This earlier draft of Bob’s first solo album is mostly comprised of studio tracks (recorded at Cro-Magnon with John Shough), while the released version drops some of the studio recordings and sprinkles the album with a handful of boombox and four-track recordings. Some songs cut from this early sequence ended up on Mag Earwhig. There’s an image of the lyric sheet for this version, complete with alternate titles, in the Suitcase booklet.
Not In My Airforce (mk. I)
- I’ve Owned You For Centuries
- The Finest Joke Is Upon Us
- Get Under It
- Gods Of Richard
- Accountant’s Wife (Maggie Turns to Flies)
- Girl Named Captain
- Chance To Buy An Island
- Flat Beauty
- Finks
- Learning To Hunt
- On The Ashes (Release the Sunbird)
- The Colossus Crawls West
- God Bless The Monument Club (Psychic Pilot Clocks Out)
- King Of Arthur Avenue
- Applehead (The Ash Gray Proclamation)
No surprise, this is a great listen. As a big fan of the slightly more collage-like official version, I thought I’d miss lo-fi songs like “Quicksilver” and “Parakeet Troopers” breaking up the big studio tracks. However, these songs flow together just fine on their own, and the album as a whole lacks some of the moodier, abstract moments of the proper album, like “John Strange School” and the suite of lo-fi songs at the end. NIMA mk. I really feels like the follow-up to UTBUTS, also recorded at Cro-Magnon, but the production is much better here, sounding fuller and more robust.
After the quick opening blast of “I’ve Owned You for Centuries,” the powerful “The Finest Joke is Upon Us” makes a brilliant second track. It sounds great with such a prominent spot on an album, in contrast to its “deep cut” status on Mag Earwhig. Much like “Finest Joke,” two additional Mag Earwhig tracks — “Learning to Hunt” and “The Colossus Crawls West” — fit perfectly with the Airforce tunes.
The instrumental “Gods of Richard,” unheard until Suitcase 2, is basically a slight guitar sketch. It works fine in context, but isn’t a lost masterpiece. “Finks,” on the other hand, absolutely rips — a should-have-been classic that somehow didn’t land on either album, and was released only as an Under The Bushes bonus track. It’s enough of a gem that it even made a brief appearance in the band’s 2003 live sets. Also interesting to note is that some “Finks” lyrics later reappeared in the Isolation Drills track “The Enemy.”
As on the final version, “Psychic Pilot” (here titled “God Bless the Monument Club”) is the late-album “hit,” and “Applehead” (AKA “The Ash Gray Proclamation”) makes a great closing track. “Applehead” is the only lo-fi recording on this draft of NIMA, and is a holdover from some early Under the Bushes drafts, where it was also used as the closer.
With its impeccable flow and song selection, it’s well worth giving the working version a listen!
NiMA tunes that don’t appear on the early draft:
- Quicksilver
- John Strange School (this is the only studio-recorded track that is NOT on the early version)
- Parakeet Troopers (a Bee Thousand outtake formerly known as “Crayola”)
- One Clear Minute
- Roofer’s Union Fight Song
- Prom is Coming
- Party
- Did it Play?
- Double Standards Inc.
- Punk Rock Gods
- Meet My Team
- Good Luck Sailor
It’s also interesting to note that the final six tracks on Not in My Airforce (starting with “Party”) don’t appear on early Matador promo copies. In fact, they were intended to comprise their own EP, and were tacked onto the album at the last minute. That means “Prom is Coming” was the original closer, and “Psychic Pilot” was the penultimate track.