Tracks 1-8: Geoff Acoustic "16/3/95" cassette
Tracks 9-16: Geoffrey Russell James Towner "Songs '95-'96 @ Linthorpe St, Newtown" cassette
Track 17: found on Sal Paradise rehearsal cassette dated Feb. 1996
Tracks 18-21: Even Deeper "4 Songs 4 Tracks 4 Girls" cassette

Recorded a month and a bit after the Geoff & Stu songs in February (and tacked on to the second half of the tape) were 8 songs under the imaginative name of Geoff Acoustic. This stage is possibly noteworthy? It introduces the acoustic guitar for the first time, and a softer style of songwriting - both of which are still mainstays with me to this day. Also I think the songwriting composition steps up a bit from the more "trad indie" of prior tapes. It also marks the first of many "No..." and "...less" song titles I've used over the years. And it re-introduces freeform lyricism (or "making words up on the spot") which I hadn't done since "Get Sly With Me" in The Dead Tree. I still use this method for sparking lyric writing now!

A month or so later I moved out of my parents home in the west and into Linthorpe St in Newtown. Jim from the Crux had moved out by this point, as had Knifey from Against The Grain (I actually took his room!), but Suz (ATG head honcho) was still there & it was a fruitful time for us both. The next 8 songs were recorded in my room there between 1995-1996 (no recording dates!) and are often quiet affairs, being written in my head walking home from the Annandale Hotel after watching bands and getting the ideas down to tape after midnight, trying hard not to wake my flatmates. My favourite song from this period is I Miss You, recorded when Darren visited one afternoon. I played acoustic & sang, he manipulated my stereo via shortwave radio & a Sebadoh 7", and surprised me at the end by singing along with me!

Almost a year after moving to Newtown, Challinor & I were both invited to join the Crux, who had lost Jim & Charlie, under the new name of Sal Paradise in late 1995 or early 1996. We recorded LOTS of rehearsals, but I only have one surviving tape from February 1996 (with a big chunk of it recorded over by accident!). Among the SP demos is "Over" - a song idea I recorded just with bass & vocals which I don't even remember doing!

On the 24th of July 1996, just after SP did an Adelaide tour, I met up with Adam Gregorace, a friend who lived in nearby Erskineville and who was in a band called Lost with old mate Dave Key (who recorded The Dead Tree 4 years previously). We were both Red House Painters obsessives and after playing him some new songs I'd written, he suggested recording them with his 4-track! This was certainly a step up from boombox recordings! We went to my room in Newtown and did 2 acoustic tracks & 2 vocal tracks each for 4 songs - tracks 18-21 of this collection. Each of the 4 songs were inspired by friendships with 4 women at the time. "Released" under the name Even Deeper, dubbed off copies were handed to a few friends and that's all. If I'd had more confidence at the time, maybe I would've done something more with it? Who knows. This also marks a shift in slightly more complex & "sad bastard" songwriting, inspired by a new band I had very recently joined called el Mopa.