It was 1980 and Ken & I were two thirds of the triumvirate of editors at Vehicule Press. It was a time of experimentation. It was always a time of experimentation at Vehicule Art gallery and the press was no different. We were publishing books by young writers exploring both forms and content and shapes of books. Vegetables, with seed packets glued to the front Murders in the Welcome Café, a hard-boiled detective book of poems with a menu from the Welcome Café as the inside cover. Honey, with a cover of labels from a beekeeper who got upset with Claudia’s erotic poems. We were running a poetry series that featured The Four Horsemen and bill bissett. There were Montreal poets, mainly hanging around the gallery doing concrete, sound and video poetry. So we decided (I don’t know who actually did) to record some of the more interesting poets in Montreal.

Most poetry records until Canadada by The 4 Horsemen were staid, straight-ahead recording of page poems. We didn’t want that kind of an album. Yes, some of the poems were already bedded on the page but they had an aural energy that demanded recording and others – Regard as Sacred, Er/Words/Ah, Mouse/Moist, Were Men, It Is – all two-voice poems needed to be heard, not seen.

We didn’t know anything about recording, so got people who did. I was teaching at John Abbott College which had a TV studio.  I knew the technician running the studio and for a bottle of good booze and good dope we got access to the studio.

The recording was done in one day with people chipping in and helping out on each other’s pieces. Richard Sommer played jew’s harp on Tom’s No Parking. It wasn’t planned. Ken sang with Claudia, and joined me and dancer Carol Harwood on Er/Words/Ah.

Sounds Like has been played around the world.

Endre Farkas

July 20, 2013

PS. The photos of the “mouth” on the album cover were taken by Chris Knudsen, responsible for many of the Vehicule Poets books’ design, belongs to Endre…

- ed.