special introductory
paragraph!
Work Bench Drawer
Condom? What Condom?
Tamara's Little Sex Secret
Cleverly Disguised As The Third Low-Maintenance Perennials Album
The Solo Album
Stupid Is Such A Broad
Term...
Jurassic Park--The
Album
Chicago XX: Chicago's Greatest Hits
The Penultimate Dystopia Of Obsession
I don't really expect anyone to give a crap, but here's how the whole thing started: Christian Burns Smith and I were driving along a deserted back road in our lovely hometown of Norcross, GA in November 1989 when I suddenly spotted a flier on a telephone pole that read "Armed Forces." I turned to my good friend Christian and asked, "Armed Forces - Is that a band?" Christian replied, "Yeah, I think so." So we continued to drive along aforementioned deserted back road in our lovely hometown of Norcross, GA when, lo and behold, I spotted a second sign - this one, perched in front of a house or some crap, read, "Iris Daylillies Hosta." Knowing full well that the sign belonged to some old entrepreneur bag trying to peddle off three different types of flowers, I nevertheless decided to demonstrate my hilarious droll wit by turning to my good friend Christian and asking, "Iris Daylillies - Is that a band?" Christian, a fellow advocate of wry droll wit, chuckled heartily and responded, "Yeah, I think so."
And thus began our journey. It started as just a joke. We started discussing how a band called the Iris Daylillies ("daylilies" was misspelled on the sign, so we followed suit) might be able to separate itself from the crowd (wearing petals around their heads, adopting the slogan "We put the petal back in metal!") when the concept somehow started to seem like a valid goal. A short time later, I invited him to my house to record some of my Dead Kennedys/Ramones rip-offs with me. I had been making tapes of my songs since the ripe old age of ten, but they all blew except for Electroencephalography, Signs That Say Stop, and parts of Yoko's A Chink, so I was excited by the prospect of having a musical partner.
As it turned out, he couldn't sing any better than I could, but I still enjoyed hearing his voice on the playback so, inspired by the dangerously complimental response that I received from the few companions whom I forced to sit through our first four songs ("Cute Surgeon," "Batman Shit," "Let's Traipse," and our classic, "Stereoness"), I dragged some other friends into the mix, including Chris Noble, who had added his rudimentary bass skills to my downright lousy guitarwork in our cleverly-titled project, The Beatless. And we set to work recording a nearly-unlistenable ninety-minute collection of lo-fi punk inside jokes that we called Hosta just so the title would match the album cover (a picture of us standing in front of the immortal sign).
Oh, I forgot the important part. Near the beginning of side two, we picked up a second guitarist; although Mr. Matthew Terrebonne was only thirteen years old at the time, he was already about sixty-two billion times better than I was. But that's how life goes sometimes. So I kept writing stupid offensive songs like "I Crapped On Monday" and "People With Long Hair Screw Dead People" (a strange sentiment considering that I myself was a budding longhair), we kept inviting friends over to make lots of noise, and finally we had filled up another 90-minute Maxell cassette which my mother entitled Another Filthy Album.
Oh, I forgot the important part. Near the end of side two, we discovered stereophonic sound and it changed our lives forever. No more would we be just another muddy monophonic hardcore joke band. No sir, now you could actually hear BOTH guitars at all times! Wild, wild stuff. [technical note from Christian - Well, we used two microphones and a tape deck. We created a sort of pseudo-stereo generated by placing the microphones apart from each other in the room.] This is boring. You don't give a crap about this. But anyway, we fell in love with the idea of being in a band. We made our own tee-shirts, we wrote "Iris Daylillies Rule" everywhere we could, we had our own little outfits, we bragged about ourselves constantly, we lent tapes to friends, we made videos for school projects - oh, it was a wonderful time in my youth. We faked contempt for everything and everybody. It was hilarious.
But things were looking grim, mister. Soon after we finished Hybrid, which everyone agreed was our best album thus far, that bastard Christian (who still couldn't sing for crap but was nevertheless funnier than you can even imagine) left for college!!!!!! Matt and I renamed the band Low-Maintenance Perennials ('cause that's what daylilies are, see), added fake drums, and tried to think positively about the future, but all of our friends had lost interest and our songs seemed so dull and lifeless without our former vocalist's bile and charm. We were seriously considering throwing in the towel on the whole mess when, all of a sudden, Christian made it clear that he would be willing to return home every weekend to concentrate on the music! Our youths were saved!!!! We even managed to get our friends interested again for a couple of decent tapes until, out of the blue on the wings of a dove, our musical universe was altered forever.
Christian had saved up his scholarship money and bought a five-track mixer. [technical note from Christian - This was actually a five-track Radio Shack PA that I bought for real cheap. This is the device that burnt Mark's first amp (during the recording of "Blood Comet Rhapsody," an early psychedelic track that was later resurrected for Stupid Is Such A Broad Term). By the time we started the album that would become Work Bench Drawer, I had learned how to use it, which is why we didn't burn Mark's amp again. It's also why the guitars aren't quite as loud and crunchy as, say, "Reactions To An Elephant In My Head," which was actually also a pre-Work Bench Drawer track recorded by an improvisational Lump side project called Sonic Butthole Dozer.]
And we wasted no time getting started on the first of our seven or eight classic cassette-only releases, Work Bench Drawer.
Well, they're classic to me, dammit.
PLEASE NOTE: As of August 1998, all of the following tapes have been transferred onto CD. By deleting the weakest 20 minutes of each tape, we have created stronger, tighter CDs. At least, we like to claim so!!! If you're interested in hearing what we sound like, you can buy any of our 74-minute CDs direct from me for only 4 bucks (just e-mail mprindle@nyc.rr.com). Not a bad deal, I'd say!!! Of course, I'm in the freaking band, so I would say that, wouldn't I.... Hmm. Still. It's not like you're gonna miss four damn dollars. Cheapass.
It's still an awfully fun little tape, though. Most of the songs are short (fourteen of the fifty-four songs don't even reach the one-minute mark), a few are serious (and seriously lousy), and a number of them are kinda parodies of already-established forms of music ("A Horsefly Flew Out Of My...Well, You Know" lightly mocks 2-Live Crew's X-rated rap, "I'd Sell My Soul To Satan For A Bowl Of Boiled Poop" weakly slaps at death metal, "The Ships Is A-Comin' Down The River Of Freedom" directs its bitter ire at slave songs, for no clear reason, even to me, and I wrote the damn thing). Pretty entertaining stuff, if you can deal with the idiosyncratic sound - that being the fake drums and lack of bass. Granted, the guitar tones are pretty heavy on this one, so the basslessness really isn't that big a deal, but some people just aren't sophisticated to deal with the idea of a half-band rockin' the town down. Some people. What do they know??????
So this was our debut, as far as the world need be concerned. Ninety minutes of bad humor. And I'm man enough to admit that. We laughed at our own jokes too often, we thought we were far more clever than we actually were, and we often reached way way past the border of bad taste (For instance, my statement at the beginning of "Merry Christmas (Peace On Earth)" that "I'd like to say 'Merry Christmas' to Pete Townshend and Rock Hudson because one's a dead fag and the other one should be." Yes, I was joking, but there was absolutely no reason for any outside listener to know that I was. It wasn't ironic; it was tasteless and stupid. There's lots of crap like that on there, but we were in high school, for Pete's sake!!! What did we know about humor?).
Still, some of it's hilarious. The bizarre fairy tale "Brickman And The Legend Of The Chinese Cobbler," for example, still cracks me up every time I put it in me tapedeck. The profanity celebration "Who Didn't Put The Bomp In The Nipdanipdanip?" is awfully entertaining, too. So, the lyrics DO have their moments. But that's not the tape's real appeal. That would be the melodies. I love these melodies. A mixture of Beatlesque pop, Ramones punk, Butthole Surfers noise, Dead Milkmen twankle, Danzig metal, and Prindle incompetence, the ones that don't aspire to parody really really stand out. Matt was influenced by Killdozer and The Swans at the time, and it shows with a punch of sleazyslow goodness in dirges like "Industrial Blow" and "Integrals Involving ax(squared)+bx+c Stole My Aardvark's Girlfriend." And me? Well, I've always liked to play as fast as possible, but I was willing to slow down just enough to write moody, gripping minor-key beauties like "...And Cars Whizz By" and "Toss Me A Two-Slit Interference Pattern From The Roof Of The Rod Stewart Building." Oh man, the memories.
So that's how we began; when we tried to be funny, we (for the most part) weren't, but when we tried to make good creative music, we did it, main, we did it. However, we also committed our patented cardinal sin for the very first time (it would be repeated....); we ran out of patience and material, but insisted on filling up all ninety minutes of the tape anyway, here by cramming on twenty minutes of dreadfully recorded "Lump-With-A-Real-Drummer" crap that reduces us to the kind of tinny garage band shit that we'd always hated. Mistake. Mistake. [technical note from Christian - The last twenty minutes of Work Bench Drawer (also known as "The Brendan Session") were recorded on a stereo deck, but the mikes were very close to each other, so it sounds near-mono.] But oooh, the rest of the album is fantazmo! I'll give it an eight. There are certain people in this world (about five of them) who consider this to be our classic. I disagree with this sentiment, but I still really like most of it - except when we actually try to SING; my, but we just couldn't sing at all.
Mind you, we have such an immense body of work that far too much
of it is crappy croppy cruppy. Maybe our modus operadandy is the reason:
1. Pick the lyrics we'll do next. (Time: 20 seconds)
2. Write a riff. (Time: 1 minute)
3. Figure what to play with it. (Time: 45 seconds)
4. You've got to hit record.
5. You've got a hit record!
But we also have such an immense body o' thing that many songs are quite good. Had we decided early on to cut the dreck, we'd've ended up with much shorter but actually really good "albums." That's what I go on when rating us, not totally the final product but also the consistency of interesting ideas spewed throughout our back catalog.
As for that "bone-crushing guitar" that Jim Hull mentions: I'd like to take a little credit for that. Oh sure, the pedal youse guys pick and the way y'all play have something to do with that. But it's a serious mission on my part: World's Loudest Songs. If it doesn't drill holes in concrete, it ain't rock'n'roll. So even though I don't dislike reverb as reverb, Matt's reverby preference makes it harder to crank up the volume.
My desire for loudness causes one of the complaints everybody has about the LuMP: the drums are too quiet. It makes it a lot less easy to follow when there's no beat. And all apologies to Elma, but dammit, I wanna hear GUITAR! Loads of it! I want the gushing torrent of distortion to subsume all in its path, providing a sea of sound where the drums churn like a distant submarine prop and the vocals are flashes of brightness amidst the crashing spume! Guitar me out!
