A Lot Of Brief Histories Of Bands That Never Existed

My concept here is akin to the Airplane movies: much of it's not all that funny, but I'll throw so much of it at ya that some of it's just bound to hit! Victory by percentage! Hoohah!

==================

I was just going through my record collection, and I got a little bored, so I decided to look at some of the records I don't own, because they don't exist. Just because a band doesn't actually exist doesn't stop them from having a discography and a history, y'know. And there are a lot more bands that don't exist than do exist. The bands that don't exist are unlimited! You could keep a lot of nonexistent radio stations in business a long time just playing their works. So, I decided we should probably familiarize ourselves with a few of these bands, so we'll know what we're not missing.

First up, there's classic Lithuanian rockabilly garage outfit from the late 1980's, Hooter Stupid & The I Forgot. They had several albums that didn't sell worth a damn, not because of poor quality music, but because of a slight language barrier that cost them a little credibility. Perhaps most famous was Going Public With My Privates, which contained such songs as "When Is Funny? (I Say Now!)" and "Them's Eatin' Dumplings!" Their album of bar-fight songs, Catching A Cold From The Bacteria Of Fists, contained songs like "I Kick You Now In The Garbanzo," Gonna Go Out And Get Flabbergasted," "Clouds Fly Out Of You As I Hit" and "La La La Go Fuck Yourself Dippyshit," which were pretty catchy but frightened much of their intended audience. They tried to make a comeback in 2003 with a politically-charged album called Doesn't Anyone Want To Impress Jodie Foster Anymore? but considering few remembered they existed in the first place, the "comeback" didn't really get anyone very excited. The song "Gimme Some Tits" wasn't bad, though.

Colorado's alterna-rockers, Community Service Project, never got out of the demo stage, despite such interesting songs as "Giddy With Misery," "Armed To The Teats," "Pretty As A Carbuncle," and "Cold-Cocked By A Zombie Gigilo." They broke up and the singer went on to form a punk band called The Ain't Got No Rights, who managed to release one 7" on the Scratchy Records label, containing the songs "It's Adolph & Eva, Not Adolph & Stevea!" and "(Theme From) Godfather On Ice," which were more noteworthy for the ad-libbed banter in the background after the songs, such as "If you hear a puppy fart, that means you win!" and "I eat prunes, man, I turn into a can of Silly String!"

Then there was the prog-rock band, The Vestibules, whose sole album Skulking In The Cloakroom was so boring that it's believed no one has ever listened to the whole thing voluntarily. The song titles, such as "Futons Off The Port Bow" and "Behold A Carrot Came A-Ridin'" promised far more imagination than the pointless, repetitive noodling found therein delivered.

Then there was Portland alternative rockers Passwind, whose album This Record Is Fourteen Dollars, did garner a few fans... specifically Larry, Reginald, Chet, Frank, and Matt. Their follow-up, Dung Beetle's Delight, fell to the dreaded "third album curse," even though it was only their second. It did have a minor novelty hit with "The Montel Williams Song," which consisted of rants against teen pregnancy set to music.

Then there's Christian rockers, Damascus Road, whose lack of grammar knowledge and ignorance of DNA resulted in the hilariously titled Jesus In My Jeans. They published an apology titled "We Meant GENES!" in the national Christian newsletter, The Voice of the Fundament, but everybody ignored them anyway. The guitarist later showed up in an obscure psychedelic band called The Soft-Offs, who had an album called Fish, Horse, Train, Rope, which was incredibly stupid.

Then brainless metal band, Iron Flyswatter, had an album called Me Use Tool! that's famous for having a song called "Devil's Meatloaf" that had a riff very similar to Metallica's later "Enter Sandman." Other songs, like "Big Head Little Head," "Tooth of the Horror Bastard" and "Butthammer" were hardly remarkable for any reason. The singer's funk-band side project, Mr. Pissstick (with Kiss lightning-bolt S's in the logo) were even less successful with their album, Shake Yo' Whatchamacallit, Grandchile! When it was once played for Stevie Wonder, he famously said, "What's this happy horseshit?"

