All of these 13 songs were written and recorded (along with an instrumental set of electronic songs called "The Weird Side") between October and Christmas of the year 2000. This was a time period right after Gordon had met The Satellites from Mallorca- recorded their album "Our Very Bright Darkness" and then met The Strokes and recorded their demo-heard-round-the world called The Modern Age EP which was still un-released. During the making of I Lick The Moog, it was not yet obvious in any way that The Strokes recordings would become "popular", or that they would return to work with Gordon on their first full album. It was a time when "hustling bands to record", sleeping in that basement studio and working every day to stay alive in New York City was a huge and amazing reality.
 After moving to Manhattan from his beloved/be-hated Seattle, Gordon Raphael first experienced being asked to produce and record the songs of "other people". Up to that point he was only interested in his own songs, and the bands he was actually in (such as Mental Mannequin, Colour Twigs and Absinthee). "I was in a very cool collective-type band in Seattle called Sky Cries Mary, and we all wrote together, recorded several records and toured the USA/Canada and even once played in Tokyo. We had a gorgeous following in our own town, and it was really exciting to be part of a well known, highly artistic group and finally make a good living from playing my keyboards and guitars! When I moved to New York with Anna Mercedes to work on Absinthee music I almost went completely broke, spending my life savings and Sky Cries Mary money ALL within the first 7 months. I had never really been able to hold down a "real job" before and I had no idea what kind of hell I was going to have to endure to stay in the Big Apple. Lucky for me, one singer/musician (Pamela Laws) was introduced to me in Chateau Relaxo studio and she actually HIRED me to produce her songs! It was one of the first times that anyone heard my recordings and actually believed in them enough to imagine my fairly strange ideas about SOUND for their own songs.
I was saved from starvation and a horrible fate in that very moment!". One band led to another, and soon people were recording with Gordon every day of the week. It became clear to him that it might get very difficult to deal with his own music writing, playing synthesizers, singing or recording- when the possibility of paid jobs producing other people was becoming a constant reality. Going from always creating his own musical worlds, to being a translator and defender of his clients's musical dreams was a giant change of focus, and sometimes seemed threatening to his "inner artist".
I Lick The Moog came about as a fight to regain entry into that amazing world of discovering ones own voice, one's own thoughts and ideas. Almost all the sounds are Gordo-made, with the help of 3 very friendly and talented drummers who appear on some of the songs. It was a very cold winter, and working alone at night was very inspiring, yet quite isolating in frantic New York. "I believe you can hear the coldness and the isolation all over this record", says Gordon Raphael. "I have loved listening back to this record from start to finish so many times- I think the songs flow really well into each other even though they are miles apart in styles and vibration!".