Mind you, when we actually vary this eardrum-buzz attack we usually end up with pretty great melodies like "Two-Slit Interference Pattern." And at this point in our career, the "loud guitars" weren't really all that loud. Just crunchy.
Now, let me tell you one thing or another. That wacky Mr. Terrebonne can play a mean delay pedal. We use this capacity to the fullest on "Yam City." Hippy-hurting hatred, he can conjure ultimate melancholia out of that thing! Screaming hordes of dying children echo hauntingly through this tune. Makes me want to kill myself. And by "myself," I mean "Billy Corgan."
Too few good lyrical ideas on this album. My personal take is thus: when you try to write a joke song, you fail and we get boring chuckleless profanity. When you just write a weird situation, and let it build by itself, we get success. As predictable as it is though, the "Horsefly" set still makes me smile.
Actually, I didn't much enjoy this album upon my most recent listen. There are a few standout numbers (despite that we laugh at our own jokes, we actually do sound pretty funny at the beginning of "Merry Christmas," especially considering we were making it up as we went) but which one of us decided we should start the thing with "Moslem in My Fridge?" It was me, wasn't it? Christ, why? I HATE that song! Dumb lyrics, dumb approach, predictable arrangement, aargh sucky hell it sounds like stupid teenagers! It's nearly as bad as "Give Peace a Knuckle Sandwich," whose most sublime moment of inspiration is the title.
Crackly-pop guitar tone throughout helps, but most of the "singing" is just pathetic. We don't even try to do funny voices much. You sort of yodel above your range, Matt mumbles below his, and there's a pickleload of me just plain damn talking. We had done something like 600 songs by this point, almost eight hours of material! Hadn't we learned a goddamn thing?! I shudder to think what I'd experience if I listened to the ID stuff again!
What did I like? Well, the swishy thick guitar of "Tricks in Bill's Magic Book" is certainly soothing, and "Who Didn't Put the Bomp?" sounds like the sort of experiment we wouldn't try again until Tamara. Both are enjoyable listens, creative and catchy. The "calculus opera" has some good little melodies, and nice math-babble, but the surrounding talking bits are about as funny as Jackie Mason. And yet we manage to laugh at them, making us sound even stupider.
At the time, I wouldn't have known good lyrics if they crawled up my ass in the form of an evil snake. Singing either, me buckyball. But get hip to "Industrial Blow"'s guitars! Wow! They actually sound ominous and dark and loud and cool! I love the way they scrape out of existence at the end. How did we get such neat tones? We thought we'd known music, but we'd known nothing. I guess it's all that stupid Terrebonne's fault for listening to stuff other than punk. Bastard. Probably wouldn't understand me anyway.
Oh yeah, I also love how the verses in "Brickman" have absolutely no melody. In fact, there's so little melody it's like anti-melody. It is truly one of the grossest sounds ever put on tape, what with me clearing my throat and you superstrumming through the octave pedal.
Someone please tell me why I like "Tuba."
What numbskulls think this tape is classic? They are obviously insane in the membrane! The high points are few and far between, and side two--ouch! "Infinity=Infinity+One" is certainly boring. Even your guitar line, despite all the notes, just don't go anywhere. And my lyrics and delivery--double ouch!
The "Brendan Session" live stuff is just godawful. The only good thing about it is that there's a (really amazingly bad) version of "(We Must) Have Peace and Live Together." Matt's guitar line for that is zipdang good, and your lyrics are serious without being real stupid. Too bad we'd never get a good version on tape. I tried my damnedest on the Lost World remix EP, but.... Other than that feeble ray of light, the live stuff is a pit of limitless human feces. My lord, sound-in-a-box. And who the hell is that fucking spastic bastard playing the bass at the end? ME?! Shitfire! What scroat-sucking moron let ME pick up the bass?!
For those three of you reading this that haven't already heard the LuMP: Skip this one! Go straight to Condom? What Condom? and feel better about yourself in the morning.
Due to violent mood swings my album ratings change daily, but for right now, I think I'd be satisfied giving this thing a 6. Yes, a 6. I'm not gonna go easy on it just because it's us, and we were teenagers. Compared to, say, Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables, or Suicidal Tendencies, it's an uneven freshman effort. We continued to improve, but here we just toy around. For 90 minutes.
But holy jumping maybeans, those Crass bits make me laugh out loud! Out loud, I say!
"Stick your middle finger up in defiance" - Christian Smith
I think these two quotes can give you an idea of the 74-minute romp through the complicated, bizarre and quite possibly psychotic mind of The LuMP.
The first two tracks start out a little difficult to listen to, but then we get to track 3 - "A Horsefly Flew Out of My...," what comedic imaginative brilliance. Then there's Track 6 - "Tricks in Bill's Magic Book." This is the song that made me a fan of The LuMP f-o-r-e-v-e-r. It starts out with a demonically slowed down and delayed ping-pong effect, then the happy little drum machine kicks in and when the over-distorted guitars crunch in, you know you are about to embark on a short journey into evilness. As if that isn't enough, listen to the lyrics: "Then he noticed the title of his magic book was Satan's Demonic Spells - Children's Edition, Volume One." If that line doesn't get you, then nothing will. Track 7 - "Merry Christmas (Peace On Earth)" continues the evil mayhem. LuMP gives you such variety on this record. Do you like sing a-longs? How about Track 7 - "Give Peace A Knuckle Sandwich" - which includes references to a plethora of your favorite famous people and of course track 30 - "Jell-O, Iced Tea, And A Slab Of Fried Okra" - which comes complete with its own guitar solo! Are these guys politically correct? No, Hell no! And they love it and we love it too. Do you like distortion? Gorgeous distortion is contained herein... like Track 14 - "Correct My Drift And I'll Knock Your Teeth Out" or Track 16 - "Industrial Blow" - which contains the line: "Give big business head." Did you say bing-ma-gaff? Why yes I did. Buy the record and find out why. Are these guys just all about loud, raucous, distorted, punk-influenced rock 'n' roll? No, just listen to track 21 - "Overpass", track 36 - "...And Cars Whizz By," and track 42 - "Infinity = Infinity + One" and you will see the more introspective gentler side of The LuMP. Now don't be fooled by these songs because they'll come right back and kick your ass all over the place with a song like track 43 - "Twisting Owls Heads 'Til They Lop Off." Do you like the seventies? Sure we all do. Well then listen to track 24 - "Funky Overhead Projector." Christian actually had me believing he was a black man.
OVERALL RATING: 9, Why 9? because this is the album that first introduced me to The LuMP and the one that made me a fan forever! Buy it now!
The point is, regardless of where they’re from, too many modern rock bands spend their entire careers trying to pinpoint and hone a niche that they totally ripped off from somebody else. (Good as “Connection” is, Elastica is never going to get half the respect that Pink Flag has managed to retain). How refreshing, then, to see a band like Norcross’ own Löw-Maintenance Perennials trying to completely reverse the formula on their epic 1991 debut Work Bench Drawer, available via mail-order through guitarist Mark Prindle. There is without a doubt a viably rich cornucopia of inspiration to be found here—who the hell else would try something like the Ennio Morricone-meets-Barry White-from-hell-with-verbal-obscenities experiment of “Who Didn’t Put the Bomp in the Nipdanip?”—and yet the product here is so amazingly poor in quality, so ultimately uneven and insipid, it must have taken some pretty tenacious musical anarchy to streamline all those ideas into such a compact slab of stale poop. Still, rotten as Work Bench Drawer may be, this particular chunk of feces has, all in all, more attractive contours and attributes than one might expect.
I will admit: at first, still quite impressed by Prindle’s own excellent (seriously) solo album Keep On Zaccin’!, a slab of stale poop wasn’t exactly what I was expecting from the forever-adolescent mastermind’s first “serious” musical project, particularly not when it involved the killer guitar stylings and renowned comedic antics of Matt Terrebonne and Christ Burns-Smith, respectively. Hell, among most of the commentators on Prindle’s review site where the LuMP are spotlighted, Work Bench Drawer is a particular favorite out of the band’s seven albums. Yet, honestly, there is too much weak filler and too many failed excursions into foreign musical territory to warrant any kind of noteworthy rating. The opener, “Moslem in My Fridge”, is so horrific it stings, but there’s still hope in the acceptable “Spinning in a Nocturnal Infinity Peace Shower”, and after receiving a chuckle from the wry groove of “A Horsefly Flew Out of My…Well, You Know” and its classic “As Clean As They Wanna Be” counterpart, I was expecting a little bit more gold than that which I came across. Alas, when the celebrated “Tricks in Bill’s Magic Book” and even the promising “Yam City” failed to impress me—mere half-hearted joke songs, really, nothing like the peaks of solo Prindle—I knew I was dipping my toes into something a little more willingly difficult.
The deluge of weakness on the album rarely ceases its insistent flow throughout, what with the idiotic “Give Peace a Knuckle Sandwich” and the near-abominable “Calculus Opera” still leaving me with numerous (figurative) aural scars. Even the slightly propitious stuff, such as the sullen “Industrial Blow” and “…And Cars Whizz By”, and the caustic “Funky Overhead Projector” and “The Ships Is-A Comin’ Down the River of Freedom”, fail to completely deliver the goods they at first seem to possess. Nonetheless, some of this material isn’t just prestigious or inspired, it’s absolutely great. “Jello, Iced Tea, and a Slab of Fried Okra” is a real killer, unbeatable in its goal of providing the perfect, anthemic ode to the titular meal. The tinny production doesn’t affect this one too terribly, and I myself am I huge fan of the catchy, winning track. The closing dialogue between the band members (“Seasons Greetings From Three Guys Who Think They’re Awfully Funny”) proves that the group wasn’t entirely oblivious to the flaccid nature of many of their previous jokes. Meanwhile, “Overpass”, in what is probably the surprise of my critical career, is amazingly, authentically winsome and beautiful, the definite highlight of the album next to “Who Didn’t Put the Bomp?” and the first real classic in the LuMP canon. But everything else treads seriously water. Or beer, or piss; whichever you prefer.
In its own demented way, the truly definitive song on Work Bench Drawer is “Merry Christmas (Peace on Earth)”. Off-color, overtly parodic, pseudo-meaningful group harmonizing gives way to horrendously thin production, indulgently stupid lyrics, and an unremarkable but intriguing sense of total nonconformism, all of which culminates in the entire CD’s funniest lyrical couplet: “Merry Christmas/peace on earth/Santa isn’t real/and neither is God”. There’s some respectability to be earned by a band so uncaringly raucous that they bother to shatter every wide-eyed child’s entire belief system in the span of a second. Work Bench Drawer may not be a masterpiece—hell, it’s really not even very good—but if you can dig any of the aforementioned facets of “Merry Christmas”, then, dude, you gotta pick this shit up today.
