Endless Line by Point Cango:
Tim Dorman and Steve DeAnna May 1985 w/special guest Dave DeLuca
Recorded and "multi-track" engineered by Tim Dorman using his "twin" reel to reel Akai Stereo Tape decks.
The birth of the song's lyrics, by Tim Dorman:
If I remember this correctly, Steve and I were working on this music and we needed some lyrics. We sat down in my studio, I on the couch, and Steve at the chair by the mixing console, each armed with blank paper and writing utensil. It was decided that Endless Line would be written as an inspiration to a radio news story that aired on May 1, 1985. It was probably an NPR news story that mentioned the annual Soviet Military Parade that occurred every May 1st as part of a national labor festival. The lyrics would reflect on the sights and memories of a young Russian boy named Sergie as he and his Mama attended the day's activities. Steve's lyrics actually mentioned the boy by name. Mine only dealt with the imagery and memories of the day that the young boy might have experienced. Steve's lyrics were put on "hold" after I wrote the lyrics shown below and got anxious to try to record at least one take. Steve came up with the phrasing for the lyrics that gave the song an "almost tropical island" flavor that had never even been considered for a song about a little Russian boy and it WORKED beautifully! Dave DeLuca just happened to come by on the evening that we were attemping the vocal recording. He had a bit of a cold and his voice was nearly a half octave lower than normal AND he had his guitar in tow. Dave listened to the first generation of the many mixes and offered to add the "balalaika" sounding guitar riffs. It worked. Then, during addition of the backup vocals, Steve, Dave, and I all chimed in on the "AAAHHHHH-YAAAA's" with Dave's lower-than-usual-voice-due-to-his-cold, adding the "bottom of the barrel" to the backup vocals. After Steve sang the lead, we "bounced" to the second tape deck and added those backup vocals. Unfortunately, Steve never finished his lyrics. After all of the "bouncing" was completed and the final mix was that of these lyrics, we went on to more experimentation with musical styles and partially produced another single titled "A Woman's Touch". The process of bouncing ate up lots of magnetic media. Since we weren't being bankrolled by anyone but ourselves, we had to recycle tapes after a while. The original tracks of Endless Line were recorded over after we decided that the version that you hear on this web page was the one that would define this effort for all of time to come. Steve still wants to redo this tune and add the verses that he was working on. It may come to fruition sometime. It would be quite interesting to try to replicate the feeling of this tune with all of the modern conveniences of digital audio.
The Akai "Twins"...and yes, they still function in November of 2005 like they were new.