. Two bands I was particularly proud of netting were The Breeders and The Afghan Whigs, neither of which, unfortunately, would ultimately make it to the final product. More on that later.

Things seemed to go smoothly. Then, a really, really, really bad thing happened. Kurt Cobain was found dead in his home, having killed himself with a large shotgun. Nirvana and The Breeders had the same manager, and out of respect (although it didn't turn out to be a very bright move) I waited until things slowed down to continue (the manager in question had enough to worry about without my lame butt making things more complicated.) Just as I prepared to contact her and get the ball rolling again, the bass player for L7, another band the same manager was responsible for, died. Yikes.

So anyway, I finally contact her, and I get a call from Kim Deal herself, saying the track she recorded with Guided By Voices (Ubu's "Navvy") didn't make her particularly happy. Since the CD is a tribute, and it really isn't much of a tribute if you don't like what you did, it got cut.

At this point, I started to feel like I was losing it. At the time I attributed it to nerves, although the real reason would make itself appearent later. The Breeders were off and The Afghan Whigs had just never really happened. The financing was coming later than scheduled, and money was tight. I ended up getting kicked out of the apartment I was living in at the time for a few days, and my gas was shut off for a good four months. (I was microwaving water to bathe with. Fortunately, it wasn't Winter.)

After this, your guess is as good as mine. I remember bits and pieces of things (getting a job at CompuServe, moving in with my current roommates) but the vast majority of the time between then and about eight months ago is a blank wall. I do remember that there was a problem with the licensing of the Ubu songs for the tribute, and that Dutch East was (understandably) getting antsier about the project. That's about it.

One day ( I can't even tell you when that day was) I sat down to my computer at CompuServe and booted up. I had to access my personal area on the LAN, and the screen said...

"Name:"

I sat there for about 15 minutes (according to my friend who's office was next to mine) and stared blankly at the screen. Eventually, I pulled my driver's license out of my wallet and typed it from there. Then it asked for a password, and that was it. I walked up to my boss and said:

"I gotta go home."

"Yeah. You don't look too good."

I went home and went to bed. For the next 8 months I slept an average of 20 hours a day. My doctor either thought I was faking it to get out of work or was just clueless, but she assured me it would pass. Finally, while taking one of my constant naps on the couch, my roommate shakes me.

"Um, Chad? Do you know that you don't breathe when you sleep?"

Ah-ha.

So started a long drawn out diagnosis of what turned out to be a severe case of Sleep Apnea. Basically what this means is, since I don't breathe during sleep, I end up gasping and waking briefly, so I don't relax enough to hit dream states, which is when your brain rejuvinates. I hadn't dreamt for, literally, years. My new doctor ran me though a whole slew of tests and told me that for every two minutes I breathe, there's a full minute I don't. What this eventually meant was sleeping with this Frank Booth looking mask strapped to my head that forces my wind passages open for the entire time I'm asleep.

So, the immediate problem was fixed. Now, the recovery, which, almost exactly one year later (this being March of 97,) seems to be ending. Somehow, I managed to finish the Ubu project, and it should be out any day now. If you're on it, and you didn't get paid, lemmie know, and I'll do what I can to get it to you, although the past few years have waged serious havoc on my finances. It might not be real soon, but you'll get it.

And here I am now, writing this. In two months, it will have been five years since I signed the Dutch East contract, and the Ubu thing is a new release. Go get one, it rules.