At home, and at each session, I struggled with this self-imposed task. The whole project was cathartic at every turn. We went way over budget. We all worked too hard, slept and ate too little. We traded session work for studio time. We begged for more time, and borrowed cool gear from whomever we could. Relying too much on studio coffee to keep going, each session ended with bleary eyes and stomach cramps. But when the tape was rolling, we were in heaven; it was exhilarating! In Studio C, where most of the recording and mixing took place, the sound was so compelling and inspiring. With John Cuniberti engineering and co-producing, I was in good hands. He encouraged me to experiment, and never backed down from seemingly endless punch-in requests! We both wanted "Surfing with the Alien" to be a unique sounding instrumental record that would set a new standard for the electric guitar, and be exciting to listen to for decades to come. We were determined, and no one could talk us out of it, not even each other. Along with John, my partners in making this record were A&R man Cliff Cultreri, on drums and percussion Jeff Campitelli, and percussionist and programmer Bongo Bob Smith. The place was the Hyde Street Studios building in San Francisco. In a variety of rooms in that building from late '86 through August '87, we did everything we could to be different, and make a unique musical statement. Using the original final mix tapes, John Cuniberti has remastered "Surfing with the Alien", improving on its sonic message, and making it sound better than ever. (Note: Track by track stories are available on each song) I don’t want you to think that we thought and planned all the good stuff out, because we didn’t. I didn’t. I planned some of it, but mostly we followed our instincts, and improvised as a matter of course. We had to. With a budget of $13k that almost tripled by the time we were done, it was the belief that we were doing something special that got us through the project. We were convinced it would be the last record anyone would ever let us make. So we went all out, and tried to be as different and unique as possible. Everyone involved went the extra distance to see the concept become a reality. There were good times, there were bad. There were breakdowns, and days our faces hurt from laughing too much. That’s what happens when you try to do something worth doing. That’s what making records is all about.