It began back in March when our bassist brought his computer to the practice space. We hooked it up to the Old Beans PA mixer (I kind of inherited it when Old Beans broke up) and attached all of our microphones to it. We were trying to record ourselves. Hear ourselves. Get a sense of what other people might be hearing when they see us play.

What we got that night wasn't bad, but it wasn't great either. I was out for beers with a friend a few days later and mentioned we were trying to do some "home" recordings. He offered to help. And, immediately after this, we moved from our original band space across the parking lot to a newer, bigger one. This space had a small "control room" attached to the larger practice space. In other words, the space was pretty much created to be a small studio.

So we were all set. Except our utility man (he plays guitars, bass, toys and sings lead on a couple of songs) went in for shoulder surgery a couple of days before we were to record the basic instrument tracks. He had wrecked on his bike not once, but twice in the last few months and his shoulder was screwed.

But the songs we were doing (four of our earliest arrangements) only required him to play bass on one song for the basic track. And our regular bassist covered him for that song. Two hours of recording and we had those basic tracks down. The last song we did in one furious (but glorious) take. There was a rush at the end of that session as the death metal band that practices next to us patiently waited around for us to finish.

Two weeks or so later, we went to my friend's house to do vocals. This way he didn't have to haul all of his recording equipment to finish it all up. And we wouldn't run afoul of the young death metal band. Our utility man was healed enough to sing and play toys, including the "hooter" or melodica. I didn't have any vocals to sing on these four songs, but it was cool to watch the guys belt it out in the kitchen.

A few weeks later we got a rough mix, asked for some tweaks and got the final mix back about a week ago. We recorded four songs in four hours, and they sound pretty good. They certainly sound like Full Speed Veronica.

And what do we sound like? Power pop is what I usually say, which is that most songs are short, heavy on choruses and sweet singing about breaking up with girls. Okay, they're not all about breaking up with girls, but this is certainly a major theme. But a rock band. We are guitars, bass and drums, along with other assorted musical toys and occasional keyboards.

I think we're akin to seventies bands with more than one singer (we have, in fact, three lead singers...and I even croon a version of Liz Phair's "Divorce Song" at most gigs, along with a bit of backup). Think of The Band, Dr. Hook, Kiss, the Eagles, the Cars, Steely Dan, Frank Zappa and the Mothers and many other multiple lead singer bands. And we don't stick to one type of song (we have two main songwriters) either. So we're a bar band. And we're four non-A-type personalities, so there is no main focus.

This four song EP (dubbed "Between the Chairs") shows off four sides of our hexagonal sound. An AC/DC-type rocker called "Motorcycle." "Good In Goodbye" is an 80s style rave up (complete with cascading keyboards). We get weird on "Lend Me Your Ear," and "Sorry" is a sweet pop song featuring the melodica.

They're up on our Myspace page (so you can listen to the songs), and we'll soon get a download page up as well. I'm working on art (as well as continually tweaking the logo), so maybe by summer there will be a complete package.

But this is pretty exciting. We've been playing out in the bars of Albuquerque and Santa Fe for about a year, and now we've got something for fans to listen to when we're not up on stage.

We've got over fifteen originals and a bunch of wacky covers (including Tom Waits, They Might Be Giants, the Pixies, Elvis Costello, the Clash and Liz Phair). And we're a rather entertaining band on stage (if, for nothing else, the constant switching of instruments and singers). Once I get this logo and EP cover finished, we'll even get some t-shirts and stickers made.

My first band only had one studio recorded song (for a local compilation). Malcolm, our defacto lead singer/guitarist, recorded two albums and an EP with his last band, The Hollis Wake. So starting to do this with our still relatively new band is pretty damn cool.

And being pretty damn cool is what being in a band is all about, right?

Matt Worley might get around to writing a song someday.