First show at Cheers

As Friends Rust played its first show on September 19, 1996, at Cheers in Coconut Grove, Florida. The event was a Pixies tribute show and As Friends Rust performed covers of the songs “Hey” and ” The Sad Punk “. After writing nearly a dozen original songs (including some that were never recorded, like “Superheroes,” “Kid,” and “I Know”), the band entered Wisner Productions in Davie, Florida to record six of them (“Encante,” “Ruffian,” “Broken Brain,” “When People Resort to Name Calling,” “The Only Point,” and an untitled instrumental acoustic song) with producer James Paul Wisner from November 19–22, 1996. Three of the songs, “Encante,” “Ruffian,” and “Broken Brain,” were used on a demo tape shopped to such record labels as Revelation Records (which had signed Moyal’s previous band, Shai Hulud, earlier that year, and would shortly thereafter sign Morning Again, also based on material recorded with Moyal), Doghouse Records , Equal Vision Records , Jade Tree , Art Monk Construction, and Network Sound; however, the band only received rejection letters.