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(c) 1987 by Kirk Madison and Lewis D'Aubin PREV TRACK |
Oh gawd, what a sick, funny song. When we first wrote/recorded this thing, Kirk was actually still in high school (although the album version is actually from 1989). We had just set Kirk's brother's old drum kit up in my living room, for a recording experiment. I didn't have a multitrack yet, but I did have a Beta Hi-Fi VCR, with pretty acceptible AFM stereo recording capability. I also didn't have a proper mixer yet, or good mics... just a lot of Radio Shack junk! But that didn't stop us. I proceeded to set up everything I had, and even wrote a little basic program on my Atari 800 computer to provide a metronome, which I piped into headphones. Kirk sat behind the drumset and laid down a reasonable steady beat, which we recorded on a high quality videotape. After that, I hooked the VCR to my Radio Shack D.J. mixer. I took the mic from the bass drum and ran it into another new toy I had purchased, a Radio Shack analog delay box, and turned the delay controls all the way up! We didn't have a proper distortion pedal yet, so I wired Kirk's prized Flying 'K' guitar through a tape deck's mic input and cranked the gain all the way. This produced a nasty clipped sound that drove me temporarily insane, enticing me to IMPROV the lyrics you see before you! Scary stuff. The resulting tape made us roll with laughter every time we played it, and before long, Kirk brought the tape to his high school homecoming game, snuck into the principal's office, and actually played it on the P.A. to everybody attending the game!!! A couple years later, I acquired a shiny new TOA MR-8T multitrack deck. This was capable of independent 8-track recording on a cassette, running at 3¾ ips. It had dbx noise reduction on all channels and actually sounded pretty good. I picked this song as the inaugural test of my new acquisition, and proceeded to record a stereo drum track, with me performing on the same drumset as the original recording. By this time I had a proper 16 channel Peavey mixer and better mics. Kirk then recorded a bass track and a rhythm guitar track. Ken Kowalski then came in and laid down an INSANE solo guitar track, essentially soloing aimlessly over the ENTIRE SONG. Half the time I don't even know what key he was in, but it was hilarious. Then, the piece de resistance... using the varispeed on the deck, I slowed the tape way down and put down a vocal track. When played back at normal speed, you get the Magic Munchkin of Doom (pictured, top right.) Early C.O.G. stage shows featured this song first, to set the mood. I actually had a telephone receiver rigged up with a cheap microphone element hooked to an XLR cable, so I could use the phone as a 'special' mic to perform this song (see video above!) This song hasn't been performed onstage in quite a while. Time for a comeback, perhaps? Bwaahahahahhahahaa Credits Drums...........Lewis D'Aubin Guitars.........Ken Kowalski Bass............Kirk Madison Lead vocal......Lewis D'Aubin Backing vocals..Lewis D'Aubin Recorded and mixed 1989 at Lewis's parents' living room, Harahan LA |