Jeffrey Runnings “Piqued” – thoughts
July 11th sees the release of Piqued, the last album by the late Jeffrey Runnings, by Independent Project Records. On March 3rd, 2025 Jeffrey died of cancer, he was 61 years old. Jeffrey’s signature post-punk bass lines stop by and propel songs like Threadbare. This was done on Yamaha cassette 8-track and has a timeless atmosphere that could genuinely be mistaken as an album from anywhere from the mid-80s to the early 2000s. It retains the magic of early home recording when there weren’t online tutorials or courses readily available, a time when going and paying by the hour in a recording studio was the main option. While rough around the edges, there is an inventiveness and openness to the production. The ability to craft lo-fi blurred universes in your home became a very real and viable option for minds that were never at rest.
Even though many of the tracks are instrumentals, Jeffrey’s stark words are still very much present in song titles “The Courage of Voluntary Trees” and “Failed Rescue Attempt.” Jeffrey always had lyrics that spoke to and for the fragile souls, broken hearts, and minds grasping at memories. This was something he nailed all the way back in For Against, the post-punk darkness with ambient guitars swirling around catchy bass lines, but the lyrics were stark and raw.
For Against were a post punk band from Lincoln Nebraska that formed in 1984, and released the Autocrat single (b/w It’s A Lie) before their full length Echelons. Forget Who You Are is about a would-be star whose monovision is out of step with a stereo world. or Broke My Back “My life exists only in black and white. I broke my back to try to put it right.” The debut album was part of IPR and had the typical care by Bruce Licher, whose packaging and design were nominated for a Grammy. Piqued continues that tradition and even features Jeffrey’s cats (Mister Waffles on the cover, Frankie Dorito on the back).
Founded in 1980 by musician and artist Bruce Licher, Independent Project Records and its sister entity Independent Project Press are known for their instantly recognizable hand-printed record covers for bands including Camper Van Beethoven, For Against, Polvo, R.E.M., Savage Republic, Silversun Pickups, Stereolab and more. Aside from creating much of the artwork on his vintage two-ton hand-fed letterpress, Licher was nominated for a Grammy Award for his design work on the IPR released debut album from For Against. In 2020, the label was relaunched by both Licher and Jeffrey Clark with new and archival releases and is distributed by MRI/The Orchard & via Proper Music Group outside the USA & Canada. IPR is based in Bishop, California, at the base of the Eastern Sierra Mountains.
In the next few years For Against would transform into dream pop, but again there was a wounded heart behind the words. The song Spent stabs with “You always ruin everything you touch. It must not matter very much” While that was a jab at major labels and A&R men, you could easily apply it to guarding yourself in any toxic relationship.
Returning to the present, Piqued’s music frequently lacks words, evoking images of a fantasy world filled with soft synths and drum machines. It feels somewhere in between the jagged darkness of early For Against and the melancholic, jangly dreams that began in the 90s. There is a level of minimalism and restraint to the production; this was confirmed as intentional during the Bandcamp listening party, with Bruce Licher noting Jeffrey would strip away layers on the songs until satisfied. An EP of late 80s rarities is also included and fits seamlessly with the modern songs, giving credence to a sound that spans decades. Lead single Batman Forever has the touching lines “You’re the one I want to be there When the very last light goes out. You’re the one I want to be there When we have no place for the last shout” which seem deeply personal in the wake of his passing.
The second single Heretofore packs a punch with
“ I’m not someone
til the very end is here
I sit here broken,
like a lonely man in tears”
As much as I have put thought into this, Bruce Licher himself wrote everything that could be said on SNS, so here is his Facebook in its entirety. A beautiful testament to a musical legacy and friend that echoes IPR’s ethos of handling an artist with thoughtful care:
Jeffrey first wrote to IPR in August of 1984, seeking “information on how I may increase communication with I.P.R. and Savage Republic in particular.” He also wrote “I wish you much good fortune in future endeavors,” with the word “much” double-underlined. He asked for a reply, and said “my services are at your disposal.” This introduction gives a bit of insight into the genuine enthusiasm Jeffrey had for music that was meaningful to him, and was the beginning of a 40+ year working relationship, as IPR ended up releasing or co-releasing 5 albums and a 3-song EP from his band For Against. Jeffrey’s letters were always a pleasure to receive, hand-written, often on the back side of old xeroxed flyers for his band, sometimes greeted by the words “Hey, Mister,” and often wrapped around the latest cassette tape he wanted me to hear, usually new songs he was working on with For Against, and maybe with a selection of bands he thought I should hear on the back side, like Kitchens of Distinction, or Pale Saints, or The House Of Love. Indeed, many of what became my favorite bands circa the late 80’s and early 90’s were ones like those three that Jeffrey first turned me on to along with groups like RIDE and Lush.
