Over the last 20 years, Erie Choir’s output hasn’t exactly been prolific. That said, a lot of what the band released in the early 2000s has only been available on homemade, burned CD-Rs or compilation albums with limited distribution. To remedy that, we’ve put together “Bad Tsars Was a Drag,” an odds n’ sods compilation of whatever we still had copies of lying around or were otherwise able to track down. I owe a ton of thanks to all the folks who played on these tracks (as best as I can remember): Robert Biggers, Linc Hancock, Zeke Graves, David Nahm, Bob Wall, Andy Magowan, James Hepler, John Booker, Jack Watson, Abigail Sheriff, and Chris Gilchrist. Special thanks go to Chris Rossi (Spacelab), Zeno Gill (Pox), and Jerry Kee (Duck Kee) for recording (and sometimes playing on) these tracks. Also thanks to Joe Norkus who recorded the live version of “Everybody Knows” on Live on WUAG and David Schwentker who recorded the live version of “Haunted” at the Pinhook. Thanks to Finn for help with these words. And thanks to Nick Petersen for mastering the grocery bag of CDs and CD-Rs I gave him. They all may not be winners, so as Peter Buck wrote in the liner notes for “Dead Letter Office,” “listening to this album should be like browsing through a junkshop. Good hunting."

Pan-Pan, Where Did You Go?
Originally released on "Rockin' the Blocks," a now out-of-print 2005 compilation funded by a Durham civic organization that tasked Zeno Gill with putting together a collection of songs about the city by local artists. Technically, I did live in Durham County, so I wrote this elegy on the loss of a much loved 24-hour diner.

Lullaby for Jon Grives (Spacelab Version)
“I Never Even Asked for Light” is an album by Lullaby for the Working Class, a great band that included Ted Stevens and Mike Mogis. Sometimes you just borrow someone else’s great title, make a dumb pun, and greatness follows. Sometimes not. This was on the “Bad Tsars Is A Drag” EP, another burned CD-R along with “Coats in the Closet,” “Epic” and versions of “Favorite Fotos” and “When It’s Done” that wound up on our first album, “Slighter Awake”, as did a full band version of this tune.

Coats in the Closet
This may be the only song I’ve recorded that I wrote on a keyboard — the Fender Rhodes that Zeke owned before he sold it on eBay. Robert played Dave Cantwell’s Krumar synth that was laying around our house even though, technically, Cantwell wasn’t our roommate.

Epic
I guess I was pretty sad in my twenties. I saw Epic Soundtracks at the Lizard & Snake in the 90s. I still have the setlist somewhere. RIP

When I Close the Door (Duck Kee Version)
Biggie and Zeke added a lot to this version.

Where I Want to Go
“NE v NC” was a compilation of North Carolina and Nebraska bands put together by Ryan Kuper, who sadly passed away in 2017. It included my other band, Sorry About Dresden, representing North Carolina along with our buds The Scaries, Cold Sides, Disband, and more, while Desaparecidos, Cursive, and other Omaha bands represented the Cornhusker State.

Impolite
My buddy Stingy told me that the WXDU review of this compares the song to the band Suicide, which is high praise.

My First Ocean
This, along with “Impolite” and “Hey Little Thing!”, were part of the release titled “3 X 4” put out by Pox World Empire; it featured us, Schooner, the Sames, and Summer Set, with each band contributing three songs each.

Hey Little Thing!
Written about a creepy dude.

Wherever the Night #1
We’re bringing this one back, with a different verse at some point.

Everybody Knows (Pox Version)
Would love to hear a real country singer cover this.

Trunion Pike (Spacelab Version)
Borrows liberally from a story in Sherwood Anderson’s “Winesburg, Ohio.”

10cc (Spacelab Version) (explicit)
I released this along with “Trunion Pike,” “Immigrant Song,” and “When I Close the Door” on the first Erie Choir CD-R. I believe Rossi recorded this on his old 8-track reel-to-reel.

Immigrant Song (Spacelab Version)
Rerecorded this with the band for “Slighter Awake.”

When I Close the Door (Spacelab Version)
Rossi thought it should have some birds and shit. I think it was a good idea.

Afterwords
Written back during the age of landlines. I was the cosmos.

Everybody Knows (Live on WUAG)
Bob Wall on an acoustic guitar!

Ballad of Erie Choir (Live in Hamtramck)
Zeke or Linc christened the rollicking, live, full-band version of this song as “Choogle” (see Fogerty, et al.) and that’s what it’s been called in setlists ever since.

Favorite Fotos (Live in Hamtramck)
This features a typically enraptured Erie Choir audience.

When It’s Done (Live in Hamtramck)
Bob Wall can play the guitar very well.

Haunted (Live at the Pinhook)
Features Chris Gilchrist on lap steel.