RATING: * * (out of 5)
Strangely, as stupid as the title and cover art are, this is the most serious album we ever made, which is to say that there are a surprisingly high percentage of serious songs mixed in with the "funny" ones. And why, you ask? Why are there so many serious songs on here? Well, because we pulled material from our old pre-five-track days to re-record, and our old serious songs were for some reason about sixty jillion times catchier than our silly ones. Just listen to the first twenty minutes of side two and you'll see what I mean; I hate to brag (that's a lie), but songs don't get much catchier than "Lost Cause," "Grey," "Nothing," and "Disheartening And Less." What? What? Oh yes, they do, Mark!!!! Haven't you heard "Harsh Words" and "(K)norbstortch" and "Top O' The Morning To You Whispered The Eccentric Yet Grandfatherly Train Conductor" and "Dots" and "Magnetize The Moon" and "Wink Wink Wink Said The Happy Old Farmer" and "Pass Me Some Of That Staphylococcus" and "Blinded By Principle" and, for Pete's sake, "Blacking Out During A Parcheesi Match"???????
Well, yes, I have. That's why I gave it an 8. This is the most consistently pleasing set of melodies (with the exception of the two mock-metal numbers, "Glenn Danzig Sings In My Church Choir" and "Blood For The Blood God," which suck in about sixty-two million different ways) that you're gonna run across today or any other day. I'm proud of them, darn it. We kept all the friends away and concentrated on getting good solid versions of our favorite old ID and LuMP songs, and, aside from the occasional mechanical mishap (for some reason, the guitars sound like vacuum cleaners for the first twenty minutes, then my distortion pedal broke and uhh.... well, you get the point), we succeeded. I'm very very unhappy with the manner in which I completely destroyed our twelve-minute epic "Stained Glass Football" by forgetting the rhythm after two minutes and then refusing to re-record it (Twelve minutes is a long time!!!! We were used to making up a song, rehearsing one verse and chorus, and then hitting "record"! No friggin' way was I gonna play "Stained Glass Football" again!!! No friggin' way!!!!!!), but most people don't even seem to notice.
"Most" meaning seven of the eight people who've ever heard it, that is.... This one is also surprisingly short on filler, unless you consider "Stained Glass Football" filler, in which case it's surprisingly chockfull of filler!!!! A goodie. We had no clue how to make our instruments sound the way we wanted them to (unfortunately), but at least we weren't laughing at our own jokes anymore. [technical note from Christian - I think that by this time Matt Terrebonne had gotten his 4-track mixer. (The difference between a PA and a mixer is that a mixer actually puts each track on a separate strip of the cassette. That means you don't get a final mix as you record, but you can go back later and remix the relative volumes. With a PA, you have to use a separate tape deck. You get finished product as you play, but you can't go back and change it.) I think we started using it, and then it was too slow for our tastes, so we switched back to my PA. I think. This is probably why the guitar sound changes partway in. I find it difficult to remember. I know that we were using the PA for side two, because I didn't have to mix "Stained Glass Football". That's why you can't hear Matt. There was nothing I could do about it.]
Very little truly offensive nonsense. Amazingly few bad vocals. And infectious, infectious, infectious!!!!!! Pick it up at a record store nowhere near you soon!
Anyway, on the Funny-meter: "Dots" scores, "Beethoven Fuckin' Rocks" made me groan...but see, they don't LINGER long enough for you to say, "Gosh-dang it! Why the hell do you think that's funny??!!" AND THAT'S THE REASON IT IS! "(K)norbstorch" is a pretty good song, too...I would've liked "...Green Velcro" more if not for the too obvious joke at the end...the "production" is pretty good for an album this early in the moppets' "career", too..."Retch Me Up A Cabbage, Fakir"...it's an 8 in my spiral binder...OHM!
p.s. (to Jim Hull) I'm glad you enjoyed "...Fakir."
Okay, yeah, given, the guitar tones at the beginning are a little more industrial than most people enjoy. Sounds like straining refrigerators with broken impellers routed through fifty distortion pedals and blown speakers--but in a good way. And it ain't that bad; after all, despite the guitarical condition, the melody for "Retch Me Up a Cabbage, Frank" remains a total classic.
On Condom, we are a punk rock/hard rock band, not an experimental noise collage group with punk roots. Just look at all those wicked songs: "Borp the 3-Headed Chicken," "Disheartening and Less," "Pass Me Some of That Staphylococcus," and for crying out against religious persecution, "Wink Wink Wink Said the Happy Old Farmer!" They swing, daddy-o! World's simplest backbeat and boogie-woogie distorto riffin'. How could we lose?
Easy. We could finish side two with a remarkable amount of filler (as per standard practice). Other than the chunkmuzzy guitar licks of "Phlegm," there's very little energy present in the last 15 minutes, and even fewer hot ideas. No, I'm not the one to go dissin' "Stained Glass Football," like ya expect me to. There's something to be said for such bombastic vocal interpretations of confused 'rock poetry' lyrics. The parts where Terrebonne's delay wankings are audible are bonus, especially the two choruses where it kicks in screaming on top of the distortion. But yes, Mark's off-rhythm strumming makes it sound like a rehearsal take. And mother of Christ, that fast middle eight needs to go. 'Needless' is the word for that day. Overall, the 70s prog-rock/punk fusion was a good idea badly executed.
My screaming had certainly improved, though. Instead of weak strained-larynx wails, you get unattractive evections of sound. The aforementioned "Wink Wink Wink" is a prime example, but how about that "Goshdarn It, I Tarnished My Schnauzer"? Huh? How about it, motherfucker?! And for sheer punk brilliance, no song we've ever written has topped "Blacking Out During A Parcheesi Match." I could eat that peach for hours.
I was pleasantly surprised by this album. I half-expected a humorless, joyless picnic in our back catalog, a lot like Stupid is Such a Broad Term. Instead, I got teenage energy levels and dashes of elementary-school humor. There's a reason that we started live sets with the triple-crusher of "Cute Surgeon," "Lawnmower," and "Blinded By Principle." Stupid? That says maybe, but oh baby they send me!
Heck, I even liked "Dunkin' Donuts." And as high schooly as the lyrics to "Ronald's Got a Chainsaw" are, the song's construction is nice, and it's short, dammit. Unlike that "Infinity=Infinity+One" debacle. And despite that I play the melody correctly about qty. 1 times, "(K)norbstortch" rocks my spine.
Oh, it isn't all bitches and C.R.E.A.M. I hated the living hell out of "Blood for the Blood God." Every man and his woman laughs at the superfluous Journey extracts which frame it. But only dorkass pansies (and dumb ones at that) think there's any idea here. We sound like clueless kids who don't know what music is. Or humor.
But youse other least favoritest moment, "Glenn Danzig Sings in My Church Choir," I don't find repulsive. This is truly a dismal version, on that we do agree (listen to that guitar--ickypugnacious!) but the song itself is just fine, I say. It's just so accurate to his style.
Okay, here's an anecdotal trip to tipperary. It's difficult for me to assign grades to the LuMP because they're so close to me heart. You know whereof I speak: critiques of one's own stuff tend to be nebulous and goofy. I'm not sure what causes this personal blindness, but here's an attempt at a theory:
Creation is an act of delineating certain patterns of thought within your brain. Then you create a modelled approximation in whatever your medium. It's never quite perfect, but you do your damnedest. The arbitrary connection of two distinct data sets is a facility your brain exercises regularly, and with great aplomb. But once you've set up these associative patterns, they stick. And so when you view art you've created art that was processed through the very same associative linkagesall you get is unity, a one-to-one correpsondence. That's the tautology of personal belief: what you thought is what you still think, and you can't tell where it diverges from the truth. After a while, though, you change, simply because the brain automatically collects stimuli. Unusual patterns, or things sprinkled with novelty, get stored as types against which later situations can be analogized. You change, and so eventually you are capable of seeing the missteps in your earlier work. If you're fortunate, you also get a new window on what is good.
That was too long and abstruse a way to say that I had totally forgotten that we ever recorded a song called "The Confluence of Worlds." So let me try again, and for brevity:
I had totally forgotten that we ever recorded a song called "The Confluence of Worlds."
As soon as it started, of course, I remembered all the nooks and crannies, the fjords, the invitingly open orifices, if you will. Oh, you won't, huh? Well I and my truncheon shall teach ye a thing or two, ye sonomabitch! But despite my instant familiarity, I think I nevertheless came to it with a relatively objective view. And I enjoyed it, dammit! So should we all. There's not even that vibratory overdriven guitar sludge, or any mention of "gooshy human discharge."
In light of my recent ecstatic reacquaintance with the album, I give Condom? What Condom? a solid eight records. Heck, chop out just a very tiny amount of deadwood and this thing would be a nine. Easy.
Oh what the fuck, as long as I'm being self-congratulatory and autonepotistic, I might as well make it obvious:
I give it a nine. The melodies rule, the filler's innocuous and sparse, and the guitars sound pretty damn clean after that first set of tunes. Harmonic-driven rockout fest of "Nothing!" Spyrock shuffle of "Mike Franklin!" Blissful minor-key angstbeauty of "Grey!" Oh sure, ding dang weakaboo vocals throughout. And a little too much in the way of 'politically conscious' drivel (my fault, I'm afraid.)
But on the enjoyability scale? An Everest of achievement for 18-year-olds. At its best, it's as catchy as all that radio poopola, but with an edge that makes it feel like real music and not cross-format focused for airplay success. Don't expect genius. But don't expect to be bored, either.
Yeah, a nine. I stand by my man.
On side one, things are just godlike until "Real Tall Watchtower" "Dicked Over By a Martian" is pure brilliance. Anyways, things pick up again after "Blood for the Blood God" and stay up until "Gosh Darn It, I Tarnished My Schnauzer".
On side two, "Lamp Man" made me laugh sporadically all day today, "Retch Me Up a Cabbage, Fakir" is funny only because of the "I would like to remind you that I had nothing to do with this" thing, "Don't Mess With the LuMP Pete" made little sense to me, but the line "I wanna listen to Engine, I wanna listen to the LuMP" made me laugh. On this side, most everything else is unworthy of mention.
All in all, there is some filler on this one, and the music is slightly less creative than on Work Bench Drawer, but most of it still comes through. I'd say this one merits a 7.
