Ruby Vroom (album) Article Index for
Ruby
Website Links For
Ruby
 

Information About

Ruby Vroom (album)




  Type Album
  Artist Soul Coughing
  Cover Rubyvroomjpg
  Background Orange
  Released September 27 , 1994
  Recorded April &ndash June 1994
  Genre Alternative Rock
  Length 61:27
  Label Slash / Warner Brothers Records
  Producer Tchad Blake
  Last Album
  This Album '''''Ruby Vroom''''' (1994)
  Next Album '' Irresistible Bliss '' (1996)


The album's lone guest is Rachel Benbow Murdy , band founder Mike Doughty 's ex-girlfriend, who supplies a vocal on "Janine." Doughty had Murdy go out to a payphone in Sheridan Square in New York and improvise a long, meandering song into their answering machine. Recorded a year before the ''Ruby'' sessions, Doughty and bass player Sebastian Steinberg recorded the tune at the avant-garde jazz club The Knitting Factory during the daytime, when the club was closed, with club soundperson James McLean . McLean put a mic on the answering machine, which Doughty had brought to the session.

''Ruby'' was named after Ruby Froom, daughter of record producer Mitchell Froom --a frequent collaborator of ''Ruby Vroom'' producer Tchad Blake --and singer/songwriter Suzanne Vega .

The album was recorded at Sunset Sound Factory in Hollywood, Blake and Froom's usual haunt--a storage room near the studio's lounge was filled with vintage keyboards and road cases filled with toys--whistles, baby rattles, children's toy xylophones. Many of these ended up in the songs, such as a train whistle played by Doughty on "Uh, Zoom Zip". This was in keeping with Tchad Blake's spirit of maverick experimentation, which included sticking a Binaural head-shaped microphone in front of Yuval Gabay 's drumkit, sticking a mic in a muffler, called "the Bone" and sticking that in the drum booth as well, and having Doughty improvise wild, yelling ad-libs on "Casiotone Nation," singing into a cheap amplification system called an Ahuja that Blake bought in India. The speaker was essentially a huge bullhorn atop a stick.


TRACK LISTING

#"Is Chicago, Is Not Chicago" (3:48)
#"Sugar-Free Jazz" (3:55)
#"Casiotone Nation" (3:50)
#"Blueeyed Devil" (4:12)
#"Bus to Beelzebub" (4:33)
#"True Dreams of Wichita" (5:00)
#"Screenwriter's Blues" (5:08)
#"Moon Sammy" (4:09)
#"Supra Genius" (3:59)
#"City of Motors" (4:38)
#"Uh, Zoom Zip" (3:56)
#"Down to This" (3:49)
#"Mr. Bitterness" (5:32)
#"Janine" (4:58)


PERSONNEL