Sacrificing Toasters to Alien Poets

"Toasters" was Bob's tune all the way. I just provided a couple of musical elements and the title. The rest is "200-proof Gasior."

One night during rehearsal, Bob started playing this cowbell pattern he'd been working up on his own. It had a really good groove, and Greg started playing one of his infamous, off-the-top impromptu bass lines, and I stood there listening in awe. From the first minute of hearing their experimentation, I knew we had something magical.

I added in a few melodic elements to the tune, but I knew that it's power was in its simplicity, so I kept my contributions minimal. When we recorded this in our rehearsal library and I later played it for others, the response was overwhelming. Billy Barron and I began making "distribution" tapes of GCBA rehearsal tunes for some friends, and as we worked on building the library up, I had to name this particular track, because it hadn't been dubbed with a title before. I wish I could give more insight as to where it came from, but the honest answer is that I don't know. I just told Billy to call it "Sacrificing Toasters to Alien Poets." He did, I told the guys, and it stuck. Now, it conjures lovely images of poor little toasters being served up as an offering. I still like it.

It was an obvious choice to use this song as the title track for the album. When I contacted Sonny Strait about doing the cover art, he took right to it. I had already discussed with Greg and another associate what the video would be like for this song, if we ever did one, and I had Sonny include elements from the video concept in the design. One draft of the cover had a large Arnold-like fella poised to demolish a toaster, strapped to a stone altar, with a gargantuan sledgehammer. I like the final result a little better, though. I guess I just think there's something inherently funny about chainsaws.