Lake Champions by Randy Kaplan

LAKE CHAMPIONS was recorded during the REBORN AS BEES sessions. On a day when Randy didn't feel like working on BEES, he sat down with his guitar and recorded eight songs. He sent the demo to his anarchivist Scott Bernstein who decreed that it must be made into an official album. Randy sat down one more time and recorded eight additional songs. This eclectic record has just about everything: torch songs, ballads, and tales; hope, love, and despair. In "Drunk As Can Be," a southern boozer tries to extricate himself from an addictive relationship. In "I Didn't Buy It," a sympathetic cad second-guesses himself and his dearly disposed. The narrator of "Gold" enjoys requited and true love while in "Robinson Crusoe" a man with a strong sense of entitlement tries to lay down the rules for a lopsided affair. In "Next To You" a woman makes her lover feel like Humbert Humbert and Jack the Ripper. A man visits the seedy bars of his old neighborhood in "Standard Time Chop" and, repulsed, is filled with domestic yearnings. In "G-d's song" a gentle, forthright, practical, and insecure G-d revises his commandments—eliminating circumcision, easing the strictures on sexuality, condoning drug use, and admitting that even He isn't quite sure of what's going on. LAKE CHAMPIONS is a personal and intimate album that touches on all the trademark Kaplan subjects.

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REVIEWS of Lake Champions:

"(Kaplan's) songs are sweetly personal and wonderfully void of pretentious overtones... The stories he sings wind and twist away from the ordinary and toward refreshing new ideas often humorous and bizarre... never predictable."
—THE INDEPENDENT / Lawrence, Kansas

"Long Island-born Randy Kaplan sings of modern romance, male neuroses, and quirky character studies with the off-kilter viewpoint of a man who appreciates the blurred edges as much as the finer points. Like Leonard Cohen before him, and his friend and musical compadre Dan Bern, Randy's self-effacing lyrics make you laugh, cry and blush at their honest simplicity."
—THE BOTTOM LINE / Required Listening preview; New York City

"(Kaplan's) songs display keen psychological insight... His emotional range is broad, running the gamut from uplifting to bleak."
—THE MATTRESS / Olympia, Washington

Tracklist

1.	Drunk As Can Be	6:01

2.	Ten Page Letter	2:41

3.	Isn't That Right?	3:35

4.	The Offer of 1000 Shields	3:40

5.	Same Mistake	2:48

6.	Not Enough	6:24

7.	I Didn't Buy It	4:26

8.	Take This As I Mean It	4:24

9.	Gold	2:25

10.	Wooden Arms	3:27

11.	G-d's Song	6:12

12.	Robinson Crusoe	4:53

13.	Standard Time Chop	2:54

14.	Next to You	3:37

15.	Boyfriend Song	4:08

16.	Try With Another	4:20

Credits

released July 15, 1999

randy kaplan: vocals, guitar, harmonica

all words & music by randy kaplan
all songs ©1999 treeleigh music (ascap)

recorded, mixed, & mastered by colin mahoney
at z'gwon,th studios in lawrence, kansas
assistant engineer: dan balsinger

songs 1-8 recorded july 24, 1998
songs 9-16 recorded february 14, 1999

photographs by brian schey
drawings by rk
graphics by tom johnson
additional graphics by marty rosamond

special thanks: scott bernstein

thank you: david friedman, dan bern, mike west, myshkin, andras jones, paula shapiro, erik hyman, yasmina palumbo, robin blackwood, al, pat, & eddie at cassette city, my family & my friends

for karin & jillian

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