Black and the Jesus Lizard. Though he was not that familiar with the band, he was aware of them and considered them "one of the few punk bands [...] that had a more melodic sensibility". Albini had upgraded the recording console at his house from eight-tracks to 24-tracks prior to this. As such, he recorded a large number of bands in a small time period in order to pay the bill for the equipment. Upon arriving, Schwarzenbach remarked that the Jesus Lizard were practicing in Albini's basement; Jawbreaker moved all of their gear into that location, which was where they would be recording. Pfahler said on the first day, Bauermeister and himself had started taping basic tracks at 3pm and were finished by 6pm. The day after, Schwarzenbach tracked his guitar lines and vocals; the next day, they began the mixing process. Two songs into the session, the tape machine became faulty and caught fire. Any further work was halted without a working machine; another act was scheduled to work with Albini at the weekend. A national tour was planned to begin after sessions wrapped, though the initial first show in Dayton, Ohio was cancelled as Jawbreaker remained in Chicago. On 25 May 1993, they re-started mixing as the machine was fixed, working from 9AM to almost midnight. Albini ultimately billed the band $1,032 for the three full days of recording and mixing. The next day, they went to the residence of Screeching Weasel frontman Ben Weasel and listened to the album. Pfahler later regretted doing this, stating that they were "too close to it. We had no distance [...] we didn't have it in our head right". Schwarzenbach said: "There's always that point where you can really freak yourself out, and we did". They then embarked on the When It Pains It Roars tour through to July 1993. After 30 shows, they eventually re-listened to the tapes, which Schwarzenbach were not satisfied with. After the tour concluded, they spent a day with Billy Anderson, tracking at Brilliant Studio in San Francisco, California. The band self-produced the proceedings, while Anderson served as the engineer. During this, "The Boat Dreams from the Hill" and "Boxcar" were re-recorded, "Do You Still Hate Me?" and "Jinx Removing" were re-mixed, and "Condition Oakland" was recorded. "The Boat Dreams from the Hill" was re-done as the song did not have enough pauses in the music