Watari's Machine (Full Throttle Mix) by NAFT vs. FSandC
Channel: Bong Tan
Date: 2020-09-13

Track taken from ReCreation: The Remixes (Box Set) by FoodShelterAndClothing
FREE DOWNLOAD LINK here shorturl.at/akAX3
Credits: words and music on this mix by Names Are For Tombstones and FoodShelterAndClothing
NAFT: lead vocals, fx
Jem: bass, lead vocals on bridge
Bong: backing vocals, samples, programming
Samples lifted from Blue Velvet the movie
Produced by FSandC
SSS Records 2020
Liner Notes:

WELCOME TO THE MACHINE…WATARI!

Indeed, its quite a delightful treat for us to be a fraction of this project. We had our first aural encounter with “Watari’s Machine” several years ago when it was included in the “8 Track” compilation CD which we’re proudly also a part of. We must say, we reckon it was sorta like NAFT’s attempt to approximate the classic sound of Gary Numan which we’re big fans of (though we never got to ask Nono bout this). And for a Pinoy act, indeed it gave us hope that we have kindred spirits elsewhere in the archipelago. Of course knowing too that he’s also a “kwerky” (a term we coined referring to Kraftwerk fans) swiftly earned him a spot in our “top 40 friends list”, hehe. The main thing that got us hooked though, is that it veered away from traditional pop songwriting techniques (i.e. no actual chorus, no obvious refrain, no bridge, no shit! Haha). Though, its not the first time we heard such a song (e.g. some early Velvet Underground and Bruce Springsteen tracks don’t have those elements either), but hey it’s quite a refreshing thing back in 2005. But then we kinda ruined it later by adding a bridge and a coda, not to mention the guitar solo, our apologies… No

Fast forward to the project, somehow it got us thinking to experiment a bit, and treat it as we would our original songs, and that’s to include live instruments, and vocals. Hence, calling our take a remix is a misnomer really, as it is more of a reworking. In fact, the main concept was, we’d be NAFT’s backing band for the day (and boy was it tough! And he knows bout this!). And so, we’d play around his vocal stem, when normally we’d just play around the instrumental tracks and not the vocals (now we know how it is to be Ashlee Simpson’s backing band! And yes, it’ll be a long while before we’ll do something like this again! hehe). The original mix was recorded at 80bpm, and we messed around a bit with another mix (the Full Throttle Version) at 110bpm. Surprisingly (or maybe not hehe), Nono preferred the one version on “crack”, even though we deliberately smashed the coda to smithereens by adding loads of cacophonous shit which we usually do with our own compositions. Oh yeah, we’re giving him props for insisting that Jem’s gonna do his FFF (i.e. our metal side project FucktheFuckingFuckers) bit of growling and primal screaming in the bridge part of the track. The words (yes there are words in it!) were lifted from an FFF track called “Waste”. As for the sample in the coda, we got it from an old mix tape, bout some redneck hating Santa Claus so much (who doesn’t really? Hehe). So yeah, most of it has got nothing to do with Watari at all, but we reckon most remixes got nothing to do with the originals anyway  So there, now y’all know what happens if FS&C be NAFT’s backing band in some dingy pub of your choice, at say around 2 in the morning
To paraphrase a Pink Floyd classic, “Welcome to the Machine…Watari”.