Songtown - Vol. 11 (Perfume)

Artist: Spin The Spin
Song: Perfume (demo)
Album: Mike's Demos
Year: 2000
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Spin The Spin was perhaps the most well-planned band that's ever existed in history. I had been recording my little tapes as Twentieth Century Styles. Mark and Mike's work in The Spontaneous Gyrations in high school was by far the largest musical influence in my life and I'm not sure that the 20thCS would have ever happened without them.

So, it made sense that the three of us would get together to work on a project that Mark had deemed "The Cream of the Pop." We called it Spin The Spin, inspired by the name of an arcade game that Mark, our friend Steve and maybe Mike had played at Towson Town Center. The object of the game was to simply spin the spin.

And so we started writing. The three of us occasionally got together and just jammed on three acoustics, recording every last second of it. Add that to the feverish song writing pace that we were all working at on our own, we ended up having a pool of over a hundred songs or song snippets to work from. We eventually got our buddy Gary to play drums, who ironically would usurp all three of us in songwriting prowess and pace.

We played five or six shows and partially recorded our debut album before Mark moved off to Brooklyn. And now I have stacks and stacks of these song bits saved on my hard drive. Our debut album would have been comprised of three or four songs from each of us. We had recorded the basic tracks for Mark's and my songs, but we never had a chance to start Mike's songs. He wound up recording and releasing "Wanderlust" and "Sing Me A Mountain" on his one and only solo album, but one track, "Perfume," never made its way out to the public. Unfortunately for all of you, this track was the cream of the Spin The Spin cannon. [I've decided to stop italicizing Spin The Spin.]

Fortunately for you, this demo of "Perfume" does exist. Its a short rendition of it. We wound up doing the chorus a few times, and maybe there was a solo or a third verse too.

It was around this time that I remember Mike complaining a lot about how the Goo Goo Dolls had began one of their hit songs with the word "And." He thought that was totally improper and stupid. And what? Who cares about the second part, when you never even told us the first part? I eventually explained it to him that the song was probably a continuation of their last song, as they sounded exactly alike.

Anyhow, the second line in this song ends with an "and," and I think its unbelievably creative. I don't know if he did to set it up as a juxtaposition to the Goo Goo way. As a "Fuck you, Goo Goo Dolls. This is how you do 'and.'" But it would make for amazing lore if he had.

I would rank this song up at the top of the Gittings-penned tunes with "Teacher's Pet," one that will show up on the next Water School album. The melody is really well-defined and clever. And the hooks! Its littered with them. "Fine fine fine....Mine mine mine." "Doo do-do-do doo, doo doo doo..."

This is the one aspect that always suffered in our Water School songs, but we lacked an iconic Sweet Child O' Mine guitar riff, or a Hey Jude "na na na" sing along. "Perfume" would have taken care of the latter, at least.

And try to tell me that you don't smile and snicker a bit at the end of the first verse when he sings "I got high just from standing next to you, sniffing the fumes," and then immediately clarifies them as being "the perfume fumes." I love it!

I have no clue what he's singing about in the second verse but I bet's it sexual. Something about a dentist, embroidery and a tiger.

I should now tell you that this song brings real joy to my heart because its the closest thing that I have to Gooseberry Soda. If I didn't know better, I would think that Mike might have produced the Gooseberry song. Really, its creepy how similar the two songs are. If only Mike would have sung about that black snake in the quarry.