The Story of Stern Wes The name Stern Wes came from a joke country and Western duo that Graeme and Paul thought up. Graeme’s name was Ry Count or Roy C***, for good tastes sake it’s best to let you finish that particular anagram. The first ‘album’ or venture was going to be the mightily titled 18 Wheeler Stoat, but that unfortunately never came to fruition, presumably it was too difficult to write, or justify with any degree of sanity, a song related to ermine with so many wheels. And so the name was tucked away for many years. It was only when Paul started to record some simple acoustic songs of an alt country, lo-fi folky persuasion, the first of which was One More Second Chance, that Stern Wes was resurrected in fiery uncertainty like a forgetful phoenix from the flames of obscurity. It’s hard to accurately recall the exact year that this happened. The phoenix was easier to remember because Stern’s eyebrows didn’t grow back for quite some time afterwards. It was probably in the region of 1996-97. Around this time MP3.com was in its infancy and held some exciting possibilities for the struggling singer/songwriter to get their material heard by internet weirdos from every continent, and so, Stern Wes was thrust mercilessly upon the unsuspecting world. One More Second Chance enjoyed modest success getting quite a few plays and favourable comments on MP3.com. At one point it even ended up reasonably high on the country charts. Stern was naturally overjoyed and began to write Late Night Broadcasts, which if you actually listen to the songs with their inherently downbeat nature it would lead you to believe that Stern wasn’t overjoyed in the slightest. The physical recording of Late Night Broadcasts was lo-fi in the extreme. It was recorded on a temperamental failing 4 track of dubious wobbly quality by a temperamental failing artist of a similarly wobbly nature and underpinned by a considerable amount of hiss, which although endearing made it quite annoying. All takes had to be complete with no punching in due to the tape heads chewing the tape every time the record button was pressed. All tracks were mastered on the windows sound recorder randomly adding effects when needed. The production values were so low that Stern should have just chiselled the songs into granite. Still, perseverance prevailed and 11 songs were recorded.