And, of course, who can remember I Live In A Cardboard Box That's Really Stinky by Grandpa Moses, the Sacramento band headed by Twelve-Finger Phillip Turnip, a completely mad Frank Zappa wannabe. His "solo album" project, Douchemania Bingo Night, consisted of pointless tracks in which Turnip farted into a harmonica, tried to make sneezing noises with a guitar (in a song called "Journal of the Plague Year"), used a drumset made up of various types of melons to cover "Moby Dick," and had a cow as a vocalist for one song. You can actually feel your brain growing stupider as you listen to this album, like Saran Wrap being peeled off a Jello mold. At last report he was engaged in message-board flame-wars with a guy who he believed was the ghost of Roky Erikson.

Of course, there's also lame soft-rock band band, Puckered Starfish, with their album Nights Without Pants, featuring embarrassing songs like "Why Don't You Love Me?" and "I Tried So Hard." The few who've sat through this whiney drivel swear the band "makes Bread look like Black Sabbath."

One of the all-time great unheard country albums is by The Lonesome Dogpeckers, their Hoedown On Aisle Five LP, featuring the vocal talents of Lester "Whisker-Bisquit" Grootimus, whose inarticulate hollering gives you an idea what Tom Waits might sound like if he had a seizure. Even though you can't make out a single word, you get the idea that the lyrics to songs such as "Toothless Fool," "Done Run Out Of Paper And I'm Stranded," "Tampa Tampax," and "Found Me A Penny (And If I Find Me Another I'm Gone Do Me Some Jinglin')" would probably be just ass-stupid if you could decipher them.

Which brings us to The Dinglefairies, whose album Festooned In Doo Doo can only be considered a prank played on the American record-buying public. They clamed to be retarded and started a movement called "Tardcore Punk." In actuality they were probably just stupid, untalented, and insensitive. It wasn't nearly as vulgar as the follow-up album, Stinking Like A Trout's Twat, which they recorded as "Blue Oyster Cunt" as a joke. Their singer, Joey Funnyhelmet, billed himself as "Charles The Grinning Boy" for that record. The ribbing of B.O.C. was further evident by naming songs "Transvestimiacon P.U." and "Harvester Of Testicles," although a cover of "Career of Evil" included as an unlisted bonus track was far more reverent, even if Funnyhelmet did accompany himself on the song with frantic armpit-farts. The song "Don't Fear The Queefer" also reached new heights in lows with the flatulently obnoxiousness tale of a girlfriend with vaginal blasts. Funnyhelmet's post-song background yell of "Was that Miles Davis?" is considered a classic ad-lib by some people, but those people are stupid and you probably shouldn't listen to what they say.

Then there's Tater Float, featuring the singer of late-60's surf rockers The Failures, known mostly for doing the theme song for the short-lived TV show Strike Force Cleveland. Tater Float released several demos but could never get anybody interested in their minimalist garage-rock sound until they finally released a 7" of two songs, "Where Am I And Who Are These Guys?" backed with "Itchy Belly Blues." That gained them enough attention from the mentally ill to encourage Tater Float to release a full-length LP called I Can't Believe It's Not Music, which contained three songs about roller-blading, in hopes of latching onto a fad and gaining a new audience. Considering this came out in 2007, though, their timing was off.

