I think they must still refer to the moment that the three final surviving members of The Nautiloids walked into the Edgewood Recording Studio in Washington, D.C., as 'The Day the Edgewood Stood Still (the songs were recorded on March 16, 1965, between 7:30 and 8 p.m. with David Greene as Edgewood technical engineer).'
Only myself, Glenn and Mac were left of the group. I had my Hagstrum and Glenn had his hollow body, but Mac, well, he still only had a snare drum and a cymbal. Mac's parents weren't about to buy him a full set of drums unless they could be sure he was serious about his pursuit at it, I guess. That was it. Two guitars, no bass, and a snare drum - oh yeah, and a cymbal. The studio tech looked a little amused.
As I looked around while we set-up what little we had to set-up, I think that was the first time the feelings of panic hit me since our first gig in Lanham. My feeling was we were not going to be able to come out of this with anything useful, but we were committed to trying and getting something down.
That something was "Naultiloid Reef" and "Nautiloid Surf," both written by me sometime prior when I believed we had enough of a band to even produce a recording of them. The least I hoped to get out of this session were some tracks we could work on in a follow-up session with maybe a LITTLE more equipment.
The result of that session was the completion of the two songs in one take each, with only a drum beat being re-recorded and spliced into a part of "Nautiloids Reef" at the end. I think Mac had broken a drumstick or something, and had missed a critical beat - at least in our minds.
The studio tech (David Greene) said he was amazed at what we had produced with what little equipment we had. I think simplicity was the reason behind it, although I STILL would have liked to have had a base and MAYBE a couple of more drums!
We left the studio with our master tapes and a sense of having accomplished something, although we lacked a definition of what that something was at the time. I was never comfortable with the final cuts, and felt we would return to fix them, but we never did.
