Plain Brown Wrapper Yellow Tail YT10013 Add To Cart

Plain Brown Wrapper

Between 1981 and 1989, Uncle Bonsai performed over 250 original songs. Only 30 or 40 of them, however, ever made it to any sort of recording. By the time the group recorded its very first album, A Lonely Grain of Corn, we had already "retired" more songs than most groups perform in a lifetime. Trouble is, almost all of these unreleased Uncle Bonsai songs exist only on old, distorted cassette re-cordings. And, although a handful of shows from the final year that the group was together were recorded on DAT, even those were just taken off live mixing consoles. Needless to say, when searching for decent recordings of some of the unreleased Uncle Bonsai songs, pickings were slim. I dreamed of opening a box and finding the definitive recording of "Simon Has A Pimple" or "You're Just A Mama's Boy" hidden under some old reviews. I felt that if I just looked hard enough, I'd be able to include such early classics as "Billy, You're An Anteater," "I'm The Master Race, And You're Not," "The Big Cheese," "Visible Panty Line," or even, "I Love You, I Love You, I Love You, I Love You, I Love You, I Love You, I'm Trying To Read!" Alas, it was not to be. It was hard enough to find a decent recording of "Olivia Newton John," and we were performing that right up to the end (I'm not entirely sure why).

Many of these recordings come from live radio broadcasts from around the country, but, as I mentioned above, quite a few are from old cassettes. The sound may be a little bit Lo-Fi, but the performances were too good to ignore. Anyway, what I ended up with is a collection of songs that, for one reason or another, never made it to any of the three Uncle Bonsai releases. A number of them, "They're At It Again," "I Like Girls," Ashley's Little Blues," "Eine Kleine Nacht Musik," and "The Star Spangled Banner," were on the original Myn Ynd Wymyn cassette but didn't fit on the compact disc. Others, like "Parcel Post" were only performed a few times (hmm, I wonder why). That song, along with "Meet Me Under The Table (A Drinking Song)," are the earliest ones on this compilation; I didn't expect to find recordings of them, let alone ones that sounded so decent...I have to admit that I still think they're both funny songs. "In The Suburbs" was one of our favorites; I have no idea why we stopped performing it. On the other hand, I know exactly why "Boys In Heat" disappeared after a few performances! The only reason it's included here is because I had this recording with Ashley doing a great vocal.

- Andrew Ratshin, 4/99

Plain Brown Wrapper features 19 previously unavailable Uncle Bonsai songs. Culled from tapes, videos, and radio broadcast recordings, this collection presents performances from as early as 1983 all the way up to the final Uncle Bonsai show in 1989.

Songs:

• Olivia Newton John
  
• Don't Put It In Your Mouth
  
• Man For The 80's
  
• Meet Me Under The Table (A Drinking Song)
  
• Kill The Competition (A Love Song)
  
• Parcel Post
  
• In The Suburbs
  
• To Market, To Market (Pigs)
  
• Too Many Creeps
  
• Boys In Heat
  
• They're At It Again
  
• Splitting The Genes
  
• Eine Kleine Nacht Musik
  
• Chubby Wanna Sundae?
  
• Ashley's Little Blues
  
• There Is A Line
  
• I Like Girls
  
• Rich Kids
  
• The Star Spangled Banner

Lyrics Page