Needs More Wanger

Needs More Wanger is the title of Interrobang Cartel's first album. By July of 2003, a half-dozen songs had been recorded by various Interrobang Cartel folk; Tim Chmielewski suggested that a CD be put together to send to "Weird Al" Yankovic and Dr. Demento.
Over the next couple of months, more songs were written and recorded, CD designs were proposed and discarded, and the name Needs More Wanger was decided on for the name of the CD. It was eventually officially released on 20 September 2003.
It was assembled by jwgh and had cover art by Kibo. Not R provided some advice on the ordering of the tracks. Strangely enough, we didn't send a copy to Weird Al. Sorry, Al.
We did send copies to the following places:
- The Annoying Music Show.
- Dr. Demento.
- This American Life.
- Rock & Roll 50th Anniversary.
- KTRU
- WBSR
- WDRV
- WFMU
- WHPK -- we have a confirmed airing!
- WJUL
- WRPI
- WUVT
- WVKR
A web page was put together so that googling for Needs More Wanger would find it which contains instructions on making ones own copy of the CD plus an alternative track ordering.
Why 'Needs More Wanger'?
The phrase first came up in a response Dean Lenort made to the Free Your Cones song:
- INSTANT REVIEW: Needs more wanger. Other than that, bang up job.
Later, when Talysman the Ur-Beatle submitted Track 8, in the ID3 tag for album title he put 'Needs More Wanger'. ZIP DRIVE CLICK OF DETH liked this enough that he ended up using it as the working album title for the CD.
Song Credits
- Lyrics: jwgh, Arrangement: Not R
- Lyrics: Casey B (from a dream by Gokmop the Irrefrangible), Arrangement: Casey B
- Lyrics: Stacia, Arrangement: jwgh
- Lyrics: jwgh, Arrangement: Casey B
- Lyrics & Arrangement: Kerri
- Lyrics: Stacia, Arrangement: Not R
- Lyrics: Casey B (from a dream by Gokmop the Irrefrangible), Arrangement: jwgh, Nose Flute Solo: Jeremy D. Impson
- Arrangement: Talysman the Ur-Beatle
- Lyrics: Matt McIrvin, Arrangement: Casey B
- Lyrics & Arrangement: Shiro Akaishi, Vocals: Not R, Assorted Vocalizations: JPB, jwgh, Kerri
- Lyrics & Arrangement: Casey B
- Lyrics: Casey B (from a dream by Gokmop the Irrefrangible), Arrangement: jwgh
- Lyrics: Eddie Hi There Lowther, Arrangement: Casey B
- Lyrics: Karlo X, Arrangement: jwgh
The Robot Song
MP3 Files:
Lyrics: jwgh
Album: Needs More Wanger Arrangement, version 1: Casey B Arrangement, version 2: Not R
Album: The Barflies Soundtrack Arrangement, version 3: Casey B, Performance: Charlie, Rebecca, Tony, and Mike
Shortly after Interrobang Cartel was formed in 2003, there was a general call for lyrics. ZIP happened to have some lyrics about robots lying around that he had written for another purpose, so he contributed them.
Casey B and Not R then recorded two very different interpretations of the lyrics (the 'Data version' and the 'Dalek version') and things were off and running.
Both recordings of The Robot Song appeared on Interrobang Cartel's first CD, Needs More Wanger.
The Robot Song
- I used to work at the mall
-
- Selling robots wall to wall
- Ones that cleaned and entertained
-
- A robot chef, a robot maid
- Then one night on a dare
-
- I made my robots self-aware
- And it wasn't really planned,
-
- But now the robots rule the land
-
- And we're happier than we've ever been
- There was fighting, sure, at first
-
- When the bots conquered the Earth
- All the people thought we're doomed
-
- That by robots we'd be consumed
- But we humans had no chance
-
- Robots stunned us with a glance
- And after the human's final stand
-
- It was the robots ruled the land
-
- Now we're happier than we've ever been
- That's the last war that we've seen
-
- By decree of robot queen
- All the studies now do show
-
- That at ruling, humans blow
- Law's more carefully applied
-
- With a logic-loving guide
- Now with an impartial hand
-
- It's the robots rule the land
-
- Now we're happier than we've ever been
External Links
Pumpkin, Mrs. Farnsworth
Gokmop the Irrefrangible (aka John D Salt) wrote in April 2003:
- I had an odder-than-usual dream last night.
