I recorded and produced this track at the Indiana University Musical Arts Center studio in the mid-90s as part of my audio engineering studies. If I remember correctly, local bands wanting to be recorded put signup forms in an envelope outside the studio door, and I recall having a boombox demo tape they’d recorded beforehand — maybe that was submitted along with the initial form? Dunno. In any case, I was surprised at the number of solid tunes Yarnmarvins brought to the table and thought they were an really good band, even if they wore their R.E.M. influences a bit on their sleeves at times. I do recall pretty much every other band that submitted was utterly dire so it didn’t take me long to decide which band I wanted to record.
The session was recorded to 16-track 2-inch analog tape with the band all playing live together in the same room; that’s my voice at the beginning announcing the take. This was actually the rough mix I did right after the tracking session; I did a remix later that pushed the vocals further forward and removed most of the hiss evident in the recording (that’s the one I submitted for grading), but they preferred this mix. Listening to both later on, I had to agree with their decision.
I also the recall the upperclassman assigned to “assist” us in the session pushing the band to track separately, overdub the vocals, etc. and lead singer Darin Glenn looking extremely uncomfortable with his suggestions. I went over and asked him what he wanted to do — which was track everything live — and that’s what we did, above the sneering of the Queensryche-loving assistant engineer, who couldn’t resist throwing in “Going for that boombox sound, eh?” Whatever, dude — just plug in the cables like I asked.
Credits for Yarnmarvins - “Unturned”: Tom Hoff - bass, Josh Parks - drums, Eli McCormick - guitar, Darin Glenn - vocals.
I always regretted that I never got the chance to see them live, but the members of Yarnmarvins went on to about a dozen different Bloomington bands. You can learn more about that at their Musicalfamilytree page, as well as hear a bunch of other Yarnmarvins tunes.