Personal favorites include:
Retch Me Up A Cabbage, Frank. Dicked Over By A Martian (the lyrics aren't great but the vocals are great!). Borp The 3 Headed Chicken (a good groove with weird subject matter). Mike Franklin (with some of the greatest lyrics I've ever heard. It sounds like the theme from a secret agent movie to me, I don't know why.) Dots. The "Truth" trilogy (The first one in particular has one of their greatest riffs, at least of the ones I've heard. This also seems like some kind of X-Files parody. But I don't think the X-Files was around back then.) Urgh! (It's so stupid, and it's 6 seconds long!) Top O' The Morning To You... (more great vocals.) Retch Me Up A Cabbage Fakir (Just the fact that it's a LuMP song redone as an Indian chant!) And, get ready for this...
Blood For The Blood God. Yes, I actually like that song. Again, it's just so STUPID, and they did the vocals just right, screaming incomprehensibly. I need to hear more Stained Glass Football, too. That first minute of it had me hooked. Did they mean to do that, put it at the end like that? It's like it's an ad for the box set. IF YOU LIKED THE FIRST MINUTE OF THIS SONG BE SURE TO BUY THE PENULTIMATE DYSTOPIA OF OBSESSION, COMING SOON!!!
Anyway, this is an 8 album.
"Kick some butt, Christ!"
"Kindness is important. Harsh words don't solve anything. Harsh words only cause pain... you f#&*ing dick socket, don't use harsh words."
The above three quotes that should give you some insight into this record.
This second effort by The LuMP stars off right away with a fantastic song called "Retch Me Up A Cabbage, Frank." Wow! What a great place to start?
This one is jammed pack with favorites: "Mike Franklin" - which could actually be mistaken for a number one U.K. pop hit song. Yes, it's actually that good! "Magnetize The Moon," "Harsh Words," "I Dig Red Hot Chili Peppers," "Blacking Out During A Parcheesi Match," - which comes complete with a fake ending and "Disheartening and Less."
Do you like the softer gentler side of LuMP? Well they do it again with songs like "My Lady In Green Velcro," "Doorway," and "Grey."
A new little surprise in absurdity sneaks out with "The 700 Club Owes Me 5 Million Dollars' Worth of Crack Cocaine." Here the little devils call the 700 Club and pester them to give them drugs. Oh, those crazy LuMP boys.
Now with this album you must, and I repeat you must buy both the CD and cassette versions. This is due to the fact that the songs "Glenn Danzig Sings In My Church Choir" and "Don't Mess With The LuMP, Pete" are not included on the CD. "Glenn Danzig...” caused so much controversy with the Religious Majority Faction that it had to omitted from the CD re-issue. "Don't Mess With The LuMP" had to be omitted due to legal reasons. Apparently they covered some songs in a bizarre twisted medley and the greedy "high-ranking" record executives disapproved, but it is a must have for any LuMP fan. Plus, your collection will be incomplete without them.
"I wanna listen to the LuMP." And you should too!
OVERALL RATING: 9
Well, we played a few gigs. The summer we made Jurassic Park, we went on a veritable whirlwind tour of Atlanta clubs, hitting such legendary venues as The Somber Reptile, The Wreck Room, and.... oh, hell, I think that's it. But ooooh, our early shows were really where it's at. Our first live performance was at a 1990 Halloween party thrown by some friends. Booked one day in advance (I was invited to the party, and responded by asking, "Can we play?"), it was what one might call a "miserable, miserable travesty." Matt couldn't remember how to play any of the songs, I kept breaking strings, and nobody there really wanted to hear our crappy songs anyway. Bastards.
Then there was the time that we played a ninety-minute set to four people in a neighborhood country club (there was a hurricane that night; I have no clue why we showed up.). We videotaped this one for prosperity, but, ummmm, we don't watch it too often.
The most memorable gig of our career, however, must have been the one we played at a Church Of The Subgenius Devival at some fantasy/sci-fi convention in downtown Atlanta. You see, Christian made up a bunch of packets of fake blood and taped them all up and down his arms and chest for later slicature and gore. A funny idea, yes, but, you see, in the middle of the first song, Christian cut a little too deeply with the knife and cut right through his wrist, veins, arteries, bone, oh man, it was all up in smoke. An ambulance picked him up while Matt and I continued playing to the gang of goofball Subgenius people, who were busy anointing each other with Christian's blood, which had sprayed all over the friggin' place. Later, I remembered that Christian was a hepatitis carrier, but that's neither here nor there. Ha!
I like that Christian. He's a hilarious and extremely intelligent human being. I like Matt, too, but he's kinda quiet. Real arty guy - draws great, paints great, plays the guitar very very very very very well, and he even takes pictures good! Mr. Arty. That's his new nickname. And I hope he likes it, 'cause he's earned it!!!!!!!! Then, of course, there's Matt Murray, whom you might call the "fourth Perennial"; he had tons of great equipment that he let us use, plus a great sense of humor (and a knack for filmmaking that the Lump should have exploited much more fully than it did) - you'll hear his voice quite a bit on the Lump tapes in songs like "Correct My Drift And I'll Knock Your Teeth Out" and "Licky Sticky Dicky." But enough about us. Let's talk about Tamara's Little Sex Secret Cleverly Disguised As The Third Low-Maintenance Perennials Album!
It starts off better than drugs. Side one is filled to the brim with hilarious, speedy, memorable numbers like "Lincoln Was Smart, But He's Dead Now" and "I Wanna Rent An Apartment On Nell Carter's Buttocks," and enhanced by guest appearances aplenty; at the time, we felt that Condom? had been a bit too lifeless without the party atmosphere, so we brought it back - AND HOW! Girls, boys, saxophones, trombones, recorders, keyboards, and fag jokes all playing together in a spirit of joy and harmony. It was so much fun. And this time around, it's a lot easier to ignore (or even chuckle at) the fag jokes, because they're so blatantly moronic ("Ahhh, fags, you know fags, all they do is sit around eating watermelon and driving around in their cadillacs!!! None of 'em work, they're all drug dealers!!! Send 'em back to Africa where they came from, goddamned faggots!!!!!"). So that's good.
And those melodies! Hooo boy, they'll never leave your head. Plus, we started experimenting a little bit! More background vocals for one thing (giving it that Seven Secondsy feel that was so missing from the first two releases), as well as some really weird numbers like one song whose title and lyrics are just a bunch of pictures being described by our pal Sanjay Aggarwal through a distortion pedal while Matt plays a beautiful and sad melody on his guitar by beating on the strings with a ballpoint pen and I sing back-up vocals through the pick-ups in my guitar, which is plugged through a delay pedal, and the fake drums suck in and out because they're plugged up through a wah-wah pedal. Ah man, that's art.
Unfortunately, side two is just a bunch of filler. It was about time for me to leave the state for college, and we really wanted to finish our third album, so we just dug up a bunch of old garbage that we hadn't used before and splotched some stupid fake laughter on top of it and called it a side. Bad bad idea. Bad recordings. Bad lyrics. Bad music. Bad news. The only redeeming moments are the funny alt-rock parodies ("Fugazi," "Violent Femmes," and "Let's Call John Lydon 'Sid Vicious'") and the improvised nine-minute noise extravaganza "Reactions To An Elephant In My Head Pt. 2 Sections E-G (Radio Edit)." The rest is pretty weak. Not awful, but weak by our standards. If it stood alone, I'd give it a 6. But it doesn't stand alone, and side one is wonderful fun!!!! So an 8 it gets. Oh, if only we'd shortened it to an hour. Sigh.
Oh yeah! As an added bonus, you get to hear a Matt Terrebonne solo track recorded during his Dinosaur Jr. phase!!! Strangely, it's actually better than 95% of Dinosuar Jr.'s output. But that's Mr. Arty for you.
[technical note from Christian - This one was definitely recorded through my PA. Except instead of plugging the guitars up straight through, we plugged in microphones and used them. That means the guitars aren't quite so damn aggressive, and the sound is a little fuller. It also means that when something gets really loud, the other somethings tend to fade out. Not as bad as during the ID era, but noticeable nonetheless.]
On side two, I actually liked "Reactions to an Elephant In my Head". Well, at least I liked it more than "Stained Glass Football". And the parodies, as usual, are funny, but on this one they manage to make them competent (save "Boring Classical Ergh!". Was that supposed to sound like classical music?). Funny lyrics abound here, as usual, and side two really isn't all that bad, it just isn't as good as side one.
For the first real time in our "career," we manage to get loud guitars that nevertheless sound like they were produced. I mean, it's not just turned up way past 11; they're actually intelligible. And all the people we brought in make it sound like a groovy little soire. No more are you trapped into hearing my same old tired voice just talking. No no no no no! Now there's a plethora of different people just talking! The inclusion of dreamy female background vocals was also a totally bonus idea.
Man, I just--man! I do declare! It may be self-aggrandizing, but Jesus we are fun fun fun 'til our daddy takes the etc. This is without a doubt the longest, strongest series of talented enjoyable songs we would do until Jurassic Park. Okay, sure, "U Can (Rock Me Harder All Nite)" is certainly forgettable and useless. But that's it! Where normally every third song would be a throwaway, every third song is instead a classic!
Who doesn't like Bryan Feeney's twisted, aphasic delivery in "Linda Evans' Foreskin"? I'll take 'em on right now! And if your head don't bob during "Trucks So Much," you"ve obviously got some sort of spinal condition. Same deal with "Lincoln." What, I ask ye, about that "Trinkets in San Diego"? In. Out. Song's done! In this milieu, "Hank and His Wheelbarrow" sounds fresh and funny even though it was years old. Then it's back to modern experimentation with "(Big Muscle Guy)" and its pictographic title and lyrics. We manage to create a semicoherent melody out of that mess! Even "Great Balls of Ralph Nader" doesn't overstay its welcome.
How about that strangled, abortive pop melody that frames "Golden Billow of Foamy Clouds"? The nursery rhyme sing-song of "Tinkle"? For heaven's poopdish, the rounded contours and spacey freakout of "Turtle of Days Gone By"? (And dem profane wordsies!) Despite a complete lack of "tonality" or "pleasing timbre," "As Is a Skillet" STILL gets stuck in my head. We effectively manage "God I'm Bored" so that it sounds heavy and dragging--and yet is over in two-and-a-half minutes! Amidst all the chicanery, "Clouds" doesn"t sound half-bad. Hit me up, man, with "Fax Me a Turtleneck!" And I"m not averse to a bit of "The Well" action, even if it's a leetle on the long side.
I hate when reviews are just lists of songs, but there's nothing else that does this justice. How can you explain to someone the joy and beauty of "Frank is Wearing a Dress" or "Pink is a Wimpy Color" or "Germans Can Blow It Out Their Ass" or "Flag Up My Butt"? You cannot! Nyet! This must be heard to be believed, and then heard again to be admired! Wowee wow!
