controller.controller - 10/30/04

Toronto’s death disco post punk quintet controller.controller rolled into the CJLO studios on a dark Saturday evening, October 30, 2004, to record 4 songs for Hooked on Sonics.  They even brought in their red lights for the session, it was like our own private concert.  One of the easiest sessions we ever had to record, they came in, set up, and ran through all 4 songs in no time, with no extra takes (we found out afterwards that they had forgone a soundcheck for their show later that night in order to do the session, something they got in a lot of trouble for - we only loved them more for this after that, hahah). 

We managed to squeezedall 5 of them into the CJLO studios, equipment and all, at the time the most people we've ever squeezed into our little recording space (we'd top this in the future with Fucked Up and Sleepless Nights). Somehow these kids looked totally comfortable.

During the session, performing completely in the dark (just their small red lights were on - you can see this by how poorly the pictures turned out) it looked like drummer Jeff had something on his face. After closer examination, it looked like he had some sorta funky goggles on. "What's the deal there?" we wondered. Was it some sorta night vision deelee so he could see, or like...what was it? After they finished the song, I asked him, and he laughed - turned out his headphones started coming off and ended up covering his eyes.  Someone from the band also pointed at Jeff and heckled "Ha ha, Geordie Laforge!"...hehehe, goooood times.

The kicker though was out of the four songs they performed, three of them were brand spankin’ new at the time (they would end up in the future on their full length debut, X-Amounts, when it'd get released almost exactly a year following this session recording), which thus started what we here at CJLO like to call "the controller.controller challenge©" - after this, everytime a new band would to the station, our program director at the time, Alex, would sidle up to the bands in studio and says"so...y'know, controller.controller performed practically ALL new songs when they came to CJLO...whaddayou got?" in an attempt to coax new material, or some sort of exclusive out of them.  Haha, we still continue this tradition...

Hi-five to controller.controller for setting the bar.  Pow!

*Recorded live in the CJLO Studios October 30, 2004
*Session engineered by Emilie Christiansen & Alex Rabot and mixed by D. Brickey
*Aired on Hooked on Sonics