Then there's Frownpandafrown, a "college rock" band made up of smartypantses whose "concept album" about playing mah jong failed to connect, possibly due to the obscurity of the title, Chicken Skin Robe. The drummer, after a debilitating brain injury that happened during the misuse of one of the rides at Six Flags Over Georgia, went on to form hard-drinkin' hard rock unit Claude Casket And The Premature Burials, who enjoyed some success with the nonparticular with albums like Don't Hand Me No Ass (featuring the anthem "Don't You Call My Mama A Cunt," which became kind of a rallying cry for people who were tired of having their mothers called a cunt) and For Medicinal Purposes Only, which included their trademark song "Ain't Gonna Eat My Peas," which struck a chord with rebellious pre-teens. Then they released an album that was considered a sell-out, Joke Rubber Wishbone Trick, which was too much of a progression for their base, most of whom still considered Ted Nugent a vital force in the music industry. They tried for a comeback with a live album -- When The Shit Hits The Fans -- and another studio effort, Addicted To Punches In The Face, where they tried to "harden" their sound, but their fanbase found it hard to shake the memory of JRWT's weaker efforts (especially the embarrassing power-ballad "She's Like A Candy Bar To Me") and left them on the racks and then in the cut-out bins. They played a few shows with artsy-fartsy (but more fartsy than artsy) rockers Plaid Mentality, who put out one album on their own Damp Laundry Records label, God In My Heart, Devil In My Pants, which one Creem reporter famously reviewed as "This is what Hawkwind might sound like if they took drugs." The guitarist's side-project, Pissypants, fared little better with their barely-released cassette-only release, The Dog's Barking Seemed To Come From Everywhere, which tried to do instrumentals in which the sole instrument was a ring modulator. Few had the patience to sit through that album, and the few who did couldn't afford to buy a copy because they spent all their money on quaaludes and weed.

Another band of the era, Pastiche, put out an album, Something To Listen To While The Paint Dries, but the kindest review it got speculated that the album was actually a marketing ploy and the band was in collusion with the people who sold aspirin. So they changed their name to Duck Call and put out an album called Boy, Get Off That Frog! One kid named Larry really liked it, but that was the extent of their success. Another album, called Brush With Greatness As An Instruction, was announced but never released. In a strange twist of fate, the singer ended up in a Dixieland jazz band called The Spreaders of Glee who put out an album called A Flavorful Salute To The 39 States that was only sold in Wisconsin gift shops.

Then there was Good Company, marketed as a “positive alternative to Bad Company,” whose debut album, Benign, was hailed as a classic by people who liked songs about ice cream and being kind to bunnies. The follow-up, None More Unthreatening, had a minor AM radio hit in “It’s All Going To Work Out,” but then the singer, Kit Treebush, snapped from all the forced joviality and put out a solo album called There’s Not Enough Beer In The Goddamned World, which was “too dark” and terrified their timid fanbase. Only the drummer, the good-natured Lanky Larry, stayed in the music business, putting out an album of soft-rock under his own name, called Bird Calls For Buffalos. The title proved apt, as it never found an audience, since Air Supply’s crowd had all died from cystic mediocrity by then.

Then there was poser-metal outfit, Opportunist, whose straightforwardly-titled LP, Songs About Tits And Fast Cars For Electric Guitar, sold a few copies, mostly in Tupelo, MS, where most people actually have a favorite Trixter song.

Prog-art rock band Young Man Testicular got too smart for their own good by putting out an album called Covers Of Songs By Yes, which actually contained no songs by Yes, but because people had been led to believe it did, no one bought it. Too bad, because many think the song “More Like Kansas” could have been a hit.

Punkers Cess Bisquit (later changed to Lavatory Bisquit to avoid confusion with the Boston band of the same name) had moderate success with an EP called Secret Government, but it didn’t go far because everyone agreed that Corrosion of Conformity was better, so why not listen to them instead? They toured briefly with The Jerk-Off Escapees, who released an EP called Lichens On My Grey Skull and got written up in Flipside as “Des Moines answer to Fish-Slapper.” But no one remembers who the hell Fish-Slapper was, and that’s the problem. Singer Jimmy Yerdoor went on to form a band called Duck The Coathanger and released several albums -- Sunset In The East Today, Driving Under The Influence of Model Glue, House of the Rising Sonofabitch, and Free Cupcakes Make Me Suspicious -- and was finally jailed for defecating on Jimmy Stewart’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, when under the influence of detergent. When he got out he tried for a reunion and put out an album called Gimmie Them Pants that was so bad it was considered a parole violation and sent him back to the pen. Since then he’s released a book called Bologna In My Underpants: Tales From The Greasy Side of Armageddon, consisting of his tour diaries, but as he’s a functional illiterate no one’s really read it, including him. His brother runs an incredibly ignorant country-rock band called Texas Tex and the Titty Honkers who put an album called You Done Been Tole out, featuring such embarrassing-if-they-had-enough-self-awareness tunes as “Now That She’s Done Left Me I Gotta Pick Up The Dogshit My Own Self,” “How You Figure The Washing Machine Works?” “Sure Could Use Me Some Bacon,” “Goddamn We Outta Pabst,” “Cryin’ On Mah Potbelly,” and “Mean Ol’ Tornader.” Plus a cover of Conway Twitty’s unreleased song, “I Wish I Was Your Chapstick.”