Sour note: I plugged everything up so that whenever the vocals get loud, the music goes away. Trying to drive too loud a signal. But the overdubs we did rescue it. Besides, there are so many catchy songs that every time you quit listening they fight in your head for supremacy. One after another, you relive the fine moments you just experienced. (I mean, unless you're one of those people that doesn't like this album.)
I give it a resounding ten! It's just about perfect! I mean, there's NO filler (at least none worth mentioning), and the melodies--what? What's that you say? There's another side to this album? Heck, let me just pop it in and revel in more glorious greatness! Here...let me...um...revel.... Uh....
What the living godsuck is this?! I thought we had a clue! These songs are crap. Good googaly moogaly, whose idea of sound is this damn "Gertrude" thing? I enjoy all manifestations of the Terpsichorean muse, but hyperstation, it"s so long! An "Erik Estrada" number? Bleachh! A mild chuckle is contained by the lyrics to "LuMP Rule" and "Bubble Gum Up My Anal Cavity." But where has my beloved music gone? Where oh where? Is it that distant ringing noise and crunchy sparkle?
Woe is me, all throughout this side I reel in disgust. Even after the music comes back. The lyrics to "Shoe Church" are really fun (and it's refreshing to hear a screaming chick instead of fella--you go grrl!) and even the music stolen from the pointless "Emil's in a Ditch" is good. How the hell was it produced, though?! I appear to have failed at me own responsibility to ensure that you can at least tell that there is ANY FUCKING MUSIC AT ALL!
Okay, "Draft Beer, Not People" is just as catchy as we wanna be, and the parodies work pretty well. Oh heck, if you listen close, there are even a couple really good songs on this side. "Here, Have a Jigsaw Puzzle" drones just dandy, and "Faces of Meanness" whips my patootie into metaphorical self-flagelletory heights. Even some of the noise pans out like it should: "Deck the Cards," or "Dick (Extended Dance Version)" which is so undanceable and noisy that it had Matt Murray and I in tears o' joy when we last listened to the tape.
But Christ, where is all the fun and catchiness of side one? It's real, real gone. This is the worst cardinal sin of the LuMP. No, I'm not talking about including filler (though that's probably what causes this problem). I mean making songs that aren't any fun to listen to. There's no good music to speak of, no good lyrics to speak, and an unspeakable amount of tepid ideas. It's not an adventure, it's a job; and a pretty sucky job at that. "Reactions to an Elephant" nearly has the edge back, but only nearly. It's too long and my improvised little story simply don't cut the mustard. Too much time, too few ideas: that's the unfortunate epitaph for this album. Why, oh why did we have to fill 90 minutes? Sheesh. Didn't we see? We built the Taj Mahal and then laid a dooky in it. Kids--what do they know about partying? Or anything else? Get us another line of work.
My overall score? A ten followed by a six, for a disappointingly low eight. After side one, you may want to quit while you're ahead, dear listener.
This tird (sic) record illustrates the true intellectual nature of The LuMP. Honor graduates, in the top 10% of their class, 1400+ SAT scores all mean nothing when you compare them to "Tamara's Little Sex Secret." They cover all areas of the curriculum with astonishing accuracy and command.
"This is a song about school."
"Beer is the best thing ever invented."
- Christian Smith
These lines indicate that the focus of this record is purely scholarly in nature.
History - gets your facts straight. "Lincoln was Smart, But He's Dead Now" starts the third LuMP record off and heads in the right direction. Historical accuracy is always appreciated. Now if you are easily offended stop listening right here. This one gets messy very quickly. It's like - let's insult everyone we possibly can with "Pink Is A Wimpy Color." I believe this is an attempt to weed out all those poser LuMP fans. Only the truly "lumpy" individuals will be able to listen further.
Science - Songs like "Convex Lens Of 6.0-cm Focal Length," "Black Hole," and "Clouds," showcase the LuMP's knowledge of the scientific world. Obviously these guys have spent many years mastering the theories and formulas of the physical world.
Geography - "Trinkets in San Diego" demonstrates The LuMP's cross continental acceptance and admiration. With "Germans Can Blow It Out Their Ass" and "Wimbledon In The Spring" we see the even farther reaches of LuMP's world domination and mass audience appeal.
Political Science - How about a sure summation and broad sweeping generalization. Then try "Politics Suck" and "Draft Beer, Not People" - complete with a blistering, move-over-Eddie Van Halen guitar solo. Man, these guys know how to rock!
Drama - All you need to do is listen to "One Last Kiss (From Low Maintenance Perennials' Off-Broadway Production of 'Bye Bye Birdie" Starring Soleil Moon Frye and Richard Speck)" and you'll never need to attend another play again. A special little convenience brought to you by those special LuMPs.
Real Estate / Property Rental / Investing - Hey these guys know it all. It is highly likely that if you gave the LuMP a large some of money that they would take that large some and turn it into an even smaller amount of money. True Reagonomics at work. Heck, just listen to "I Wanna Rent An Apartment On Nell Carter's Buttocks" and forget about all the hard earned cash you that spent collecting LuMP tapes and CDs.
Sing-A-Longs - We all love them. Let's all sing-a-long with the LuMP on "Flag Up My But," "Violent Femmes," and "LuMP Rules." Now wasn't that fun?
Country and Western - "Why we have both kinds of music, country and western" - "Theme to Rawhide in A" - No! It's "The Ballad Of Hank And His Wheelbarrow" - a footstompin' favorite especially with the ladies.
Storytellers - MTV has nothing on these guys. Just listen to track 12 (Little Man With Muscles).
Now you must purchase both formats of this recording, cassette and compact disc. Why? Because of the cover art and the fact that you want to be a LuMP completest now, don't you? The cassette version features a lovely "totally un-retouched" prom picture of the record's female moniker and a fine looking young gentleman having the time of their lives. Also scattered about the cover are the characterized faces of The LuMP boys and all the contributing "musicians." The Compact version features an exclusive picture of a young Rodney Dangerfield just after his wisdom teeth were extracted.
OVERALL RATING: 10, Why 10, because this record kicks aaasss!...and anyone who can cover so much material in one album deserves the highest rating.
And lord almighty, did I take advantage of it. It takes a few minutes to get going, but when it finally does, it's full of the most amazing and fantastic fuzz tones, noises, screeches, and punk blasts of sheer volume that you will hear on ANY of our albums. Dude. And it was ALL me. And the keyboard work is hilarious! I pat myself on the proverbial back every time I listen to this masterwork of plagiarism and stupidity. Although it does feature three of my least favorite LuMP songs of all time ("Finland Ooo Grab My Crotch" has all the subtlety of a hamburger, and both "Cherry Pi" and "Lemon Meringue Pie" serve only as further evidence that heavy metal parody was simply not our forte), the rest of the cassette is more fun than a bottle of Scope. Bob Hope scripts, pick-on-string scrapings, Beastie Boy rip-offs (and Pink Floyd and Swans and Dead Kennedys and R.E.M. and Sir MixAlot and Soundgarden and The Who and.....), Radio Canada playing through my distortion pedal, songs about golf - oh, it's all here, Dad. And noisier than a mouthful of wasps.
Artistic growth???? Well, we had a cool new infinite delay pedal that we exploited to an ungodly end, but aside from that, we were just trying to have as fun and loud a time as humanly possible. And here's hoping that you do the same!!!!? Plus, we finally got Pete Williams to sing some songs for us! The poppy ones are unforgettable ("Who Wants A Filbert?," "Hermit Crab," "Trigonometry Bypass," for example) and the punky ones are the toughest we'd ever done (once you get over that "fake drum" thing)!!!!!! Awww, man. Buy it today. From me. 'Cause you ain't gonna find it no place else, homeslice.
Oh! One other thing - we made up all the songs as we went, so every song pretty much sounds like it was written in ten minutes. Thus explaineth I the grade of 8. Har de yar!
[technical note from Christian - This was recorded through the PA all the way. And plugged straight again, because before we started, Mark said he wanted the guitars to be as loud as humanly possible. I hope he's happy!]
This is easily LuMP's most fun album. "I Love Big Busts", "Pinball Wizard Up My Butt", "Love You More Than Rugs", "Ah Heck", that whole "ripoff" suite that ends the tape...just looking at the cassette brings a simile to my face. A smile, too. Jurassic Park is still better, though. It wins out due to originality and general stuff. Y'know.
What the hell I thinketh? You can"t sell this stuff!
It gives off some wonderful waves of humor even before you plunk it in, I must say. Those liner notes are scary (though I misspelled Weltanschauung [and may have just done so again]). And not that the next man will know this, but Dawn Lawhon and Lauren Forrester's huge heads are featured prominently on the cover even though Lauren's voice occupies a full six seconds on the tape, and Dawn's twenty second contribution is not only not the words to a song, but was taped a year previous and hundreds of miles away. Meanwhile, back in Norcross, Garrick Simmons, Pete Williams, Stacie Deaton, and Christine Aikens appear not at all on the cover even though they all sing on multiple tracks. Hee hee oh hee.
We still didn't know how to start an album. First there's a cheesy bit written by some poor bastard who works at Yamaha (with the instructions "Make the programmed melodies stale and lifeless. Make 'em devoid of human warmth. Make 'em emotionally appealing only in comparison to poisonous insects and ruthless third world dictators."), followed by an intense burst of feedback, a tape-distorted tuba, gross-ass lyrics, and spangly crunchola guitars playing an arpeggiated melody.
Hm...maybe we did know how to start an album.
No. Whee doggie, this album certainly begins slooowww. You do get the catching sorrow of "Hermit Crab," mostly a standout due to Mark's emotive delay guitar and gut-wrenching background wassailing. But then there's "Cherry Pi" and "Lemon Meringue Pie," possibly the two worst songs in the history of rock'n'roll. And though I don't actually hate it, because it's fascinating to look at in the way that gruesome death is fascinating....
Let me pause here for a little gruesome death anecdote. I was watching televiso the other evening as a way to relax after work without thinking. There was a pogrom on (I believe it was "Medical Detectives") about a case where a woman had been murdered and then made up to look like a wino killed in a streetfight. So here I am, following along as the coroner is describing the various medical indicia that suggested foul play (or at least fouler play than a simple fight), when the scene changes and I am watching him take apart a body. None of that "close-up on the site of intrusion" stuff from "The Operation," neither. No, these are full-body shots of a nude woman who has been split open from nose to nuts (as it were). And the medical examiner is busy lifting out organs and laying them in a tray, and scalpelling faciae and connective tissue so he can yank flesh back to show the camera some important detail. Now I am no flinching guy--I love "The Operation"--but there's just something a little unsettling about a human being who is half normal and half raw meat. The program didn"t even have a warning tag at the beginning about "graphic scenes of human dismemberment." If I were an 8-year-old, I would never quit having nightmares.