- It involved a parlour-game, which I should think would need quite a large and well-furnished parlour for the game to work successfully.
- The game is called "Pumpkin, Mrs. Farnsworth". It needs numerous players of all sexes to play it, and somebody called Mrs. Farnsworth, who carries a plate of cakes and distributes them among the party.
- The object of the game is for pairs of players to secretly have sex with each other without being noticed, and then shout "pumpkin!" before Mrs. Farnsworth can offer them a cake.
- It all seemed much less impractical in my dream than it does now.
- I expect some bloody Freudian will come along with their psychoanalysis hat on in a minute and claim that dreaming about secret sex acts in a well-furnished parlour is symbolical of some kind of repressed fascination with railway engines, or something.
This inspired Casey B to write some lyrics based on the dream. And there things sat until mid-July 2003, at which time (unbeknownst to each other) Casey B and jwgh each recorded an interpretation of the lyrics:
- The London Share House Mix, Casey's version, which has sort of a mellow punkish flavor, and The English Country Garden Mix, jwgh's version, which is more folkish and angsty (because, jwgh explains, "I am JUST NOT THAT PUNK.")
A week later jwgh assembled another version which has the same melody and structure as his first version. This new version incorporated some nose flute samples that Jeremy D. Impson contributed to the Interrobang Cartel Cause and became known as:
- The Spaghetti West End Mix (so dubbed by Casey B because of the strange backing vocals which reminded him of the soundtrack to "The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly" and other spaghetti westerns).
All three recordings were included in Interrobang Cartel's first album, Needs More Wanger.
Lyrics
- (to be sung/shouted in bog-English)
- Meet me by the bookshelf
- at the south end of the room
- Slip behind the sofa
- in the early evening gloom
- Tongue my genitalia,
- make me shudder, make me shake:
- Pumpkin, Mrs. Farnsworth!
- I now require a cake.
- We might just sit together
- drinking tea and making time:
- Such delightful weather!
- Why, the company's sublime!
- Can you lean a little that way?
- If you just... oh yes... that's nice...
- Pumpkin, Mrs. Farnsworth!
- I need a second slice.
- I'll sneak behind my brother
- As he gazes at the lawn
- With lib'ral use of butter
- he'll forgive me in the morn.
- For here it's win, or pack it in,
- you're either champ or chump:
- Pumpkin, Mrs. Farnsworth,
- if kin are there to pump.
- And no-one knows, and so it goes,
- all night and into day:
- Pumpkin, Mrs. Farnsworth!
- (In fact, just leave the tray.)
Pigskin Loofah
(MP3: Rip Cut) (MP3: Buzz Cut)
Lyrics: Stacia
Arrangement: jwgh (Rip Cut), Not R (Buzz Cut)
Album: Needs More Wanger
Stacia wrote the lyrics in April 2003. jwgh then recorded a bluesy version (the Rip Cut) and Not R recorded a more punkish version (the Buzz Cut) in July of 2003.
Lyrics
- Your shit it stinks
- It's freezer cold
- White collar bimbo
- Corporate limbo
- Fucking wicker furniture and doilies
- Doesn't hide a soul that's oily
- You chap my ass
- Like a pigskin loofah
- College graduate
- Hotel management
- Put your change
- In your 401K
- Investment brokers are portfolio pimps
- Internet wunderkinds with the brains of chimps
- You chap my ass
- Like a pigskin loofah
- SCRUBBIE! SCRUBBIE! SCRUBBIE! SCRUBBIE!
- LOOFAH! LOOFAH! LOOFAH! LOOFAH!
- CLEANSE MY SOUL!
- CLEANSE MY SOUL!
- Little bo pig won't you come out and play
- PIGGIE! PIGGIE! PIGGIE! PIGGIE!
- Need the power of the pig to exfoliate my mind
- LOOFAH! LOOFAH! LOOFAH! LOOFAH!
- CLEANSE MY SOUL!
- CLEANSE MY SOUL!
Young Human Body Transplant 13
Chalice of Fire
(MP3)
Lyrics: Matt Mc Irvin
Arrangement: Casey B
Nose flute: Jeremy Impson
Album: Needs More Wanger
(comments from ZIP: "Chalice of Fire was the first of Matt Mc Irvin's lyrics to be set to music (by Casey B). Matt describes how this song came to be:
SUPER AMAZING JULY 2003 NEWS FLASH: A.r.k's own Casey B. recorded "Chalice of Fire"!
