The Neato Cogs started sometime in 1984 when we were all high school juniors in Martin, a small town in northwest Tennessee.  While we were in 8th and 9th grade, Bob and I had played together in a cover band called Oh No!, and I remember Bob trying out a couple of originals among the covers we did.  After that band broke up, Bob became involved in a band called The Clean Cuts with Jim Andreas, someone who seemed as talented as he was.  I remember seeing The Clean Cuts during a high school assembly during our sophomore year and actually feeling depressed and envious because I'd never been involved in something that fresh-sounding and creative.  The Clean Cuts eventually dissolved and I asked Bob if he wanted to get together and make some music.  In contrast to Oh No!, this time the focus would be on original music and Bob's own songs.  He eventually told our friend Anna that if she bought a bass, she could be in the band, which Anna proceeded to do.  The band name came from Bob's play on the word "incognito."  All of our equipment was cheap - not entirely by design, but by necessity.  There was lots of feedback and occasional power outages, but my parents somehow tolerated us practicing in my family's basement.

We had enough overlap in our musical interests to relate to one another but enough differences to keep it interesting.  I was into prog rock, metal, and had just started listening to more alternative stuff that was being played on college radio stations.  Bob really liked Lou Reed.  Bob and I were also really starting to get into Echo & the Bunnymen.  Anna probably had the most eclectic musical interests of all three of us; she was the first person I knew who listened to REM, and her tastes included, country, alternative, metal, and pop.  If there was one band that all three of us were really into and united our musical tastes, perhaps it was The Velvet Underground.

Here's what we remember about making the album:  After a summer of regular practicing, we loaded up our equipment with little fanfare and went to a studio called Audio Creations in Paducah, KY, which is about an hour away from Martin.  We recorded all the tracks "live," playing simultaneously rather than putting down one instrument at a time.  I seem to remember a lot of the songs were done in one take.  We were in the studio for about three or four hours, during which time the songs were recorded, mixed, and put onto tape.  I can't recall the person who helped us in the studio, but I remember him being very nice and very tolerant, which was especially remarkable given that he usually recorded gospel music.  For me and Anna, it was the first time we were able to decipher some of Bob's great lyrics because our practice equipment had been so primitive and our practices were always noisy.  I'm guessing it cost us under $100.  We went to a restaurant afterwards and came back to Martin that same night.  Given the date of the recording (August 20, 1986, I believe), it was only a matter of weeks before we all left Martin to go to three different colleges.

Being in The Neato Cogs was a new experience for me in that the focus was on making our own music, which was totally different from all the cover/hair metal bands I was in during high school, where the object was to get adulation, get money, get girls, and get drunk.  That may seem like a simple difference, but it actually really influenced how we went about being a band.  For one, we didn't play many live shows at all, maybe around five in all, partially because we were never able to find much of an audience who liked what we were doing.   Two of those shows were in my family's basement and were more parties than performances.  Anna and I both remember luring people there with the promise of free beer.  Speaking of free, I don't think The Neato Cogs ever made a cent, and I don't recall any of us caring about that.  We gave away our album for free, making cassette copies and cheaply reproducing the black & white, hand drawn cassette insert, and simply giving it to any friends we thought would be interested.  Perhaps we thought of the album more as a memento of our musical creations and Bob's songs than a vehicle to get money or recognition, especially since we knew that we'd be going hundreds of miles away from Martin in three different directions a couple of weeks after the album was recorded.  All of this isn't to say that we were these idealistic youth who were above wanting money or attention; I'm sure we would have hastily welcomed anything we could have gotten in those two areas.  But it was more about having really good chemistry, enjoying Bob's songs, partying together, and the excitement of creating music by ourselves rather than a making adrenaline-fueled copies of something on the radio.  And perhaps partially because there was little to no money or recognition involved, I really can't remember any standard-issue band drama or significant conflicts. 

Even though we initially went to three different states for college, we obviously didn't see it as "breaking up."  Our two basement shows both took place when we were all on break from our respective colleges and back in Martin.  More than anything else, it seems that our geographic separation led to us not performing anymore.  That and the fact that Bob, after leaving Florida and coming to Knoxville, rapidly found the audience and adulation to appreciate his precocious gifts as a songwriter in bands such as The Taoist Cowboys.  While Anna and I don't make much music anymore, we've all remained good friends over the years and try to see each other when we are back in Martin, although the soundtrack of our get togethers nowadays is more likely to be George Jones or Merle Haggard rather than Van Halen or Ozzy.

Todd Eaton  

It's The Neato Cogs is free to download, the songs and the artwork.  To listen, click on the the songs.  To save, for PC users, right click and use the "save target as" option to get the files.  For Mac users, control click and "save or download link as".  Follow the same procedure for the artwork but click on the thumbs.