Coffee Cake, Vivian, and Gerber's Mom For Sale
Tuesday, March 07, 2006
Three songs, one of which has been posted before. It's one of my favorites, so I think that two versions is OK.
Coffee Cake fits into several StuPidwish traditions: songs about food, songs where we yell a lot, songs that are actually true stories, songs where we were on drugs. This is part of the GDM, below, but we played it mostly by itself, and Gabe laughs at the beginning of this one, which is worth the price of admission. Also, Al's there, and he sings, which makes this the best version of Coffee Cake ever.
Vivian is about a drunken british sitcom. I've posted a more recent version. This one has a little more energy, and the third verse is from Larry Lum Lum. If all i'd ever done was take part in writing Vivian, I think I'd still feel OK about myself. Maybe better. Who knows?
Finally, a song that was only sort of a StuPidwish song, Gerber's Mom for Sale. Randy has a friend named Gerber, or the Gerbulator, or (my personal favorite) Gerbolar Bar, and his mom's for sale. Randy wrote this with his friends, it had 1000 verses, but no one knew any of them, ever.
posted by henry |
8:29 PM|
(3) comments
Sigh. Ladies and Gentlemen, Lefty and the Righties.
Friday, February 10, 2006
I've been avoiding posting, because this is so obviously the last thing that anyone needs to hear, but every time i listen to it, i like it. I thought that was my problem. Congrats, now it's yours, too.
We called this the gigantic disgusting monster. It's all of those things, and it goes sort of like this:
Weeud Gyrations ->
Scenes from an italian restaurant ->
Weeud Gyrations ->
Scenes from an italian restaurant ->
Birthday ->
Caveboy (Crackboy) ->
Ms. Gradenko ->
Caveboy ->
Coffee Cake ->
Scenes from an italian restaurant
The notion that we were able to maintain our attention for long enough to think this was a good idea, to say nothing of learning to play it, is something else. As to its being a good idea, i stand by that one.
And the best part is that when Randy asks me why he should eat a bagel or donut instead, we decided that it was because october 31st was my date of birth.
It falls apart at the end, but it all depends on your cave, tonight, i guess.
posted by henry |
10:47 PM|
(0) comments
Pierre, I Want a New Drug, Missile Command
Sunday, January 22, 2006
This week's in-stu-llment is actually 0 % stool, but that doesn't mean I can't make up a word.
Pierre has been posted before, but the version that's up is from 2 years ago, and it's too slow and quiet. This version is from the height of our arrogance and stupidity, so it's much better. It's still about a skunk, though, and it starts with paradise city, and then sgt pepper's lonely hearts club band. for more on this trend, see last week's post.
I Want a New Drug sort of speaks for itself. It's hard to figure out why we covered it. It might have been because it's about drugs. It might have been because Huey Lewis went to Cornell. It might have been because we planned on using Jonas's trumpet again. And it's possible, if you go and listen to it, that I thought it would be a good idea to play it in my other band, the North American Funk Factory, but that the suggestion didn't go over. I like that explanation -- it would mean that i was simultaneously a hippie and a spiteful jerk, a lethal combo. Whatever the reason, it actually comes off pretty well, i think.
Finally, Missile Command was recorded a year out of school, and it's a pretty amazing thing. Life on the outside wasn't kind to us, and the result is Randy's interlude about the Gabraham Buttrot Lincoln Association. If this is your first time visiting stupidwish.net, you might want to wait on this, because it barely makes any sense to me, and i was there. Backing oys by my brother Mike and Kevin Cook, I think.
posted by henry |
5:41 PM|
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Mr. Kesten, Caveboy->In the End, FBI, and Devil's Lair
Monday, January 16, 2006
Well, I'm done ripping all the Stu that exists -- Randy, I'll get you your tapes back soon -- and even though I already knew that we were the best band of all time, and by a large margin, I'm kind of in awe. This week, I've chosen a few things that haven't been up before, either in their current presentation or at all.
Kesten -> In a Jar was how we played Kesten as soon as we entered the part of our career I like to call, 'When We Got Tired of All of Our Songs Individually and Decided to Play Them All As One Big Song Stuck Together With Pieces of Other People's Songs'. This is actually the first half of a progression that ends with Rubber Chicken, but you've heard that, and it's a particularly good version of Kesten, which was one of the first songs we wrote. It's about an actual guy, and this was the beginning of the StuPidwish tradition of only writing songs that were completely 100 % true.
Another dumb thing we did was end Caveboy with 'In the Cave'. Caveboy gradually got worked into this thing called the Gigantic Disgusting Monster which lasted 20 minutes and contained Ms. Gradenko, the better part of Scenes from an Italian Restaurant, and Birthday as well as Weeud Gyrations and Coffee Cake. We were gluttons for punishment. Anyway, this version is before things got that out of hand, but it's pretty good.