We now rejoin our regularly scheduled program, already in progress:
And though I don't actually hate it, "Finland Ooo! Grab My Crotch!" certainly isn't a song of any sort. It is, however, a good definition of "random" and/or "pointless." Pretty much the same holds true for "Licking the Stamps of Entropy," though that at least has a melody. An interesting note for LuMP collectors (i.e. the members of the band): the static noise signifying entropy in the background is actually video information, though I don't know what of. Round about 1990, Fisher-Price introduced the PXL-2000, the world's cheapest-ever video camera. It recorded about three minutes of tiny, blocky, black-and-white images on normal audio cassettes. This little cheapo camera enjoyed a brief vogue amongst the digerati artistes of the era, resulting in tons of badly lit, hard-to-watch art films of poetry and naked gay people being projected on museum walls. Oh, and a segment of Richard Linklater's coolboy Slacker movie. Mr. Arty Matt Terrebonne had one, and at some point I somehow got hold of a tape of video. Maybe I had borrowed the thing, or some such. I didn't ever shoot anything with it. Anyway, that's what PXL-2000 video sounds like if you just play the tape in a deck.
Y'know, if I don't rein myself in, this little Solo Album diatribe is gonna end up mighty long. And since knowing when to quit is obviously not my strong point, you had better buckle up for da long haul, homes. In fact, why don't you go get something refreshing to drink? I"ll wait.
La da da dum da da dee da. Oh, you're back. Tasty beverage? Good.
The first part of side one does have some cool songs; even Nikita Khruschev digs "Slyer Than A Fox"'s swing pastiche, the big meanie. And with 40s big-band style coming back in vogue, we can be proud to say that we were years ahead of the trendistas. If you consider scrapy guitar distortion "40s big-band style," that is. Many people don't. Let us ponder...what are other high points in this mess? Well, there"s certainly some fucking aggrolicious goddamn guitar fuzz in "Blurby Finching Moom," "The Word Copious," and "Receding Hairline," the last of which also manages a decent approximation of melody. So we embossed it in the listener's mind, as it were, by foiling it with "Absence of Posterior," which certainly ranks up there with the best of 'em, in some alternate universe where the word "best" means "worst."
After a few songs, the side does get going. "Pipe Down Ya Crazy Mexican" appears to be a listener favorite, though personally I find nothing particularly distinguishing about it. Okay, maybe that delay-pedal-trapped bass sweep. But now my muchachos, songs DO NOT get any funnier than "Laminate My Face." The lyrics are just about perfect. My keyboard line is just about generic. The hip-hop beat is just about in every song these days. And whoop it up! Billy Joel finally has a reason for existence! We took possibly the least offensive rock genre possible--as the Dead Milkmen say, "50s doo-wop songs that even your mom would think are nice"--and turned it into a noise so irritating, so intrusive, so tuneless, even I hate how it sounds! And the listener doesn't even know until the end! I laugh out loud every time, and I mean loud laughing out loud too!
Exclamation points! Friend to children!
Then we start to bog down again. As differently abled as the female anatomy suite is, it's still crippled by a lack of humor. Exception: "This one's for you, Tony Dow!" is not only funny in and of itself, it's the basis of my later comment "That was for Tony Dow!" where the song had absolutely nothing at all to do with Mr. Fresh-faced Youth. But that's a story for a later time.
Does anybody get "I Love Big Busts"? Those who do chuckle, I bet.
Talking about bogging down, how about that "Librarian with a Lisp"? Now here is a peanut buster parfait example of what is wrong with the beginning and ending of the Solo Album, my friendly friend. It's a pretty good melody we got going on there, especially since Mark came up with it four seconds before we hit record (we are always hurry-up guys, but our lead times on this tape were truly mind-bogglingly short). And I did a pretty whipsmart job of making them guitars sound strong and solid through a couple different distortions. The lyrics aren't even that bad, though a little sketchy and undeveloped. I mean, there aren't any jokes about the lisp. No bits about "Thplendor in the Grath" or "William Thakethpeare" or a childish reference to "Moby Dick." Heck, not even no mention that this media specialist listens to G.G. Allin and his favorite song is "Thuck My Ath It Thmellth." Still and all, not bad.
To sum up: Good melody. Good guitar sound. Decent lyrics. And then what do we do? We make the whole thing sound shaken and broken. It just sputters and fumbles and never stays on the beat. And the sloppiness isn't on purpose; it's just lack of ability, I guess. Makes us sound like that garage band poo again, man. It's be disconcerting that at this point in the album we apparently still haven't got our shit together.
But then! A ray of hope ekes through. "Mstislav Vsevelodovich Keldysh" is pretty tight, and waltzes with the crowd. Smooth, coherent, and groovy in a groovy way none of our other songs would ever groovy be. The only dark spot is I don't use a dumb voice.
And then! Oh my god, it"s "Childhood Taunts!" Gwank gwank gwank gwank...gwankgwank. Wiichhhhh. Echoing noises bounce around a gigantic space; guitar crumbles and rises from its over-effected blasts; bonking noise whips between speed extremes in the background; "melody" instruments smash an approximation of music as gentle as a steam-driven cow-killing sledge bolt. Now this is rock'n'roll! Do you feel Jurassic Park coming? Turn it up! Bring the noise!
Another crusher! That wacky "Tardy Dead Person" even makes white people look like they have rhythm as they are irresistably drawn to participate in a mass booty-shaking. Let's shag, baby! Only one reason this wasn't an instant club hit throughout Europe and the Americas: you can"t hear the drums at all. So only one BIG reason.
Oh me, all the rest of the side rocks! "Trigonometry Bypass" is well-done loudpop, if not quite structured, "Knives in My Navel" has the king of all guitar sounds and her brother, if not quite audible drums, and "Flog" sounds futuristic slidey rhythm, if not quite rocklike. But as far as weak endings go, "Flog" is the eternal Emperor. Wait. That sounded like I"m putting down the ending; I am definitely not! It takes loads of talent to make something that totally limp-wristed and effete.
Before we get to some more track-specific comments, let me just pause and say that just like side one of Tamara, there is a huge stretch of good songs on this album. It passes from the twilit hipness of "Mstislav" to "Flog," and then breaks on through to the other side and down to "Dick Van Patten." A man could do a lotta livin" on that prairie. Though there are some serious judgement errors in there (just check out "Profound Statement"), they are few and pretty damn far between. That's impressive as hell for an improvised album. Now back to a minute dissection of the joy.
Another dumb keyboard bit, then the abrupt enjoyment of "Iron Man" and "Rblmnoq" which, all combined, are shorter than my sister, who doesn't even exist. Oh, while we're speaking of short songs, how about that "I Got the Blues" bit from side one? I actually did do it while Mark was eating supper! Oh, those wacky teenage days of my teenage youth, back when all I did was sit in Mark's bedroom and mix the LuMP. Oh, while we're speaking of Mark's bedroom, how about those parents of his remodeling it the INSTANT he left for college? It is to laugh. Looks a lot better now, dough. What am I doing still hanging around Mark's bedroom, you inquiring minds want to know? Why, the same thing I've always done. And thereby hangs a tale, but the time is not yet ripe....
"Holes Holes Holes in Teeth" takes one of those gutless, loveless keyboard melodies and turns it into free love consciousness for all mankind with two tracks of the jitteriest, scrapiest, absolutely aggressivest guitar noise you"ll hear all decade.
Then "Pelo Largo" sucks wind, but ignore it. It"s one of those screw-ups I mentioned, but it's relatively short and following hard on its heels (huh huh. he said "hard on") is our indispensable tribute to Bob Hope. If anybody knows where we might get a video of that dang Easter Special, please please please drop us a line. If you go to the TV museum again, Mark, you oughta see if they gots it. I really doubt it, but hey.
Ahh christing hell YEAH! No one else with half a brain reacts this way, but I LOVE "Cork That Trans Am, Sucker Boy!" Sure sure, weak vocal delivery. But did you hear that SOUND?! You know the one I mean--the one that shoots down into your head like a flaming meteor and then spreads out in a pile of viscous goo which reluctantly births the melody. Slopped with amniotic distortion, nourished by Bonhamesque drum pops, and baked in the heat of even more distortion, this is a fetus pie of lip-smacking taste. And at the end the sound all sucks up again, but not in the same way. Cool.
"Love" is sung with over-elocuted gusto by Christine "Jailbait" Aikens, but really, who doesn't expect that lyrical development? Manute Bol? Yeah, okay, he might not.
"Kerplunkety is a Hell of a Noise." The guitars are a hell of a noise.
Indicative of the enjoyability of this album is Mark at the beginning of "Bilt Feffleborp." (Which, by the way, is the most successful stolen-music song on here.) We've already hit record, the capstans are engaged, the reels moving, and Mark says, "Are we going now?" Man, what communication! What drive! What's wrong with impatience? Even more so than "Big Busts," "Roman Wilderness of Skippy" requires a know-how to get the joke. And who cares about Gira and Jarboe, anyway? (Did you know they moved to Atlanta? Cool, now I can go see Swans shows every night. And kill myself every morning.) Yet, I still enjoy it. We seem to be pretending that this noisefest is really a rock song somehow.
Tape distortion reduces the pulchritude of "Trollop Through the Tulips," though I love Mark's syntax play. No one should or does care about "Damage to My Patootie (Reprise)" or that damn "Just Plain Booger." "Dog Food"? "Lanky the Four-Eyed Goobatron"? What"s up wit' dat? Not bad, per se, but certainly not...um...y'know, well-made.
A funny anecdote--or in any case, one I am going to tell--depends upon the peppy little number "Lilypad City." I like the song: brief, to the point, relatively funny, and good delivery by Matt Murray. Of course, he works nights, so never got to attend the LuMP gigs. That wasn't gonna stop us from playing the song, though. Heck no! So we armed one of our set lists with this secret weapon and set off. There was just one problem, boys and girls:
We knew that sheer performance wasn't gonna keep the audience enthralled. Not our sheer performance, anyway. So we constantly came up with stage patter and prop humor to support the lyrics. There was our plan to throw representative foodstuffs into the audience during "Jello, Ice Tea, and a Slab of Fried Okra" that got only weak incarnation since we didn't have ice tea or fried okra. (I recall that at one point I considered writing lyrics called "Gushing Torrents of Everything" just to provide a throwable bonanza.) Then there was the trick of letting the Brickman prop sing "Brickman" while I hid backstage. Or the Parcheesi game played by Matt, me, and a xerox standup while Mark riffed and sang "Blacking Out During a Parcheesi Match." I forget what my fake vomit was made of, but it certainly got all over everything.
