Gretchen Phillips introduced me to the Yamaha DJX-II, a magical keyboard which I believe is made for creative teenagers all over the world who want to make disco magic. It was also, at the time, available on eBay at a quite affordable price. In the period following the release of Togetherness, we wanted to continue to work together, but were often on opposite sides of the world. So we decided to set a goal for ourselves of writing – and even producing! – an entire album on the DJX-II, with just minimal overdubs. This seemed viable to me, in that I can’t actually sit down and play the piano, but I CAN make exciting music by pressing buttons and turning knobs on this thing. (Full disclosure: I also used my Omnichord to lay down chord progressions. This is another of my favorite instruments, along with its sister the Q-Chord. More on that later.) We wanted to make a record that you could put on at the beginning of a party, and the people at the party would just want to dance their asses off – while singing anthemic lyrics about being a homo and other life experiences. Ultimately we did work with someone else, and it evolved into more of an art-dance album than a dance-dance album. Of all the album covers I have designed, this may be my favorite. Gretchen Phillips / Yamaha DJX-II, guitar. David Driver / Yamaha DJX-II / trumpet, euphonium. Mike McGinniss / saxophone.