Devil's Lair was our satanic song, but with a banjo. It all rhymed, which is a good thing for most bands, but for us it meant that we would see what happened if you switched the ends of the lines around. so even though it sort of made sense at the beginning, by this version, we're singing, 'I don't wanna bring clean underwear / Don't forget to know what goes on down there,' which is pretty great. This also is our first really successful try as far as the bridge, which might have been the best thing Jonas has ever done. I don't know exactly what he's been up to for the last few years, but it would have to have been fucking great to beat this.
Lastly this week, Working for the FBI. We used to drink a lot of malt liquor, so one day, after a particularly inspiring episode of the X-Files, Jonas and I decided to see whether we could be in the FBI. Turns out, no. Anyway, we wrote this song about it, and played it on my birthday.
posted by henry |
8:48 PM|
(1) comments
Hodon, Bike, Popcorn, Special Place
Wednesday, December 14, 2005
OK, after a short haiaiaiatus during which I ripped like everything in the world including a truly gut-wrenching version of the rainbow connection, here we are again with three winners and hodon.
Hodon, of course, was by ray pruitt, or whatever his real name was, the guy who pushed donna martin down the stairs. I think that we realized on about 8 separate occasions that we ought to learn how to play this song, and it's a testament to our resolve and shared vision that we never actually did.
Bike Bike Bike, as i listen to it now, is clearly one of our better songs. i have no idea how it came about -- it's kind of a cheesy idea, which leads me to believe that i made it up, but it has good words, which was almost certainly randy's fault. the best part is at the end, when al says that he has two things to say, and then says one thing.
Mother Popcorn is exactly what it appears to be, inasmuch as anything here is what it appears to be. We all got completely drunk and al started playing bass. Jon D took randy's guitar, and randy played a box and a kazoo, which was completely incredible. It's one of those things that seemed like a good idea at the time, but which i might have been ashamed of three years later, and which is now clearly awesome again.
The version of Special Place presented here is from the third living room tape, and it's pretty good, although it's mostial. I made that up -- partial has a part, this has most. For those of you who have blocked it out, the idea is that like 50 different songs is better than just one song. it always started and ended with two original songs, Special Place and Breakfast for Free. in between, the entire universe would collapse in on itself.
next week, i'm going to post the only version of spiderman's vacation i could find, and something from the harry hood party. word to the turd.
posted by henry |
9:22 PM|
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Don't Read It, Pregnant Head, and an Intro
Monday, November 28, 2005
OK, so i'm aware of the fact that the time index on these is totally wrong -- these play fine in itunes but come up short on my nano. working on it. till then, you're sort of stuck listening to them at your house, or in your mom's basement, which is more likely if you're actually here downloading these.
Anyway, I picked two very different songs this time, which wouldn't have been difficult given that if you pick Pregnant Head and any other song in the world, they'll be very different songs.
Don't Read It is actually about stuff you shouldn't read, then it's about other stuff you shouldn't do. It also contains most of our slogan at the end, which makes it a good song. This was a song that we must have been really into, and I like it a lot, more as I listen to these old tapes again. I hate my singing on it, but there it is.
Pregnant Head is from when I lived in Chelsea. As with 'How Much Gas', it's pretty much entirely Randy. It starts with him making a funny noise, and gets better from there. When he says, "Ready?" about 10 seconds again, you should rest assured that you're not.
And last, us working on one of our better songs, which will follow someday soon.
Randy, put your tapes in the mail, I want them, and I'll give them back.
posted by henry |
5:03 PM|
(2) comments
Back from the Grave: Papal, Pierre, How Much Gas?
Monday, November 21, 2005
OK, the plan is to post two or three songs a week and see how many times Randy can download them before i post new ones. We're currently the first result on Google if you search on 'stupid songs', so please check these out if you like stupid songs, which you do.
These are all id3'd so you won't have to worry about that sort of thing -- years, what tape they're from -- and i've got tons of them now, so this should go on for a while.
First up is Papal Visit, which is about a Papal Visit. that was the nice thing about StuPidwish: our songs were about exactly what they said they were about. Anyway, i saw a t-shirt that said, 'i like the pope, the pope smokes dope' on Bleeker street during the summer of 1994, and the next thing you know, he came to visit. He never took care of the dishes, for the record, so he wasn't such a great pope.
Next is Pierre, which is about a skunk. Check Randy's page on the links for the full story. I know we had one of these posted already, but it's a different one, and this one's pretty good.
