EXTRACTIONS

EXTRACTIONS

Share this post

EXTRACTIONS
EXTRACTIONS
put on what you wanna (jackpot! sessions 2001)
MUSICAL DEPICTIONS

put on what you wanna (jackpot! sessions 2001)

Richard Buckner's avatar
Richard Buckner
Nov 13, 2023
∙ Paid
17

Share this post

EXTRACTIONS
EXTRACTIONS
put on what you wanna (jackpot! sessions 2001)
5
Share
put-on what you wanna (jackpot! sessions 2001) can be heard at the bottom of this post . . .
	The 2001 Jackpot! Sessions yielded the basic tracks of fourteen songs, then were abandoned, caught in a flux of creative desire & elusive synthesis. 
	I was living in Alberta on allotments of time defined by intermittent Canadian work permits that allowed me to cross the border when necessary. Most of my belongings were kept in a storage space in Bellingham WA, seven hundred miles from my Edmonton base. I’d pick things up or drop them off there as needed when passing through. 

In mid-February, I headed southeast through Saskatchewan & Manitoba to pick up a musician in Minnesota, then continued in on-&-off zig-zags between continental shelves. My album The Hill had been released a few months before. 

At first, we ambitiously attempted to play The Hill in one continual piece, as heard on the album. After a few shows, we split it in two — then more — then conceded to the physical reality. With about twenty instruments & other gizmos surrounding us onstage, it was logistically overwhelming with just the two of us, already using all eight of our limbs over strings, pedals & other devices in-between.  
	The tour paused in Portland OR nearly three months later. I’d booked time at a studio called Jackpot! Recording. The owner & I originally met in mid-eighties Chico Calif as local musicians & bumped into each other irregularly over the years. 
The first April/May session was five days split between two drummers. Behind the board, the engineer/studio owner along with JD Foster. 
Another five days followed with just me & JD, transferring a few home minidisc demos from my Yamaha MD8, re-recording solo songs & layering overdubs on all. 

We met one more time two months later — a few days for pedal steel tracking & a last five for what I’d assumed would be final mixes. 
They weren’t, but eventually would be, by default. 
	Ultimately, those 2001 recordings would remain as unfinished basic tracks.

I moved into a larger place in Edmonton with an entire basement at my disposal & transferred the rest of my instruments out of storage. I bought a Roland 2480 recorder, leafed through the manual & simply started over. 

Just seven songs survived the Jackpot! Sessions, in written form anyway. All were re-recorded, along with another eight that came suddenly over the sequestered Alberta winter. 

I finished, this time with no assumptions about resolution, just about what naturally unfolded without the pressure of money & time, except for completing a subconscious thought — a thread that wasn’t there during the Portland stretch — something that eventually arrived as mysteriously as it hid when it was expected. 

The transmutation led the way to the fully-realized outcome, Impasse, released in Oct 2002. 
put on what you wanna (jackpot! sessions 2001) featuring Jason Lowenstein, Eric Heywood & JD Foster:

Keep reading with a 7-day free trial

Subscribe to EXTRACTIONS to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.

Already a paid subscriber? Sign in
© 2025 Richard Buckner
Privacy ∙ Terms ∙ Collection notice
Start writingGet the app
Substack is the home for great culture

Share