Drink to Bones that Turn to Dust: A Toast to Oingo BoingoSince the inception of Dep't of Records, we have been working exclusively on our first production, Drink to Bones that Turn to Dust: A Toast to Oingo Boingo. You can read more about the project and hear samples on other pages in this site. We are also working on signing our first artists, those whose music touches us in a way that most commercial music can't. Watch for albums from these artists very soon. Dep't of Records was founded in 2004 by Matt Robesch and Leland Hirschman. In 2006, we merged with Mars Sound (www.marssound.com), a recording studio co-owned by Leland and two other partners, Skot Gilbert and Jeff 'Zippy' Zipfel. What began as a pipe dream has become a reality. A small record label, driven by the need to hear the music of Danny Efman and Oingo boingo reinterpreted by some amazing artists, has created the greatest tribute album ever.
AN OPEN LETTER TO DANNY ELFMANWe didn’t have your email address, and we weren’t comfortable enough to ask Georganne for it, so we figured an open letter on a fan forum would probably find its way to you. Here it is… Dear Danny, We here at Dep’t of Records are all great fans of Oingo Boingo, have loved your music for many years and always wanted to hear a Boingo tribute album. When we first pondered the idea (in early 2004), there was still no such album. So we decided to produce one ourselves. We’re calling the album Drink to Bones That Turn to Dust: A Toast to Oingo Boingo. As the project nears completion, we humbly offer this tribute to you, your former band-mates, and all of the rabid Boingoloids and Lumplings who have kept some of our favorite music alive. This album’s sole purpose is to present your great compositions reinvented and reinterpreted by some amazing artists. The project started up here in Seattle on a shoestring budget, paying for everything out of pocket, and having a few of our favorite local bands record their chosen Boingo song. Over time, we’ve had the opportunity to record more than a dozen incredible artists from up and down the west coast as well and as far away as Austin, TX and Wales, UK. We intentionally sought artists who didn’t sound like Boingo (nor even each other), and found some great representatives of diverse genres. From that goal, we’ve amassed a gorgeous collection of Boingo covers that includes a vast array of sounds and styles. We think you will enjoy the way these cats have mangled your music, far better than certain film directors who just don’t seem to get it. Not to play favorites with the bands, but you are gonna shit (whether for good or bad is yet to be seen) when you hear ‘Little Girls’ as performed by the entertaining lunatics, Sneakin’ Out. Their interpretation of the track is quite different from Patrick Stewart’s, and is included on an advance promo that will hopefully be on your desk shortly. Until then, if you just can’t wait, you can visit our website (www.deptofrecords.com) and listen to the streaming mp3. Also on the promo is an incredible rendition of ‘Spider’ by the Scott Fisher Band. Scott plays a funky Rhodes Piano and croons hypnotically to the ladies who we guarantee will exclaim, “oh my!” Even though WC Handy Award-nominee Mark Lemhouse originally did the project at his wife’s insistence, he told us that he loved discovering Boingo. He delighted in turning ‘Who do You Want to Be’ into a porch-stomping delta blues affair that creates an aural tornado of pure musical adrenaline… accomplished with merely a guitar, a harmonica, and a small trap kit. Seattle punk band The Cheats approached ‘Nothing Bad Ever Happens’ with an angst, attitude, and sound surprisingly reminiscent of the Dead Kennedys. There are over a dozen additional brilliant Boingo reinventions we could describe, but will leave instead to your discovery. Presently, we’re finishing up the last few tracks, but the album will be ready in time for release on Halloween, our favorite time of the year. As fans and friends, What is Drink to Bones That Turn to Dust: A Toast to Oingo Boingo?This tribute is just that - a Tribute to the band, to its members and their families, to the extended family of artists and business people who helped bring their music and images into our lives, and to the other rabid Boingoloids and Lumplings who continue to carry on the memories and music of such a unique and impressionable act. It is our offering to you all for sharing in this great Musical Party of the last quarter-century. The project began as a pipe-dream. Dep’t of Records’ co-founder Mattro, who also runs the popular Boingo Fansite at www.raptorial.com/Boingo, would regularly lament to his friend and future business partner, Lelando, about how much he wished someone would produce a Boingo Tribute Album. Lelando, a musician and producer who had dreamed of starting his own record label, got tired of hearing Mattro whine, and finally told him that they would just have to produce the album themselves. Two years and thousands of hours of work later, the album is nearly complete. As we work to finish up the album, we’ve released a FREE Promotional Sampler CD that contains a couple of complete tracks from the album, as well as snippets from several other songs on the album. This Promo CD will be handed out at some live shows by the bands appearing on the album, as well as at