A Thousand Awkward Situations

Even rarer than that Object Beings 7", surprisingly, is the self-titled CD album it's off of. It came out shortly after the vinyl in 2001 and was limited to only 200 copies (mine's #147), and was mainly just available through Anticon-friendly online stores like Atak. #154 recently sold for $182.50 on EBay, and that was before shipping!

Fortunately for everybody who got the 7" but missed the CD, they didn't miss too too much. Both songs from the 7" are here, albeit slightly different. The CD version of "Attack Of the Postmodern Pat Boones" retains, but talks over, the atmospheric opening, that starts out by playing a very warped opening to Pat Boone's "Sugar Moon." But more importantly, they've removed the ominous coda at the end of the song - another spoken exchange between Brandon and Tobey (originally a character from Anticon's infamous, unreleased Stuffed Animals project):

"You mean, we shouldn't be afraid of the post-mortem baboons?"

"That's right, Tobey. There's nothing to be afraid of.

Unless, of course... you're a jazz musician."

And the version of "Cannibalism Of the Object Beings" on the CD, is apparently the "West Coast Phunk Remix," though both mixes sound pretty darn similar to me.

Another one of the main (and it's really quite good) tracks on this album is Pedestrian's solo number, "The Nature of Theater" (here titled, "Theatre of Nature"). But people who missed this song had likely already heard it in spades, as it had been on Anticon.com's shared mp3s for ages... originally scheduled to be released on the Makeshift Writers Workshop LP that never happened.

So, beyond those three songs an Object Beings fan would already have, they weren't missing a whole lot. There's a TON of skits/ poems between the tracks, a demented introduction and a brief, untitled instrumental ...which are cool... but, yaknow, they still ain't proper songs. It's almost more of a neat, "special edition" of the vinyl record rather than a proper album. Why? had this to say, "David [Odd Nosdam] and I were allotted the chore of blending the record. We got together at his place and listened to all the little pieces with no idea how to put them all together. Eventually, we divided the material into songs and unsongs. He put the songs into a logical order and left spaces in between into which we randomly placed unsongs by drawing them out of a hat."

There are still a couple nice exclusives, however. There's a new (albeit pretty short... it's 90 seconds long) Dose One song called, "Well Pail," that starts with him imaginatively describing the only things he's afraid of (they would scare me, too!) and then says,

"There sure are a lot of things we can make,

And make up;

And it's not just an Aegean space

They take up.
Those crazy objects would sure scare us

From far, far away,
If they - one day - had it their way.

Had it their way..."

And there's a second "Theatre of Nature," which uses the exact same instrumental and lyrics, but is this time performed by Dose.

The album came packaged in the plain white sleeve (pictured), with a tiny, folded Xeroxed sheet of paper with a scan of some Newspaper classified ads advertising "Object Beings" on one side, and the track listing on the other. Dose One added, "We rushed the mixing this down. That was two years ago. The summer of hard luck. And 100 students of pressure. The real Object Beings is blank. Thank you."

Tags: Object Beings, Dose One, Why?, Pedestrian

Attack Of the Post-Modern Pat Boones

"It's an art school text book, Tobey; it's nothing to be afraid of."

I'm not done with Weapon-Shaped yet. This is their second, weird, little collector's edition 7", "Attack of the Postmodern Pat Boones" by the Object Beings, a collaberative group of Anticon artists Pedestrian, Why?, Dose One along with producer Emynd. And it's great.

It's catchy, it's creative, it's funny... of course, to really "get" the song, you have to know who Pat Boone is, which might exclude a lot of their younger hip-hop demographic. Pat Boone was huge in the 50's... the non-threatening, non-rock & roll alternative to Elvis Presley, who didn't dress flashy, dance outrageously or have suggestive lyrics in his music. He continued to record through the 60's and 70's and basically made safe "white" versions of hit records so that middle America could have their bland version of "Tutti Frutti" without having to face any scary Little Richards. ...Towards the end of his career, he went into making strictly gospel music.

So bear this in mind, and think of the state of the hip-hop scene Anticon was in when this was released (2000), particularly with the college kids embracing all the DJ Shadows and what-not, and you'll start to see the sense and even the wit in the "nonsense lyrics," including the chorus that goes:

"It's the attack of the post-modern Pat Boones...
And they've got golf shoes for hands.
It's the attack of the post-modern Pat Boones...
And they never learned guitar.
It's the attack of the post-modern Pat Boones...
They're writing their thesis papers on acid.
It's the attack of the post-modern Pat Boones...
And they're taking your transgressive daughters."

The body of the song consists of Pedestrian and Why? trading lines back and forth, finishing each other's sentences over a mellow beat with a very catchy guitar sample and a single, drawn out keyboard note:

"Why?) Who's whoever accepts the primal challenge to play the role of
Pedestrian) Suburban fur-trapper, camoflauged in fake leather couches and plush carpet squares,
Why?) Searching for an embroidered 'Home Sweet Home' wall-hanging,
Superfluous signal of a potpouri sense of security.
Pedestrian) Watercolor class has taught him much...
Even the value of tupperware in a wine-cooler ravaged conscience:
Clear, but for the ominous tint of contentment.
Why?) He once spent a summer squatting in the food court cloaked in McChicken crumbs,
Lucky felt flower behind ear.
Pedestrian) And also having slept on the most expensive sand in all of orange county,
He inverted post-pubescent Keroucian fantasy with a rather non-threatening vengeance."

To be honest, this is still one of my all-time favorite Anticon songs (although, not strictly released on Anticon Records... though it was later included on their Giga Single compilation).

The B-side, "Cannibalism of the Object Beings" features a faster beat, faster flows and introduces Dose One into the mix. It's even more bugged out ("You never know what could show up in your mailbox") and a lot of fun, even if - unfortunately - some of the vocals are a little tough to make out in the mix. :(

It's a shame this 7" was so limited, because it's seriously one of the most important hip-hop records of its period. The Object Beings haven't really stayed together as a group, but today Why? has two albums recorded due to come out... one apparently featuring a lot of music by the band Fog, and other more hip-hop-oriented. Dose has a new Themselves (he and Jel) album in the works. And Pedestrian, as ever, is torturing all of his fans by going for increasingly long stretches without putting any new music out while Sole makes posts about him "working on a new album." Man, I feel like it's 2000 again right now.

Tags: Object Beings, Pedestrian, Why?, Dose One