Note: The day before my wedding in July 2000, there appeared the eagerly awaited fourth Harry Potter book, which was something about a goblet of fire. They can't fool me; obviously it was actually a chalice. Apparently the nostalgic exercise reproduced below was actually a prescient glimpse of fin-de-siècle mania. I am better at forecasting trends than Trend Forecaster Barbie!
Either that or I was just accidentally pretending to be Unitarian.
I should also mention that I was definitely imagining the instrumental bridge of my song as having been lifted from the Steve Miller Band's "Abracadabra." But since it was all in my head, they can't sue me! The true Napster is in your mind!
By the way, Karlo Takki's quoted power ballad was the brilliant result of a challenge to write a song from vocabulary taken entirely from the headers of some post.
Subject: Re: WHAT IS THE DEAL WITH QQ?
From: Matt McIrvin <mmcirvin@world.std.com>
Date: Mon, 24 Nov 1997 01:30:47 GMT
Karlo Takki <ktakki@artcrime.com> wrote:
[slow metal Guns 'n' Roses-like power ballad in E min.]
[singer MUST have shirt unbuttoned to waist -- THIS IS IMPORTANT]
Any subject, any date,
I can do this for you.
Any lines, any path,
I can do this for you.
Jan, if I can, if I may,
I can be,
With you.
With you.
Aw, man, I hate how now these days all songs have to be about love or something. I miss the Eighties. In the Eighties you could have that kind of song, but you could also sing a song that was about absolutely nothing at all and made no sense, and nobody would even think that you were cerebral or quirky or David Byrne, provided that every individual word in the song was a sufficiently rad-i-kool word.
As evidence I offer the following unrecorded song, which I wrote on the tour bus while I was the lead singer of "The Fixx," shortly before I quit and joined "Loverboy" because they had a better dental plan and more POW-WUH. I now consider this to be the anthem of a generation. Maestro?
An unrelated group of people had an entertaining and horrified discussion about the song which I recommend reading as well.")
Lyrics
[synthetic throbbing and percussion]
- She runs in the shadow of a motorized race
- The light of the fire in an enemy's face
- The moon flies a shiver of electrical night
- There's lace in the leather and it makes it all right
- Ohhhh, and you're running
- Running on a serious wire
- Ohhhh, and you're running
- Running through a chalice of fire
- There's a shot on the water and a bolt in the heart
- Mind over matter is the dangerous part
- And the line in the mirror is a sliver of steel
- Now she remembers how the innocent feel
- Ohhhh, and you're running
- Running on a serious wire
- Ohhhh, and you're running
- Running through a chalice of fire
- A laser in the night
- We bring it to the fight
- Whether we're WRONG OR RIIIIIGGGHT--
- [cool noises for about twenty seconds]
- Ohhhh, and you're running
- Running on a serious wire
- Ohhhh, and you're running
- Running through a chalice of fire
- [repeat and fade out]
Commentary
- CB comments:
- Hold on to your leg-warmers...
- This is the Vangelis-meets-Ultravox-with-Simon-Le-Bon-on-vocals version.
- AFAIK, there are other versions coming.
- Oh, and the lyrics are here:
- http://world.std.com/~mmcirvin/kibology/eighties.html (this site does not exist except in archive.org)
- And.... sorry.
- Love,
-
- Casey B
Not to be confused with Lee "Scratch" Perry's 1982 reggae song, Chalice a Fire.
Beep
(MP3)
Lyrics, Arrangement: Kerri
Album: Needs More Wanger
Kerri recorded a song called "Beep" and provides the following commentary:
I submit to you for inclusion in some Interröbang Cartel thingie, the following song. It is called, intuitively enough, "Beep".
It's a commentary on how ANNOYING life is with all the things we have beeping at us. The timer, the alarm clock, the computer, the phone, and EVERYTHING ELSE. I'm sure it will make sense, in a lyrical context.
The lyrics are as follows:
- : Beep.
(MP3 here.)
320 World
(MP3)
Lyrics, Arrangement: Akaishi
Vocals: Not R
additional vocals by Kerri and jwgh
Album: Needs More Wanger
Chorus will be shouted by everyone within the venue in which it is played.
- ;; Fear, platter of the day
-
- nineteen bucks but more tomorrow!
