Infernal Racket (6:39)
"Oh, that 'un...well, Dr. Willey told me I needed to quit smokin'. I tried, but it was pretty damn hard after 50 years. One night while Bunte was out playin' bridge, I couldn't think about nothin' but cigarettes. It was makin' me crazy, so I took that synthesizer an' ran it through every amplifier an' tape machine I had 'til it sounded about as messed-up as I felt. I recorded two passes o' that. Felt so good when it was done, I lit up a cigarette (chuckles). That was ten years ago (laughs out loud, crushes cigarette in ashtray).
"I didn't listen to that tape fuh six months, then I played it again. I kinda liked it, but it needed somethin'...some space in it. I was still managin' the cotton gin back then, and the boys had put in a stereo down there. So I went in one night an' hooked up one o' my reel-to-reel machines to the stereo, then I put my other machine an' a coupla microphones way down at th' other end o' the buildin'. I wanted to get th' echo.
"I waited fuh one o' them big trains to come by, so people wouldn't notice all th' noise. Sometimes them slow freights can take ten minutes to get through town. So, once th' engines passed by, I started playin' th' tape. I watched out th' winda an' let it go til th' train passed, then I turned down th' sound an' stopped th' tape. I took th' new tape, with all that room echo, back home an' listened to it. I liked it, even with a little bit o' train sound on it.
"Nex' day, I was down at th' cafe on Main Street havin' breakfuss. Chet Lang walked in 'n' set down at my booth, got 'imself some coffee. Then he asked me, 'Hey, Hassell, you hear that infernal racket when th' train come through las' night? Sounded like half them cars had th' brakes on!' I said, 'Naw, Chet, I musta been asleep.' (chuckles)"--Uncle Hassell, taped interview, May, 1989