Well, along these lines, as soon as Mark said we were gonna have "Lilypad City" in that evening's set, I immediately thought that it would be perfect for a prop joke, so I set about making frog Dave. I used a big fresh cucumber, and cut it into froglike shape. Not too badly, if I do say so myself. I used "pearl"-headed stick pins for the eyes, and other pins to hold the front legs on (they were separate pieces of cucumber). The one divertissment was that cucumbers are not green on the inside, unless they're space cucumbers. But mine weren't, so there was glaring white everywhere I had cut. I covered it up with green food coloring, but cucumbers are awfully porous and I had to use a whole lot.
Foreshadowing: your key to quality literature.
In concert, we presented Dave onstage at the beginning of the song. He was a little soggy by this point and didn't stand too well, but was large enough and froglike. When I got to the lyrics "squished him with my dictionary," I pulled out my 35 pound Webster's unabridged and slammed it down on the cucumber as hard as I could. The results were more than could be hoped for. Dave was not just squished, he was obliterated; the stage looked like we were Gallagher and not the LuMP. The audience (what few there were) cheered, or groaned in disgust. Success! I pricked myself picking the bent pins out of the sloppy mess that once was Dave.
Now here's what all that was leading up to: my dictionary still has gigantic green stains all over it. Every time I look a word up, which is often, I get a mild grin out of knowing the source of those blotchy discolorations.
Not a very big payoff, huh? Well, the more I think, the less it seems necessary that there be a "payoff." Life'd be pretty sucky if you required everything you enjoyed to have the same structure as a joke. I certainly don't want my drive to work to have some big twist ending. And while a little payoff is nice in a relationship--god, that was rude--I don't want the chuckles to be over quickly. Novels, man, there's the structure of choice for gal pals.
Fuck that shit, let's talk about the LuMP some more!
Remember back in the Paleolithic era when every song was a group effort? There we were, sitting around the camp moving-orange-stuff, and one of us just started making a noise. Then Urk started banging two rocks together, I shook a rattly pine cone, and it all just accelerated from there. We all got up and were flailing around and jumping, and all making the same noises, and we all had sex with Thag's sister and then a saber-tooth tiger attacked and killed half of us! The good ol' days!
In a vague sort of way, "Who Wants a Filbert?" hearkens back to those innocent times. Over and over, that euphonious melody drills itself in your brain, and like it or not, you end up singing along, even if it's only to yourself. Like Mitch Miller, "Filbert" digs deep into your limbic system and gets them cells a-hoppin'. Makes me want to sing--la!
All that wholesome goodness doesn't last, of course. We simply weren't good enough to sustain much more than a side. The year-long break we took between Stupid and Jurassic Park really let us rock out when we came back. This early on, we were too scattershot, and way too impatient, to work hard enough. Plus this tape is just a lark, not even with the full band. Therefore, we start to falter around here.
"Bill Bixby" sounds like it's going to have a listenable melody at first, but just ends up being an echoey sliding noise. Pish tosh. It's followed by an uber-catchy "Dick Van Pattern" though, which is sort of a dry run for "Daylight Savings Time" on Stupid. Like any good dry run, it's less well-thought and not quite as neat, but it has a better verse part. It's not at all a bad song.
And then we run out of ideas. Well no, not really, but it certainly sounds like it. Why include a couple of operas this late in the game? We rarely do operas well at all (just take a gander at Stupid), and this "linked last lines" is an ultra-stupid example. Despite more of that awesome Solo Album guitar sound, the riffs are improvised and dumb (like "undesirable animals" but worse), and each last line provides the next song's dumbass content (like "undesirable animals" but worse). Plus, I might point out, the basic concept is that Mark is in a dry stretch lyrically, which is exactly the same as the next opera. So the last fifteen minutes are all about how Mark's run out of ideas. And he had.
Don"t get me Wrong by Nomeansno. (I already have a copy.) "Another Damn Dry Stretch" has just a wonderful vibe, totally different from the other songs present. No guitar! Other than jokes like the intros to the sides, where have we ever done a song with no guitar? I'm not including "Delta T," "Raisa Gorbachev Speaks," or "How Lauren Has Been," by the way. But I probably should; they're all fantazmo! The other dry-stretch tunes get progressively less interesting, though they hold on to some of their neatness for a while. By the Beastie Boys time, the very concept was starting to suckstart my unit, though. There's only so long you can listen to someone white badly imitate Bill Cosby. Thee-oo!
Fortunately, with the Beastie Boys package we quit trying to be funny and just go the all-out energy route. Though the volume dip totally telegraphs the eventual guitar return, I still guffaw good-naturedly at the minute of unaccompanied guitar at the end, obviously there merely to fill the dang tape.
It"s way late to mention this, but it is impossible to listen to "Aw, Heck!" and not smile.
So my final comments about this tape (now that your drink has been empty a while)? Well, I see a definite trend throughout our work toward the funhouse that is Jurassic Park. Little hints like "Who Didn't Put the Bomp?" are all you get on Work Bench Drawer, but Condom lets you shake hands with loudfast guitar and get acquainted. Tamara then shows the way to the future with its wacked-out arrangements, deformed guitar noises, non-rock instruments, and wide-ranging-but-not-diffuse party town feel. The next thing we recorded, the first half of Stupid, shows how we were moving away from punk songs toward irritating noise, while still valuing fast pop construction (even if that valuation drove us to re-record a bunch of dung). Then here comes the Solo Album, capable of rocking ten planets at once with its harsh, hyper distortion and balls-out improvisational attitude. Finally, we returned to side two of Stupid with new, weirder, funnier lyrics and some innovative concepts of structure, buried once more under old operas, but shining through their soil anyway.
Jurassic Park was slouching toward Bethlehem to be born. Its hour would come soon.
This one? Oh, a definite nine all the way. There are plenty of weak songs, especially at the beginning and end, but the middle is stronger than the Green Bay Packers. Plus holy cow, do we really have this much energy and impetus all the time? Man, somebody should patent us! Modern radio rock could sure use a slug of what we were high on.
Nine nine nine! Worship us, rock slaves!
"Cherry Pie" and "Lemon Meringue Pie" were so painfully pathetic and badly made that when I put in this tape I actually look forward to hearing them.
"Pelo Largo". Really funny, but really stupid at the same time. Rivals "Lamp Man" in that department.
That whole ripoff-getting sued thing at the end was interesting, and "Fight For Our Right to Suck" was hilarious. Kinda like the operas on Stupid is Such a Broad Term, you really have no idea what song you are listening to, because they either have a really strange segue, or they share a melody.
In addition to to being musically astounding, this album is hilarious as well. "Childhood Taunts", "Tardy Dead Person", "Pinball Wizard Up My Butt", "Librarian With a Lisp", "Absence of Posterior" etc. etc. I could go on and on about these songs.
This tape is really fun to listen to, and the 90 minutes are so filled with good ideas that you forget it's 90 minutes long. This tape gets a 9.
The Solo Album – Low Maintenance Perennials Except Matt
“You the listener can’t see this, but I’m holding up my middle finger
now.”
“So I divided by 1.477121255.”
“Turn to chapter 12 in your calculus book.”
“Uh… she seems okay, but she’s entirely too preoccupied with sex…”
“Want some pussy (obviously referring to a cat), man – Wooh!”
“I don’t have multiple penis.”
“Oh it’s the nighttime baby. It’s you and me, just us and rblmnoq,
honey.”
“Talking anal fornication.”
It’s obvious what these guys are up to on this senior effort. The fourth recording by The LuMP continues their scholarly explorations, but this time in the field of mathematics. There is also a new emphasis placed on . . . sex, sex, and more sex.
Math majors will be happy to listen to tracks like “Logarithm Stole My Poop,” “Calculate This, Math Bitch,” and “Trigonometry Bypass.” “Trigonometry…” features guest vocal appearance by Garrick. Now for those of you who don’t Garrick, he teaches calculus part time at Georgia State University and sings and plays bass for a grossly under appreciated band called Vacation Bible School. Look for their records at finer music retailers. Now for the completest you have to get the cassette version because it includes the must have track, “Cherry Pi.”
The crazy highlights / flashing neon lights section:
Another classic surfaces with “Pinball Wizard Up My Butt.” This song is worth the price of the whole album. From the opening line in which Christian muses, “Tommy, can you feel me, Heh! -Heh! -Heh! -Heh!” to the lines “Pete Townsend’s lousy solo, Pete Townsend’s really deaf, Pete Townsend windmills real well, but he’d rather be screwing Jeff,” until the ending with “Talking anal fornication,” this song is the best cover / parody that you’ll ever hear.
This record also has a love – hate thing going on.
“I Hate Girls With Big Poofy Hair” and so does everyone else except people from Jersey.
“I Like Beaver” Doesn’t everyone else, too? Boys and girls all like Beaver. Jerry Mathers is just so dog gone cute that you can’t help but like him. Hey, remember that time when he got stuck in that giant cup on an advertising sign? – That was awesome. “Ward, I think you were a little hard on the Beaver last night.”
“I Love Big Busts” sees the emergence of Mark “E. Smith” Prindle’s alter ego, Sir-Marks-A-Lot, rap god king. We know what he wants and we want some, too.
“Bip Raped My Grandfather” rocks so hard, but it’s just too darn short.
“Frightened by Waffles” resurrects that “Tricks In Bill’s Magic Book (from Work Bench Drawer)” vocal sound and we know how good that is.
“Who Wants A Filbert?” I do dog gone it.
“Did You Say Bill Bixby?” No, I said play the theme from the TV show “The Courtship of Eddy’s Father” in a heavy metal style please.
LuMP fans, look for these cameo appearances by some of your favorite
artist and celebrities:
Tony Dow, Steve Howe, LaToya Jackson, Billy Joel, Barbara Mandrel,
Jerry Mathers, Needle, Ozzy Osbourne, Booger Presley (on lead guitar),
Schroeder, Pete Townsend, Andy Williams, and Yello.
“The LuMP are not maturing with age.”
OVERALL RATING: A sexy 8 ½. Warning: This album is not appropriate for those music fans under the age of 18.
Anyway, another problem with the record is that the first forty minutes of it (recorded before Matt ran off to the Governor's Honors Program) were mixed through some wretched little machine that crammed all the sound together into this little muddy mess, again making us sound like some aurally-ignorant garage band with fake drums. At first, it's interesting to hear us in this context (especially since, for once, we actually had a REAL BASS GUITAR!!!!!), but after about ten minutes, the lack of clarity gets really irritating. Then the patented LuMP tone comes back and brings with it more boring old songs that we'd written back when we couldn't play our instruments. Crap. Oh well. My fault. Sorry about that. [technical note from Christian - The first side, with all the people and the dicking around, was recorded on Pete's 4-track mixer. We mostly just used mikes to capture sound, which is why it sounds like you're in a room with a bunch of people. Side two is back to my PA again. Good ol' PA. Never hurt nobody. Except Mark's amp.]
