Everything on this compilation was recorded in Toronto in 1992, except for Speed, which was initially recorded in early 1991, then partly re-recorded in early 1992. Vine broke up in January of 1993, before being able to record a proper album. Fortunately, a 3-song demo was recorded in the fall of 1992. It was recorded by the band itself, for free, in a local studio that our bassist had just started working at. As a result, a cassette "single" of River and Nausea was played often on college radio in Toronto in late 1992 and early 1993. For this compilation, a live recording from Lee's Palace in Toronto has been added, along with some basement recordings.

The first 4 tracks on this compilation were mastered in 2014 by Bob Weston, at Chicago Mastering Service.

Paul, Bill and Asif had previously played together in The Grendels. William had previously played bass in White Chocolate, in New York City. (He's from Virginia. After Vine broke up he played bass in Seam, in Chicago. He had also jammed with Soundgarden back in 1989 or 1990, when they invited him to audition to be their bassist, after hearing some of his recordings, which a mutual friend had passed on to them. I think he was still a teenager at the time. Maybe that's part of the reason why he didn't get the gig. Either way, he had no hard feelings about not being chosen, and lots of good stories to tell us about his time in Seattle.)

Track 1, SPEED is the only track here that wasn't played by all four members of Vine. It was initially recorded in February of 1991 at Fanshawe College, in London, Ontario, where Bill was studying to be a recording engineer. Speed was recorded for a class project. I played all the instruments, except for the drums, which were played by a really great drummer, whose name I unfortunately can't recall. One night in early 1992, in Toronto, l re-recorded my vocals and the electric guitars. William also added some guitar sounds in the chorus.

Tracks 2-4 were recorded in October 1992, at a studio in Toronto that Bill had just started working at. We were allowed to record for free, as long as we recorded everything in one weekend, and didn't sell any copies of the recordings––which were primarily intended as a demo tape, to help us book live shows. We gave out copies to college radio in Toronto as well. We assumed that we would probably re-record some of the tracks later, for an album. Unfortunately, we broke up soon after recording tracks 2-4. I had a pretty bad cold at the time, and struggled to sing some parts, but the cold might have actually helped in some ways. Slowburn is about a struggle to carry on, and I struggled just to sing. Nausea is supposed to sound nauseas, and I literally felt nauseas while singing it. (William wrote the chords for Nausea, and asked me to write a vocal part and guitar solo for it. His only instruction to me was: "make it sound nauseas".)

Track 5 was recorded at Lee's Palace in Toronto, in the fall of 1992. Captain was a 9-minute song. Unfortunately, the battery on the camcorder died with 3 minutes left in the song. Those 3 minutes were perhaps the most intense part of our live show. But despite missing the last 3 minutes, I think this faded-out version sounds alright. A video of the performance can be seen on YouTube and Vimeo, along with videos for River and the basement recordings. See the links.

Tracks 6-11 were recorded during the summer/fall of 1992, in the basement of the house that the members of Vine all lived in. My camcorder's built-in microphone captured the sound––as it also did for Captain, at Lee's Palace.

There were 2 versions of Vine's demo tape. The first one was distributed on analog cassette, and included only River and Nausea. It was played on college radio in Toronto in late 1992 and early 1993, and primarily intended to help the band book live shows. Vine then broke up in January of 1993. After the breakup, a management team attempted to convince Vine to reunite. They initially told us that they wanted to form their own record company, and release River/Nausea as their first single. They then changed their mind, and decided to try and get us a record deal with an established label, even though we had already broken up, and had no plans of getting back together. We let them do everything, and payed very little attention to what they were doing, other than to pose for a band photo. A digital tape (DAT) was disseminated to various people, including Geffen Records. Geffen seemed to be their main target. I wish I'd paid more attention to the package they sent Geffen. 4 songs were on that DAT demo tape: Speed, River, Nausea and Slowburn. I never heard from that "management team" ever again, which seems very strange to me. What happened at Geffen? And in particular, why did Kurt Cobain embed the word VINE in the artwork for the CD insert of In Utero? It's brilliant. Take a look for yourself. I doubt you'll find it. Was he referring to my band? There was also another band called Vine at the time, in Kalamazoo, but we never heard of them until many years later. There was also a band called Vineland. Was there something else called Vine as well, that Kurt was referring to? I never met Kurt, and will probably never know the answer. Regardless, it's all very curious––and very clever. The word VINE is brilliantly embedded in the artwork, so that millions of people have seen it, without consciously realizing it. I told Bill right away, a day or two after I discovered it, but he said it sounded so crazy that he didn't want to even look at it. After talking to Bill I decided to keep it to myself, and tried to forget about it. Over a decade went by before I told William and Asif about it. Nobody seems to care very much about it, other than myself.)

The cassette cover of Vine's demo tape is displayed above. The artwork was done by Aphrodite, Bill's girlfriend at the time. I think it's the best cassette cover I've ever seen. I had nothing to do with it. The art on the spine is great as well. I think it's fitting that the artist's name was Aphrodite. The ancient Greek god of wine, and vines, Dionysus, was a big inspiration for my naming the band Vine. My Italian grandfather's homemade vino was the other big inspiration. IN VINO VERITAS!

PLEASE NOTE: This album can also be found on Vine's own Bandcamp page. I'll leave that page active, because I might add another album of complete basement recordings at some point in the future, and I don't want to clutter up my Undecidable page with too many Vine recordings. That page contains the spine of Vine's cassette as a page header. I think it's the best cassette spine I've ever seen.