several music festivals this summer, including High Sierra Music Festival, Bumbershoot, and more. We’re proud of the fact that we insisted that every band strive to make each song their own. We’ve always had a bad taste from tribute albums on which the artists all try to sound just like the original, with little or no change to the arrangement. We specifically chose bands that sound nothing like Boingo, and asked them to make the song sound like one of their own. The artists represent numerous genres, and as such, the album has a very diverse and eclectic style. From porch-stompin’ blues to funk and soul arrangements, from balls-to-the-wall punk rock to jazzy folk, this album has it all. And despite this diversity, the album still has the common thread of Elfman’s compositions and Boingo’s influence. Leland was fortunate enough to meet John Avila at SxSW in Austin, Texas this past March. When told of the project, John was very gracious and excited that we were paying homage to Boingo. We also asked Georganne Deen, the artist who did cover art and/or supplemental art for five of the original Boingo album covers, to join us in this special tribute by contributing the cover art. We're sure you will all agree that she did a wonderful job of paying tribute to her good friends, staying true to the Boingo aesthetic, without rehasihing her previous work, nor straying from her own evolution as an artist. 'So have a toast, and down the cup, Cheers! Liner NotesIf you’re a life-long Boingo fan like me, you’ve probably heard more than one old friend say something along these lines: “Every time I hear Oingo Boingo, it reminds me of you.” This is an odd phenomenon as you most likely are not a member of Oingo Boingo, nor probably do you personally know anyone who is. What this statement means is, at points in your life, you played Oingo Boingo’s music so often, and on so many varied occasions, that it probably annoyed the hell out of your friends. That is so damned cool. If you’ve ever referred to yourself as a Lumpling, a Boingoloid, or an Elfmaniac... or if you’ve ever converted a friend into a new Boingo fan by some strange vampire-like siring process, then Drink to Bones That Turn to Dust is a tribute to you. Every one of you has a “how I discovered Boingo” story. Here’s mine: In 1982, I was lured to Seattle’s New Wave Spectacular music festival by the band Missing Persons. Oddly, I walked away from that event Boingo-curious, not because Boingo played that night (they didn’t; they headlined a different night*) but thanks solely to the festival’s new-fangled “video screening room”. The video did what it was designed to do... it made me buy Boingo’s Nothing to Fear as soon as I could afford it. I still own that pristine vinyl edition today. By Christmas of 1983, I was hooked on the band and demanded that Good For Your Soul show up under the tree with my name on it. To this day, Nothing to Fear and Good For Your Soul are two of my all-time favorite rock albums. I honestly cannot imagine what my life would be like today if I had never heard them. Thank god, thank dog, thank doug... whomever... that Danny Elfman wrangled Boingo into a band and created these two albums (and so many more!). Drink to Bones... is a tribute to everyone who has ever performed or recorded with Oingo Boingo. Around 1997 Oingo Boingo had been broken up for two years and I started wondering something. “Where the fuck is the Boingo tribute album?!” I often asked this out loud, ignoring the strange looks I would get in response. It seemed disrespectful to me that neither MCA nor A&M had put such a tribute together yet. This disrespect went on for years! Finally in early 2004, I had asked the question one too many times, and my good friend Leland asked back at me, “Why don’t we just make one?!” We promptly formed Dep’t of Records and embarked upon the project you are holding in your hands. So please join us in this vast toast by raising your cup and cranking the stereo up!
17 Aug, 2006 PS: Lastly, a personal toast to my dear departed mum, Kirsten M. Robesch for never making me turn my Boingo albums off and for pretending to actually like them... Skoal! What Hardcore Boingo Fans are saying:"You have taken a substantial amount of time, caring, and labor to bring us something different: a tribute album that features an eclectic number of genres and styles... not just a bunch of bands pretending to be Boingo."- Andrew, New Jersey "Those covers are brilliant. It's refreshing to hear that these bands are putting their own twist on it and not trying to be like Boingo too much. Excellent stuff! Kudos!"- zygotic_mynci, from the forums at www.stevebartek.com "LOVE what I've heard so far!! GREAT stuff, can't wait to hear more!"- Sheryl, Spokane, WA "very cool !!!!!"- Steve Bartek, Oingo Boingo's Guitarist "those are fabulous. u should be very stoked indeed."- Georganne Deen, artist on five Boingo album covers ... and ours!
The songs of
|
Well, if you had that new version of Flash, you'd be seeing a cool slideshow right now, which would make that photo credit below make a whole helluva lot more sense. We still think you should give it a try. Flash won't hurt you, and for visiting a media-heavy company like ours, the flash will make you happy.
Go ahead, give it a try. We won't rat you out to your other linux buddies. They'll never know. |