Still, the stuff isn't miserable; it just bothers me because by this point in our career, we should have been playing much more complex stuff. Instead, we sounded like a faster, grosser Green Day. The only ones that make me go "Wow!" are "My Maid Is A Foreigner" and "To Dream The Impossible Metacarpus," both of which actually required a lick of brain activity; the rest of the songs are simply split between the "catchy and pointless" and "boring and pointless."
But boy, I bet you'll love "Shim--Official Word Of Kersplish, Zambia." Catchier than a 7-Up commercial.
The pros? Hilarious liner notes and song titles--as always...stuff inside can't match it in relative hilarity, though...but 6 90 minute albums by the time you're 18, or whatever? Jesu Cristo! My momma might have raised me a idjit, but she didn't raise no fool! Same problems I have myself when I listen to the gruel I'm recording...what's good and what sucks?? I dunno! I love almost all of it, goddamn it...! How can you cut off your own arm? I'm blathering...I'd give it about a 4...maybe a 5...if it were about 45 minutes, it would have probably been a 7ish...
Oh sweet Jesus, the Rockin' Opera is no damn good at all! As the Rolling Stones say, it"s only rock'n'roll; how could we possibly fail at playing it?! We must"ve been sleepy and sick.
That said, we manage some cool punk. What with a real bass, and the compressed sound of Pete's 4-track, there's some pumpy-wumpy boppin' going on in "Fungus in My Mouth," "The Ramones," and "Bitch." Laugh with the best of them at the latter's amazingly inappropriate Madonna ripoff. Do tell!
Despite a gross lack of clarity, "Big Upper Lip" swings a wicked swing. Pete Williams had never contributed anything quite so useful as his vocals here, either. But even his affective cries and rack o' rock pedals couldn't save this rollercoaster ride. Neither could a good version of our live staple "Bloody Old Nun."
Yes, listening to Mark's suggestion to re-record was a dumb idea this late in the game. Except for the operas, we at least tended to select songs whose original versions were fun to listen to, or had neat vocal delivery. But we simply weren't talented enough to exactly replicate the sounds. And on top of that, a perfect copy of something interesting still sounds like a copy; you can't emulate energy.
Then Matt left for GHP and saved us from ourselves. Mark and I did the Solo Album and rediscovered the joy of coming up with new music mere seconds before performing it. Youth, here we come! Okay, Mr. Fancy Pants, yes we did start the next session by putting on "Guitarist Asylum," (which is a really accurate Crass ripoff, but of a really bad Crass song) but things wised up from there. "My Maid is a Foreigner" is probably one of the strongest tracks on here, what with its sweet, destructive guitar slosh. And though they're not really good songs, the concept of the demoniac rising hatred of the Paranoid Opera sure is keen.
Side two starts out looking like we're going to redeem the time. First, a song with a neat guitar line. Then, a funny song. Then, a funny, disgusting song with catchy waltzpunk delay stutter. Then a setup and another funny song, where all the humor is in the inclusion of the word "fucking." And to tie things off, a hilarious song about a doctor who likes to tie one on.
But ooo, we should never try funk. We almost always fail ("Funky Overhead Projector" being the noticeable exception), and we do so again with a remake of "Grilled Cheese Moon." This is a mere prelude to the gradual degradation of our brief moment of inspiration. Despite the innovative melodyless staccato riptide of "Eyeball," we fast lose our grip on a sense of sensibility by Jane Austen. You can really tell we've lost it when we start doing operas again, and they"re bad ones.
The wickita wickita noise in "Decaying-Corpse-on-a-Stick" sure makes me chuckle, but the rest of the opera is dreck. That, and the pointless exercise of "Snort My Jiggler" and its Bryan Feeney showcase, make the Tiny Squished Man Opera seem really stupid and juvenile. Even though the songs aren't badly done, and the lyrics are pretty funny, they lack the luster of the Solo Album. We don't sound like we're about to flail with joy over our own incoherence; we sound like we're desperately trying to get through the songs, which is exactly what we were trying to do. This was one of the worst recording atmospheres we'd ever had. We yelled at each other a lot, got really tense, and made crappy music. We blamed each other and grumbled and failed individually instead of as a group. Only the first LuMP live show and the sessions for the unbirthed project Just When You Thought We Were Getting Better had a more bitter flavor.
The "George S. Peen Song" is absofuckingtively hilarious, though.
We begin to pick up speed again at the end as we leave the operas behind (finally!), but there's simply not enough tape space left. The funny speed manip in "Big Ol" Mean Angry White Guy" and the goofball rhythm in "The Queen of Israel is Fondling My Aura" - two good points which, for once, were my idea - can't save the mountain of bowel movements that preceded it.
Nope, this ain't pretty. I give it a 5, which seems awful low, but it definitely isn't as good as Work Bench Drawer. If that one ever goes up in my estimation (and it might, since I'll always love congratulating myself), then Stupid will rise to a 6. And there encounter a glass ceiling, because no way am I giving this boring swill a 7.
It's not the worst album an unsigned band can come up with (you wish you'd heard Hang On For The Ride by The Speeding Bricks), but for us this was awful. It was so bad, we made no attempt to record anything when Mark came home for Christmas. That meant it would be more than a year before we put noise to tape again.
But when we did, it was a monster!
Okay, Okay. This album is designed for the rock opera fan. It is much more musically diverse, obviously to accommodate the rock opera medium, than any of the other LuMP records. Now we aren’t talking long, drawn-out, dull, boring, my head is so full of the sixties and seventies acid soup oblivion, rock opera. We’re talking about rock opera for the A.D.D. planet, short and sweet. Ahh! Yeah, that’s just how you want rock opera. The LuMP really stretch out here, exploring new sounds, vocal effects, recording techniques, samples, and song structures. Now also included throughout the CD are independent songs so that you won’t get bored with the rock opera format. This is sheer marketing and musically genius.
The actual recording quality however, is not as clean as some of the other records. It is though, really a much more, dare I say, mature, or is it immature, record than previous efforts.
Rock Operas Included:
1. Gerald Angels Opera
2. Ocean Ranger Opera
3. Paranoid Opera
4. On-A-Stick Opera
5. Tiny Squished Man Opera
6. Sock Opera
7. and two Opera Bonuses
My favorite: On-A-Stick Opera. Why? Well, I still have a rotary dial telephone, and I know how to use it. And I like when dick gets on a stick. Don’t you?
Wow! Six complete rock operas for the unheard of price of one compact disc. No one gives you more song for your buck than the LuMP. Go, go, go,
OVERALL RATING: A solid seven on the mellish meter.
Everything that an album can be - and more! At least, I'm content to go through life feeling this way. Jurassic Park was our coup de grace, our nomme de plume, if you will. Christian had a six-track, Matt had an analog delay box, Matt Murray had an $1000 effects processer, and I had a fistful of brand new offensive anthems; how could we go wrong? [technical note from Christian - Now, THIS is where I bought the expensive mixer with my college money. The scholarship I got provided $1000 during the summer between junior and senior years to expand your mind. It was intended mostly to be used for travel abroad, or broadening your horizons. I actually had to fight pretty hard with the higher-ups at Emory to let me use the money for it. I had several interviews and a couple written reports where I argued with the Dean. Fun! And by the by, Matt Murray's effects processor was about $500 dollars, not a grand.]
Oh, it's something else. A veritable ninety-minute circus, if you will, this baby is so packed full of cool guitar effects, hilar jokes, neat noises, samples, silly parodies, rock anthems, and general brilliance that it might take the average listener a good eight or nine listens to fully understand what he is hearing. Every single song has an individual creative concept - there are no simple "punk" songs or "pop" songs here. We purposefully sat down at the beginning of each song and asked ourselves, "What really stupid thing can we do to this one?" Sometimes it was simple speed manipulation, other times totally off-the-wall deconstruction of what a rock and roll "song" is supposed to be, and even more often times, it was just a really cool way of making a really neat guitar noise. And sir, that's what rock and roll is all about. In fact, just to be an asshole, I'm going to go track-by-track now, explaining why each song is so special to me. Stop reading if you want to. I don't give a crap.
First off, there's "Check The Cables." This (along with several of the between-song bits, including the unlisted bonus tracks "Like My Tarts?" and "Big Girly Lips") was from a one-shot project that Christian and I had done one night under the name Chrys 'N' The Mums. It wasn't the most musical of projects, but it did have some awfully entertaining moments, like this one, in which I have difficulty getting my guitar to work. Oh, the joy. And what a catchy programmed keyboard melody! We put this at the beginning mainly to scare people into thinking that their tape player was eating the tape, and we know it worked at least once because, during one of our fabulous appearances at Atlanta's Somber Reptile club, the sound man was so frightened by the staticy tape hiss he heard within that he refused to play the tape any further. Ha, one has to exclaim!
Next is "I Felt So Dumb At Communion, Mr. Pooky." This one is a pretty basic rock song, I suppose, except for the "cathedral echo" on Christian's voice, the church organ way in the background, and the moronic "Com-mun-ion" background vocals floating from speaker to speaker. Catchy, though!
Third, you'll find "The Song," which, although abysmally recorded and sung, is a pretty darn funny parody of generic pop music. "Post-modern," if you like that word. Pretty memorable, too. I especially enjoy Matt's guitar solo. I myself can't play a guitar solo. Never much wanted to, either. You might note that, aside from the clean bassy guitar in the middle (which was an afterthought), neither Matt nor myself are bothering to play the melody at all. Good for us!
After that, you got "Licky Sticky Dicky," which has a spooky sci-fi vox echo and four tracks of some of the bitchinest psychedelic guitar noise I've heard in all my days! Matt really contributed on this record; I still have no clue how he managed to come up with so many amazing guitar bits. Dudeass.
Next on the tape there is "Marshmallow Holiday For The Somewhat Old," which is more of that great guitar noise, this time combined with a ridiculously high vocal manip. A chipmunk manip, perchance. How about that word "manip?"
After that there's the longest song on the record, the X-rated adventure epic, "Truck-Drivin' Cowpoke Eisenhower Companion," which features two tracks of guitars battling each other, one track of Christian on heavy drone echo, one of fake drums, one of purposefully irritating keyboard percussion overkill, and one of a bunch of my old 45's being captured in the infinite delay pedal. Unfortunately, when we piped everything up all the
