Sculpted Static flashback of the day

The Tonics have a lot of great songs that are out of print or never released. Today, we focus on "No Logo," an example of good shit that became a victim of The Tonics' own laziness.

Blog exclusive! An excerpt from "No Logo"

"No Logo" is based on Naomi Klein's book of the same name. It features lyrics like:

The field where you stand, you're making a stand--for corporate
And run with the wind, you're making a swoosh--to whore for it

"No Logo" promised to be the flagship title of summer '04. It got through the whole recording process--Ian even drummed on it. Several listeners called it an "anthem," due to the global message and the catchy, three-word mantra of a chorus.

So, what went wrong?

First, Steven and Arta didn't really think about the arrangement. The result was a really loud, really noisy song with guitars all over the place. Steven even played rhythm guitar for some reason, despite the fact that Arta could do it better. Add in some keyboard parts and harmonies, and you have a production that sounds like shit.

For a while, Elisa Morimoto (who sang on "Follow The") was slated to re-sing the lead vocal in order to avoid the awkward octave switch at the beginning of the chorus, necessary to accommodate Steven's voice. But that was cancelled when Steven and arta decided to have Elisa sing on "Pixies," another unreleased song that's practically finished.

The rest of the summer, the band tried to think of ways to arrange the song. But with a history of poor arrangements, they weren't likely to pull anything out of the bag for this one. And they didn't.

The fall came and went. When Sculpted Static reconvened in December 2004, they disbanded, and the remnants formed The Tonics. This new band preferred to deal with songs about depression, existentialism and self-deprecation, so "No Logo" (a song about branding and capitalism) suddenly had no place among the rest.