Although this was the first Maxine’s Radiator tape that many Dentonites heard, Plastissimo was actually our second tape. The first one, Down At The Poor Man’s Ballroom, came out a year earlier. Joshua Zarbo, an excellent bass player who responded to a flyer I posted, and I recorded songs on my Fostex 4-track cassette recorder after becoming frustrated with our fruitless search for a guitarist and drummer to complete the band.
We gave out the Poor Man’s Ballroom tapes to our friends and other musicians, hoping to find people to join the band. That didn’t work so we decided to make another tape.
I felt like our first album sounded too earnest and green. I wanted to make something that was bold, psychedelic, glam…something bursting with attitude and absurdity. We set out to make the most ambitious album that had ever been made on cheap gear with a zero dollar budget. The limitations of the gear gave the recording a plastic-like sound, but the ambitions of the music earned it the -issimo suffix used in European classical music notation. Thus, Josh suggested the title Plastissimo!
The process of recording Plastissimo was much more collaborative and communal than our previous album had been. Josh was heavily involved in writing the music and adding instrumentation on this one. Jack Royal, a crazy good guitarist, keyboardist, and effects wizard that I’d met while drinking 40s on Hickory and Fry, came in towards the end of tracking and added some stellar overdubs. He already had a band, but we kept inviting him over to play with us until he became a member of our band. Various friends came by to add overdubs. Every time we filled up 3 tracks, we bounced them down and added more sounds. I was on mushrooms or LSD for a decent chunk of the sessions. It was truly a time of fearless experimentation.
Plastissimo is the tape that got us booked at the Argo, which changed everything for us. We met so many people who understood what we were doing. We saw all these bands that inspired us and turned us on to new music. We played with Thorazine Dreams and their guitarist/bassist Daron Beck said he wanted to play drums for us. That allowed us to finally start playing regular shows and become a legit rock band!

A few notes on the songs:
In our quest to be more self aware, the album begins with the “Radiator Trilogy”, a band-themed three-part explosion in which we introduce ourselves and say, “Welcome to our grooved-out twisted world!” The scorched gospel/funk “I don’t wanna freak out” rave-up is followed by the spazzy art rock “Freak out” and closed by a triumphant and surreal coda complete with trumpet fanfare.
“Velours” (the s on the end made it seem more French and sophisticated) is a psych/glam song about an alluring alien rival hunting me with a space gun. Her name is Maxine and she wears velours. “See in 3D like a spy flick.” Definitely less earnest.
“Drifting” is a cover of a song by my old Dead Flowers bandmate, Gabe Langholtz. I don’t think the song had been properly recorded and I envisioned it as a pilled-out psych country rock song.
“We’ve Got You Surrounded” is about when I went to a Black Crowes show in Dallas. The mushrooms hit really hard and I needed water but the only place to get it was the beer line that was a mile long. I went next door and drank about 5 glasses of water, then the Bomb Factory wouldn’t let me back into the show. So, there I was, a small town Denton boy wandering the streets of Deep Ellum with my mind full of paranoid visions of punks and cops and people staring at me because I was too fucked up. The surf/spy riff and vocal pattern came into my head with my footsteps as I walked up and down the streets until the show was over and I found my friends. I think we did a good job of recreating that experience.
I had the idea for “Disco Ball Love Blaze” in the shower and began singing it. I went over to Josh’ house and told him I had this disco song. He wrote the bass line and that was it. We sped up the tape when he did the Barry White impersonation so it sounded deeper on playback.
“Static Fish” - Josh and I wrote the music for this together. The static at the beginning is me holding a mic up to my TV tuned to an empty channel. Josh and I recorded the bass and drums together as we usually did. We fed the mic on the cymbal into Jack’s Boss delay pedal and he manipulated the knobs to create the space effects in real time as we recorded. On the instrumental bridge, Josh had this old standalone reverb unit. I don’t think it worked properly, but when he hit it, the coils made the loudest noise!
“Intermission at the Regal Beagle” We both grew up watching Three’s Company…Sometimes our dumb sense of humor would override reasonable decision-making.
“Subway”- Josh and I took a Spring Break trip to his family’s place in Fairfax, VA. One day, we took the train into DC. We hit the pipe in my van and then boarded the train. I came from Texas and had never ridden a train before. It seemed so sleek and futuristic to me. I thought it was wild how everyone was so close together but nobody acknowledged anyone else. There would be chaos at every stop, then the smooth ride continued. I took out a notebook and wrote the whole song including the chord changes before we got to DC. The chaotic parts represented the stops. Josh knew all the station names, so he overdubbed the voice of the announcer. It kinda sounds like a psychedelic Slobberbone, who was my favorite Denton band. I’m not sure why I thought it needed a kazoo choir.