Good morning—Wayne here and time for Part 4 of my take on the Eternal Bad Luck Charm album and events in 1999 leading up and past its recording. You know the drill—this is my version and memories of that time; I’m sure Brandon, Chris, Dave, and Timbo (Mutant Pop President) would say “He’s so full of shit!” and remember a different story. Thanks for reading and enjoy!
Part 4—A BRIEF HISTORY OF US HOOKING UP WITH MUTANT POP…BEARD-O THE WEIRD-O COMES FOR A VISIT…FROM HERE TO THE INFINITY CLOSET…
When we first started the band, I was buying a shit ton of punk rock records and zines. 7 inch, 10 inch, 12 inch, splits, comps, etc., etc—you get the idea! I would sit around with some booze and the latest editions of Punk Planet, Jersey Beat, Flipside, and Maximum Rock N Roll and read EVERY single add and review. Then I would write letters and order anything that I thought I might enjoy. I got turned on to so many amazing bands, zines, and people by doing this ritual. And as a side note, yeah-YouTube and the internet are wonderful but I would not change my discovery of underground music in the 90’s for today’s technology.
And man, oh man—when you opened your mailbox and carried in those packages, it was better than Christmas morning. Wow, I think I just teared up!
Anyway, two of the labels that impressed me the most on a consistent basis with their bands and packaging were Harmless Records out of Chicago and Mutant Pop Records out of Corvallis, Oregon. Harmless put out fantastic records from Winepress, Chemical Blue, Walker, The Mushuganas, and many others. Of course, Harmless did a bang up job with the MISSY & JOHNNY seven inch and Harmless head honcho, Scott always said it was a hoot to sell the record at Chicago area shows. He prided his label on being a Chicago based punk label and then he had this one record from four guys from eastern Kentucky. He said he sold a fair amount of our single based on curiosity alone. We never shied away with being from Kentucky. At a lot of our out of town shows, I would introduce the band by saying something like, “Hello, we’re The Connie Dungs from Ashland, Kentucky—home of banjo pluckin’ and cousin fucking”…I know, it’s wasn’t Shakespeare.
Of the two, I dug the Mutant Pop stuff a little more. I believe Timbo had five or six singles out when I discovered his label in MRR. I dug all of the singles for various reasons with my favorites being The Automatics “All The Kids Just Wanna Dance” and Underhand’s “Desire” (seek these out right away!). And I totally loved the uniform look of the singles. Band picture and catalog number on the front, thick sleeves with printing on the inside, and those first 500 copies on gorgeous, colored vinyl! To me, the best thing of all was the back of the sleeve. Tim would tell a little story about the band or how the record came about being released. Another side note, if you don’t have any Mutant Pop singles, dive in and start collecting. Some are better than others, but there are some definite gems in there).
So, I sent a copy of our second demo, NICE GUYS FINISH LAST, to Timbo letting him know I had bought all of his singles and loved them and to PLEASE listen to us and any advice or tips he could give would be greatly appreciated. I received a letter from Timbo about a week later and in the letter he gushed about how much he loved the 12 songs on the demo and he wanted me to call as soon as possible because he wanted to release a single by THE CONNIE DUNGS! We were excited to say the least. (Yet another side note, Tim became one of my best friends over the coming years and while we stay in touch—I need to give the guy a call; time goes too fast).
Tim was the first person who really, honestly believed in us and he definitely put his money where his mouth was by sending us to the studio over and over throughout the mid to late 90’s. I could (and maybe I will) write a book about the connie dungs and our time with Timbo and Mutant Pop.
Alright, enough of that talk. Back to the tale…Tim had driven cross country with his best friend and dog, Snorkel Bob, in the summer of 1998 and visited us and went to Sonic Iguana to finish vocals and mix Earthbound For The Holiday. He even sang back ups on several songs. In the summer of 1999, we were still some time away from heading to Lafayette, Indiana and Sonic Iguana but we were going to go to our friend Brian’s studio, The Infinity Closet.
We were going to lay down some tracks as warm ups to re-record for Eternal Bad Luck Charm plus it was our first time in the studio with Dave. Timbo also thought we may get a single out of it. We ended up recording seven songs plus one we never quite finished. “Turntable”, “B-Side” (later changed to “Head Pop”), “Teenage Hate Band”, “Eye Doctor”, “Gemini”, “Carnival Blue”, “Fear Of Abandonment”, and the unfinished song was called “Another Night In The House Of Suicide”.
Brian did an incredible job as the recording turned out great but unfortunately I do not remember a lot of the details on being in the studio and mixing. Once again, drinking was the number one concern for me during these sessions. Not to say I was not involved in the recording but if there was not a bass guitar in hand, there was a whiskey and water in hand. I do remember passing on singing backing vocals on one track, so I could sit in my car and keep drinking…I had to keep my priorities in order, you know?
Listening to the recordings a few days later, I was extremely excited about what I heard. I do remember telling someone in the band, “I can not wait to hear these songs when we re-record them for the new record”…I would have never guessed that only one of the eight songs would end up on Eternal Bad Luck Charm.
See, my good friend, Brandon, was not doing so well. Being too worried about drinking, I did not see how much turmoil he was in with his new relationship. I did not realize his darker lyrics were reflecting the pain he was going through. And I certainly did not think he was about to tell the band that the concept and 50/50 plan had changed for Eternal Bad Luck Charm…And for the first time in our long friendship; things were about to become severely strained.