World Class Listening Problem is the fifth full length studio album by math rock

Math rock

Math rock is a rhythmically complex guitar-based style of experimental rock that emerged in the 1980s and that was very influenced by progressive rock like King Crimson, Frank Zappa, Henry Cow - and 20th century composers such as Steve Reich and John Cage...

 band Don Caballero

Don Caballero

Don Caballero are an American rock group from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The group took their name from the character Guy Caballero, portrayed by Joe Flaherty, on the sketch comedy show Second City Television...

. Damon Che is the only member of the original lineup appearing on this record.

Track listing

1. "Mmmmm Acting, I Love Me Some Good Acting" – 5:54
2. "Sure We Had Knives Around" – 5:19
3. "And and and, He Lowered the Twin Down" – 4:15
4. "I Agree..... No!..... I Disagree" – 4:32
5. "Palm Trees in the Fecking Bahamas" – 3:54
6. "World Class Listening Problem" – 4:50
7. "Railroad Cancellation" – 5:18
8. "Theme from Bricktop Clowns" – 1:49
9. "Savage Composition" – 4:42
10. "I'm Goofballs for Bozo Jazz" – 4:35

Personnel

• Don Caballero:
  • Damon Che
    Damon Che
    Damon Che is a rock drummer and guitarist. He has made significant contributions to indie rock and progressive rock through his work with math rock pioneers Don Caballero since 1991...
    
     – drums
    Drum kit
    A drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals and often other percussion instruments, such as cowbells, wood blocks, triangles, chimes, or tambourines, arranged for convenient playing by a single person ....
    
    
  • Eugene Doyle – guitar
    Guitar
    The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...
    
    s
  • Jeffery Ellsworth – guitars
  • Jason Jouver - bass guitar
    Bass guitar
    The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....
    
    s
• Al Sutton - recording engineer
  Audio engineering
  An audio engineer, also called audio technician, audio technologist or sound technician, is a specialist in a skilled trade that deals with the use of machinery and equipment for the recording, mixing and reproduction of sounds. The field draws on many artistic and vocational areas, including...
  
  
• Dan Curie - assistant engineer
• Alan Douches - mastering
  Audio mastering
  Mastering, a form of audio post-production, is the process of preparing and transferring recorded audio from a source containing the final mix to a data storage device ; the source from which all copies will be produced...
  
  

Miscellanea

The phrase "World Class Listening Problem" first entered the Don Caballero lexicon in late 1999 as the provisional title of the American Don

American Don

American Don is an album by Don Caballero, a Pittsburgh-based math rock band, released on Touch and Go Records in 2000. It was recorded by Steve Albini....

song "Details On How To Get ICEMAN On Your License Plate".

All of the songs were recorded live in the studio with little or no overdubs

Overdubbing

Overdubbing is a technique used by recording studios to add a supplementary recorded sound to a previously recorded performance....

 or edits. Che remarks that this led producer Al Sutton to say that they were the first band he'd ever worked with who could actually play their songs.

"Savage Composition" and "I'm Goofballs For Bozo Jazz" started as one song called "Heavily Beautiful" (as heard on the Fall 2003 tour), before being split into two.

In a 2006 interview with Resound magazine, Damon Che described "And And And, He Lowered The Twin Down" as "a sequel of sorts," presumably to the 1993 Don Caballero single "ANDANDANDANDANDANDANDANDANDAND". At a 2003 show in Cleveland, Ohio, Che introduced the song with a "terrible story" of two twins. Of the two twins, only one was slender enough to be lowered down through the hole of a roof. The song is about what happened when the twin got in there.

"Railroad Cancellation" was featured in the season two finale of the FX series Sons of Anarchy

Sons of Anarchy

Sons of Anarchy is an American television drama series created by Kurt Sutter about the lives of a close-knit outlaw motorcycle club operating in Charming, a fictional town in Northern California...

.