The story on this recording is hilarious. In December of 1974 Glass had the dubious idea of doing a live gig with a popular local Port Townsend hard rock band called, appropriately enough, "Ouda Control." We knew they had a large following and we thought heck, let's introduce them to some progressive jazz-rock. What we hadn't thought through was that the band was famous (as were their crowds) for the amounts of alcohol and drugs they could ingest before partying down.
www.ptleader.com/stories/joseph-joe-rutter,75624

So what we ended up with was 200+ young, wasted and boisterous Ouda Control fans, flailing around and going completely NUTS. We further complicated the evening by deciding to haul in a couple thousand dollars' worth of recording gear and record the event for posterity. The subsequent recording became known as "Nightmare at New Year" in the Glass archives.

The main problem we had was we had to play (and record) down on the dance floor of the Arcadia Barn－our gear was WAY too much to fit on the tiny stage－so we had drunk kids dancing all around us, tripping over wires, knocking the cord out of Greg's piano a minute into "The Vanishing Point," stepping all over everything. On the plus side, they seemed pretty enthusiastic in their reception of our all-original, instrumental music. Considering their altered states of consciousness, our music might have been providing an interesting psychedelic soundtrack! We considered their acceptance a compliment, knowing they came to see Ouda Control play 25-minute versions of "Smoke On The Water" and other similar hard rock anthems. Looking back now, the whole thing gives me a smile... and our playing－though we were distracted by trying not to get disconnected－was still bristling with energy and verve. This was also the first Glass gig that featured drummer Jerry Cook as the band frontman. From behind on the drum throne no less.

It wasn't our tightest live playing but there are songs and arrangements here totally unique to this event. And of course in the interests of releasing EVERYTHING from the archives...here you go!
- J.S.