Format: LP

When Paul Hudson aka Joseph I aka H.R. of the mighty Bad Brains set out to record a solo album he didn’t do it in the District of Columbia, but across the Potomac River at a place called Cue Recording Studios in sleepy Falls Church. 

Cue started off in 1982 in the basement of Jeff Jeffrey’s parents’ house. Most sites say this was in Falls Church but the studio manager I spoke with yesterday, Dusty Rose, told me it was “just across the line” in Arlington. (In a place as small as Falls Church the boundaries are a constant source of debate; Falls Church High School, for example, isn’t located in the city of Falls Church but in Fairfax County.) 

In 1987, Jeffrey leased a space on Park Avenue above a janky knock-off 7-11 called 7 Stars, which was the closest convenience store to Mary Riley Stiles Public Library and the Falls Church Recreation Center in Cherry Hill Park, two places where my siblings and I spent countless hours. 

H.R. had a long, strange relationship with SST that I describe in great detail in Corporate Rock Sucks, but Keep Out of Reach (SST 177) and It’s About Luv (SST 179) were originally released by H.R.’s own label Olive Tree Records and subsequently reissued by SST. However, Charge (SST 256) was recorded at Cue for SST. (For more details about the studio’s history, check out the You Don’t Know Mojack podcast Now You Say episode #173 with Jim Ebert, a former engineer with the studio.)

I mentioned to Rose I was writing a book about SST Records and he told me that back in the day some mornings they’d come into the office and there would be long rambling messages from H.R. on the answering machine about his upcoming plans to make a new record or tour Egypt. The only other SST artist who recorded at Cue was Ras Michael who made his record Zion Train (SST 168), not to be confused with Zion Train the band, another H.R. project that put out a record for Olive Tree. The D.C. band Beefeater, who also had an Olive Tree connection, recorded at Cue as well. 

We’d popped in unannounced so we didn’t stay long, but in the music store on the ground floor an unusual-looking guitar caught my eye. Is that what I think it is? 

No, it’s not a Dan Armstrong but a Fender Strat with an acrylic body. What a strange coincidene that would have been, right? 

This post was originally published in sightly different form in two editions of Message from the Underworld: 1 & 2.