Last updated January 9, 2009

I started listening to noise in early 1995. I bought some Merzbow and other noise CDs at the now defunct Interzone Music in Frederick, MD, an underground record shop that was owned by Richard Schneider of dark wave ambient legends Schloss Tegal. Interzone hosted an occasional noise show, and over the next few years, I entered into a pattern of seeing a performance there and then trying my hand at recording some noise. The shows I attended were Scot Jenerik and Crawl Unit (October 1996); the "Agro-American Noise Festival" featuring Emil Beaulieau, Crank Sturgeon, The Haters, Skin Crime, and a few others (August 1997); and Hearing Trumpet and Knurl (June 1998). The early tracks I recorded were pretty much crap, but with each attempt, I came up with material that was more to my liking.

By August 1999, I had made several cassettes. I gave away copies to the very small handful of people that I knew who were into noise. I don't have any of these tapes in my personal collection. However, based on what I remember, what I have written in my notes, and what a few of the recipients of these tapes have verified, the titles were: "For the Sake of Noise," "Noise Demos," "13 Ugly Shit Stains," "Lavatory Rats," "Live at Bedroom, July 19, 1998," "3 New Tracks Plus Live Improvisations, Nov. 1998," "More Live Improvisations," and "In Case You Didn't Feel Like Growing Up." I made less than five copies of each tape.

I sent most of these tapes to musician M. Reis, a pen pal I had made via the "Shorts" section of "Metal Maniacs" magazine, where music fans sought like-minded persons for correspondence and trades. At the end of 1998, we started keeping in touch more frequently via email. Around this time, Reis told me that he was starting a label called Epicene Sound Systems, and he wanted to release some of my stuff. The possibility of this led me to realize that I didn't have a proper name for my project. Up until then, I had loosely been referring to it as For the Sake of Noise, the title of the first tape I made. The moniker accurately reflected what I was doing: making noise simply for the sake of making noise. But that name didn't really have a nice ring to it, so then I considered using Cairo Chop Shop, after the Naked City song from the "Torture Garden" LP. Then I found out there was a noise group called Chop Shop, so I scrapped that. Ultimately, I decided on Lavatory Rats, the title of my fourth tape. I'm not certain how I ever came up with the name. Obviously, it's a play on the term "laboratory rats," but I don't remember what made me think of it.

In any case, a Lavatory Rats release never came to fruition. After 1999, my activities dropped off considerably. I made some recordings in December 2001, May 2002, Summer 2003, and June 2005, but that's all. Reis and I talked off and on during this time about putting out some Lavatory Rats on Epicene. The most serious discussions were in late 2004/early 2005 after Reis told me "everyone needs to hear these recordings." No matter how many times we discussed it, however, a release never happened. We always seemed to drop the ball somehow, whether it was due to a lack of time, lack of funds, other priorities, or whatever.

I should also add my belief in the "Theory of Obscurity" to the list of reasons why a Lavatory Rats release had yet to be realized. The premise of the "Theory of Obscurity" is that one can only create pure art when not considering outside influences, particularly the expectations of an audience. The Residents took this notion to its logical extreme with the recording of their 1974 album "Not Available," which they never intended for anyone to hear. Now, there were people who had my old tapes, and I set up a Lavatory Rats MySpace profile in March 2006 and made MP3s available there. Therefore, I've never tried to pull a Residents. However, I will readily admit that I've mainly recorded music for my own enjoyment, and not because I wanted to release albums.

That changed in January 2008. Ron Lessard, founder of the legendary RRRecords, posted an open invitation on the Troniks/Chondritic Sound message board asking for submissions for his fabled "Recycled Music" cassette series. I didn't have to think twice about how cool it would be to have a "Recycled Music" tape as the debut Lavatory Rats release. I compiled a "best of" set of recordings and sent the tape to Ron. He mailed my artist copies on January 28, 2008, and listed the new release in the RRRecords catalog that same day. It took over eleven years, but Lavatory Rats was finally on the map.

Not long after the release of "Recycled Music," I got into discussions once again with Epicene Sound Systems about releasing some Lavatory Rats material. This time, it finally happened. Epicene issued "Live at Bedroom Vol. & II" double cassette in July 2008.

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