R.I.P.

So, what am I going to do now that My Trip Through the Oscars is over?  How do you top 80 years of the best Hollywood has to offer?  That's easy.  You get all egocentric and go back about 15 years - half my life ago.

Sometime around 1993 I moved to Wisconsin.  There I befriended JonMichael Rasmus (aka Stan Lee) and Jason "Gold" Finch.  The semi-outcasts that we were, we did what any uneasy teenage boys with a limited knowledge of pop music would do: We formed a band.  Over the course of a few years, we "released" 13 albums, for just shy of 150 songs (not counting unreleased tracks, demos and special one-off performances).  All of the songs were written by one of us,usually JM or I, although Finch started writing a song an album eventually, and even once we did the unthinkable and let someone else do one.  More on that later.  The band was named XSFAT, because it sounded funny.  Oh, and none of us could play instruments.

This all happened before the internet, and before we had access to CD's. So, we took tape copies of songs, played them on one stereo and recorded on another, with us standing between the two, trying to out-sing the original track.  This was not always successful, nor was our decision to almost never re-record songs one we finished.  This will also become apparent later on. In the case of original songs, whoever was on hand simply sang music.  Eventually, we would grow to have vague drums, but that was as instrumental as we ever got.  

So, I start this journey by allowing you, the public (aka- the two people who read my blog) first access to these ancient treasures.  They have not been manipulated.  These are the tracks as they originally appeared, in album order, from either 1992 or 1993.

The opinions and statements from here on out are usually taken from one of two retrospective looks at the individual songs and albums.  In no case has the original artist of the parodies given us permission, so if you are such an artist, please don't sue us.

The statement made by us (probably JM) to introduce this album, as recently as a year ago, is as follows:

"R.I.P. (Reese is Pieces)

This was the first album, and showcased a distinct lack of attention to details.  We made sure that all three members were present before we recorded the first track, although that became less important later on.  The name was due, in part, to the fact that calling a first album R.I.P. was inherently funny, not to mention changing what it stood for."

Up next: The first recorded XSFAT track.  And it's not what it was supposed to be.

Comments

[nichole]

mp3 me!

[Adam Fiedler]

wow... i remember, near the end of that run... the final album, slated to be called "ambergris"... i drew this ridiculous cover art... and contributed "Fried chicken" (based, of course, on Queen's "one vision").. you still have that? it was horrible... lol... what times they where... oh, and for the record, i can actually play all those songs now!

[John S.]

Yeah, the Ambergris change never happened for a variety of reasons, including a little thing called growing up. I remember Fried Chicken, although I'm sure I don't have any lyrics anymore. JM might.

Then again, when we get to the final album, you'll see that it was probably better that we stopped. There's a decent song or two, but there's an awful lot of "I'm sick of this" garbage.