Then there’s another little-known punk band, Scoliosystem, who released an album called Sick To My Pants, in which they took on Ronald Reagan six years after he was already out of office. It didn’t sell so they tried again with an album called Raped By Captain America, which got them sued by Marvel Comics, so the few copies of the album that weren’t confiscated and burned fetch high dollars on Ebay, even though the songs, such as “I’m In Love With Your Spaniel,” “Lunch Box Fulla Nothin’,” “The Other Thing That Smells Like Fish,” and “Do The Scrotum Shake” are truly lackluster.

Shitty just-regular-boring-rock band The Bristols released an album called Smarty Pants And Smarty Socks that sounded pretty much like a manila envelope would sound if it tried to do Counting Crows songs. The follow-up, Bug Propellant, sounded a lot like The Lemonheads, so naturally nobody wanted to listen to it, either. Still, they soldiered on and released Boss of the Insubordinates before calling it a career.

Then there’s yet another pretentious prog-rock band, The Fantastic Slide-Rule Band, who more most famous for doing a concept album based on the works of Gustav Flaubert. Kerrang said, “Listening to this album is every bit as fun as reading Flaubert,” which - oddly enough - the band took as an insult and got really angry. The singer, apparently having a real Flaubert hang-up, later got a sex change and did cabaret shows under his new name, Madam Bovary. The guitarist, completely alienated from his prog-rock roots, formed a rockabilly punk band called The Lawdamercies, which played hardcore songs that all had the exact same lyrics -- “I want my rights right now/ And if I don’t get ‘em, then, well, I don’t know what!” It was mostly known for the gimmick of the singer continuing his mohawk on his back hair and chest hair. Eventually the fickle guitarist quit his punk band, became a drummer, and formed a metal band called Leigelord. He didn’t know what kind of metal band he wanted it to be, though, so it pleased only the likewise confused. They had a minor hit with a speed metal song called “Quicker Than Bunnyfuck,” but since the lyrics of the song were all about how fast the song was, it was looked upon as a “novelty thing.” That prompted the drummer to angrily form a really sarcastic pop group called “Novelty Thing,” which released an album called Just Out Of Spite. Then he turned up dead from eating too much lettuce. From the ruins of that band came a metalized punk band called Ol’ Bitchuary, which unfortunately used up all their cleverness on their band name.

Around the same time, a GWAR-type cartoon band based on redneck/hillbilly stereotypes started up. Known as Methy Marvin, the band members had fake names like Mrs. Hippie, Ali Bama, Louis Iana and -- inexplicably -- Otto Von Giggledick. Their album, Not Priapic, But Postapic, contained such songs as “A Poo-Poo Will Be Your Gravestone!”, “Fuck You, Minister Squadron!”, “Mr. Dippyfuck Is Your Superior!” “I Laugh At You Thusly, Hee Hee Hee!”, “You Are The Target!”, “Everywhere Will Be The Fragrance of Defeats!”, “Viva Yourdeath!” and “I Don’t Like When Everything Is Groovy!” caught on with people who like exclamation points in all their song titles. Their follow-up album, Completely Missing The Zeitgeist, contained even weirder songs such as “Your Face Is Merely For Decoration,” “It Would Be Interesting To See Two Masochists Fighting,” “Damn Ye All For A Lot O’ Merry Shitasses!” and “Oh, You Unpleasantly Damp Stale Mouthful Of Puppetdust, How Thoroughly You Lack Flair!” They broke up and the bassist, Saul Dundergarmets, formed a band called Filibuster, whose sole CD consisted of one really, really long song. Nobody got the joke and the band disappeared soon after.

More later, perhaps, if idiocy compels me...