Mid-last year Jeffrey got in touch to say he was finishing up a new album of solo recordings, and would I like to hear it? He had several other labels interested in releasing it, but wanted to know first if IPR would want to put it out, and so I told him of course I’d love to give it a listen. So here we are, in the 2nd decade of the 21st Century, most people are zipping sound files around through the interwebs or sharing Soundcloud links hoping to get a record deal, and what should show up a week later, but a cheap Sony cassette tape, normal bias, with 11 songs on it and a hand-inscribed generic J-card: Jeff’s new album, accompanied by a 3×5 card telling me that it “needs mastering + editing.” Honestly, I couldn’t have asked for anything more special, and once I had a chance to thoroughly listen, of course I told Jeff that we’d be honored to work with him on the release of “Piqued.”
Over the next few months as the project started to come together, Jeffrey found a master cassette with 4 more songs that he had recorded in December of 1988 in the “Project Record Store after hours,” two of which had seen release on a couple of compilation CDs released by Saint Marie Records in the mid-twenty teens (an excellent Texas-based label who had released Jeffrey’s first solo album, “Primitives And Smalls” in 2016, along with CD and vinyl reissues of the three 90’s-era For Against albums). But there were two other songs that had not been widely available, though one song, the incredible, intense “Demolition Blast” looks to have been included on a Greek fanzine compilation cassette tape circa 1998, according to Discogs. Jeffrey thought that these 4 songs would make for an excellent companion piece to the “Piqued” album, and would we consider including them on a 7” EP in the vinyl edition? After several listenings to these 4 pieces I realized that trying to cram them all on a 7” slab of vinyl would not do them justice, and considering the era that they came from, what could be more perfect than to press them as an EP on 12” vinyl mastered at 45 rpm — so that’s what we’ve done. And, since Jeff had also found the cassette multitrack master for the 4 songs and told me he wasn’t completely happy with his original mixes, we decided to hire Larry Crane, editor of Tape Op Magazine and proprietor of Jackpot! Studios in Portland, Oregon, to remix the tracks. The results exceeded both Jeffrey’s and my expectations, and so on the vinyl editions of “Piqued” we’re pleased to include a bonus 12″ EP titled “Light of My Life.” Your choice of either black vinyl or colored vinyl, with the “Piqued” color being a transparent magenta and the “Light of My Life” vinyl a translucent silver. For the Special Edition CD version of “Piqued” those 4 tracks are added at the end of the album, hence a total of 15 songs on the shiny silver disc.
All through this process, Jeffrey had not been well, dealing with a lot of internal pain and finding himself in and out of the hospital a number of times, until at the end of October he received a diagnosis of stage 4 cancer. He began treatments, though the established medical system did not give him much hope for survival at that point. We continued to work on the album with an increased sense of urgency, and Jeff was able to see the designs I’d worked on for the CD and LP jackets and seemed very pleased. Knowing how much he loved his cats, I scanned his Facebook feed to find photos of his beloved felines, and incorporated them into the designs, which I then had translated to letterpress photo-engraved printing plates to be run on our Vandercook cylinder letterpress. The leaf motif came from several photos he’d sent me of an antique lampshade that he and his husband Sean owned, which were among some of the various imagery Jeff had sent me to work with on the cover designs.
By January, Jeffrey had decided to cease the treatments, and went into hospice care at home. I scheduled a Zoom call with him and Camilla Aisa, IPR’s European publicist and staff writer, and in February the three of us were able to talk onscreen about Jeffrey’s love for obscure 80’s music, his album, what influenced him during a 40+ year career, and how he came to make his music in a way that was unique to his creative sensibility. It was a beautiful conversation, and I know that both Camilla and I felt honored to be working with a man so dedicated to his musical craft, and so generous with his compliments towards those who created music that he found meaningful. Camilla has written a beautiful essay about Jeffrey and his album, which is included in a folding insert in both vinyl and CD editions of “Piqued,” along with a couple of photos — one captured by Michael Hooper when For Against performed in Greece in 2007, and another of Jeffrey looking out over the Grand Canyon, captured by his 90’s-era For Against bandmate Paul Engelhard, when Paul and Jeffrey took a road trip out to Sedona to visit us when we lived there. And then another last-minute addition to the package as the whole project continued to evolve is a set of three postcards featuring abstract artwork that Jeffrey created in the last weeks of his life. Sean sent me images of these drawings, saying that Jeff was trying new things to keep his mind off of his condition, and asked if we might be able to share the artwork as part of the package. And of course I said “yes.”
Jeffrey passed away on March 3rd, 2025, leaving behind a musical legacy that is hugely meaningful to so many people around the planet, and I’m so grateful that he asked me to help shepherd his final project out into the world. I do hope that wherever he is, he is pleased with the result, and that he is happy to know that so many people to whom his past work with For Against was so meaningful will be able to hear his newest music once it is released in mid-July. We’ll be sharing another song from “Piqued” in June, and for those who pre-order copies of the LP or CD we’ll start shipping them at the end of June so that you should receive your copies just prior to the release date.
Thank you Jeffrey for all that you have given to the world, and may you forever be flying high and wide.
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