Finally, as proof of the fact that I didn't disown this sort of behavior upon graduating, here's How Much Gas? which Randy and I recorded at my place in Chelsea. My brother was there. It's absolutely fucking awful, but you should still listen to it.
posted by henry |
8:16 PM|
(1) comments
The Ballad of Larry Lum Lum
Sunday, February 29, 2004
Randy wrote this after we had been famous rock stars for about a year already, and it was the first song that anyone wrote that was actually kind of like a real song. If you don't pay attention to the fact that it's about a midget leprechaun with no gold, it's really quite sad and touching. that said, you probably should avoid reading the lyrics until after you've listened to it a few times.Larry is on our list of things to record in the near future, but this version is from senior year at cornell, i'm putting it up because the world has suffered by without it for too long. i have been lame about doing the new songs and putting them up and stuff, just as i have been lame about 50 other things these last 6 months. I'll be putting 'FBI' and 'Don't Bring Your Babies in Here' over the next two weeks though, for sure.
posted by henry |
2:32 PM|
Randy is on the StuPid boat.
Tuesday, December 16, 2003
apparently, randy has put up some of his own StuPid info. i had no idea, but it's good and sets the record straight on a lot of stuff. i've added a link to it to the right, and i've also added comments, as with my main page. werd.
posted by henry |
4:50 PM|
(0) comments
Caveboy
Tuesday, October 28, 2003
I was going to write something about this song, but then yelled out 'CAVE'!this song is entirely randy -- by which i mean not only that he wrote it, but that if you put randy into a machine that turned people directly into music, it would play caveboy, and then explode.
posted by henry |
9:37 PM|
(0) comments
Phan (and the Chicken Man)
This is the song that makes Jonas unable to be president. And it's not the whole song, and it's not even the part where we talk about the paraplegic who worked at the dining hall, it's really only the part about the drooling mongoloid, which he didn't even make up.the story, in case you care -- and you really, really shouldn't -- involved a woman named Phan who served pizza and a guy who was really messed up who made the (excellent) chicken sandwiches at RPU. they were so sad that we decided they had to be in love. in our small, cruel way, we were really being quite sensitive and caring. but we were also making fun of them, so, you know, it's a wash. this gets sort of screwed up at the end, cause we aren't very good musicians. still.
posted by henry |
9:31 PM|
(0) comments
Vivian
Tuesday, August 12, 2003
I forget why we wrote this. I'm sure it had something to do with the fact that I made up a nice little melody part, and in all likelihood we called someone whose name was 'veronica' or 'vera' on Springer 'vivian' by accident.this was at about the time that we realized that we weren't any good at writing lyrics and began stealing them wholesale from other, unrelated songs. isaac kramnick was a government professor who, apparently, had one horse fever. the part about the legs on the table, see, cause we were geniuses, so when we moved into our apartment and found a dining room table blocking our view of the tv, we cut its legs off, and voila, coffee table. we pointed out how we'd made it better to the landlord, but he made us buy him a new one anyway.
posted by henry |
5:12 PM|
(0) comments
Rubber Chicken
Yeah. This is why you don't let your kids go to college.
posted by henry |
5:08 PM|
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Pierre
Monday, August 11, 2003
Another song about something that was in our kitchen when we got home, except this time it was a skunk. i walked in, the back door was open, and there was a skunk there. we were trying to steal a cat, named toaster, so i didn't really think anything of it for several seconds, but then i noticed that toaster was actually in the living room. i slammed the back door prety hard on the skunk.anyway, since the only skunk we knew was french, and since all french people are named pierre, we wrote a song about him.
posted by henry |
6:40 PM|
(0) comments
Shitty
Shitty is the first song that we ever wrote, after coming home from RPU on nugget night. the story, in case you have avoided being accosted with it, is that we overdosed on nuggets, and when we got home, the women upstairs had left their toilet running for like an hour. the water had run through the floor to our hung ceiling, which collapsed into our kitchen. the stupid part of this story, the part that doesn't get told, is that the women were home at the time, and just didn't know what they were supposed to do.nugget night eventually became a song, too, but not until after we'd had time to clean up the kitchen,
posted by henry |
6:36 PM|
(0) comments
Song of Stickman
yo! this is the first thing that we finished using The Machine, from the weekend that Jonas was in town in february.basically, there were like fifty million dirty hippies in ithaca, and one of them was this guy who i think lived on jon's floor junior year. he had those crap-ass devil sticks that you always see unemployed vegetarians flipping around like morons. this song is about him, but not in the sense that it's about him at all. we have a lot of songs like that.
posted by henry |
6:12 PM|
(0) comments
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