- ;; Hurry out and make a fuss
-
- We love it all more share for us
- Chase a car! Crash a truck!
- People die, why give a fuck?
- ;Chorus:
- ;; Death! Death!
-
- Destruction! Death!
- Disease!
- ;; <Cut instruments, distorted & spoken (preferably by geraldo)> And now, Here's kittens! </d&d>
- ;; Here's a drug to make you live
-
- Not tested yet, hope U got time
- Sign up today, be a test case!
- Might save your life, might kill you faster
- Just hope we got exclusive rights
- To show you what'll happen after...
- ;<drum, guitar fill-in>
- ;CHORUS
- ;; Great new bug on the east coast
-
- Death toll's rising, what's it matter?
- Smile a little wider bitch!
- You live in california anyway!
- So here's the tall guy
- on the scene! Gasmask, flak vest
- He's protected. Man with a gun!
- Get the tape! Splattered brains!
- Bring it live! Film at 11!
- ;CHORUS
- ;<musical interlude>
- ;CHORUS
- ;<cut short>
- ;<crowd goes wild>
The George Hammond Conspiracy
Media
(MP3)
Song Info
Lyrics, Arrangement: Casey B
Album: Needs More Wanger
On June 30th, 2002, scientific divinity theorist George Hammond proclaimed thusly:
- "It took 4 years before Einstein's theory was recognized. I'm in my third year of publication (on the internet). That makes one year to go before I'm headline news in every newspaper in the world. "
Sadly, on June 30th, 2003, George Hammond was not headline news in every newspaper in the world. For those who wanted the truth - for those who could handle the truth - Interrobang Cartel released "The George Hammond Conspiracy" on that day.
Lyrics
- When physics meets religion
- there are sceptics all around
- for some it's superstition
- and for some it's holy ground
- But George Hammond was a patient man
- he churned and turned the sod
- and in the earth he found the proof
- the Scientific Proof of God
- When physics meets religion
- there are sets of rolling eyes
- too hard to seek the truth of proof
- too hard despising lies
- but George found the solution
- where no-one else had trod
- the perfect space, the simple place,
- the Scientific Proof of God
- it's the George Hammond conspiracy
- the truth that they won't let you see
- GOD=Guv
- no matter what they say
- it's the George Hammond conspiracy
- but behind the cloak of secrecy
- GOD=Guv
- it's always been that way
- When commerce meets instruction
- and commercials must be run
- there are sponsors to be honoured
- there are things that must be done
- there are stories to be trumpeted
- and stories to protect
- but don't think we're not aware now
- don't think we're not aware now
- don't think we're not aware now
- greater intellect
- it's the Flynn Effect
- When physics meets religion
- there are secrets by the score
- there are those with firm investments
- in the politics of war
- but before we trawl the deserts
- with the high divining rod
- we should think instead of what George said
- the Scientific Proof of God
- it's the George Hammond conspiracy
- the truth that they won't let you see
- GOD=Guv
- no matter what they say
- it's the George Hammond conspiracy
- but behind the cloak of secrecy
- GOD=Guv
- it's Equation Of The Day
- it's a brand new way to pray
- and it's always been that way
The George Hammond conspiracy continues to this day.
COMAR
(MP3)
Lyrics: Eddie "Hi There" Lowther
Arrangement: Casey B
Album: Needs More Wanger
Eddie "Hi There" Lowther wrote these lyrics on April 17 2003, basing them in part on IRS and State of Maryland regulations concerning the distribution of liquor. Casey B then recorded them a week later. This recording was included on Interrobang Cartel's first CD, Needs More Wanger.
Its title sometimes appears in all caps and sometimes with only the first letter capitalized, and sometimes with a final ':' and other times without. In the original post containing its lyrics the title was given as 'COMAR:'.
Lyrics
- "A!" A quote Supplier will be licensed
- or a dealer or wholesaler
- of a brand of wine or distiller
- of spirits
- or just a seller to a dealer
- or wholesaler here in MARYLAND
- (Instrumental solo - Accordian)
- "Bee!" If Mr. S got to change licensed wholesaler or franchiser
- to sell some kind of wine or something that is finer
- He's gotta give thirty days.
- (Gotta give thirty days)
- Of notice of this intention
- (Gotta give thirty days?)
- Registered mail!
- (Gotta give, gotta give)
- To Alchohol and Tobacco Tax Unit!
- "See!"
- If you, Mr. C. discontinue sale of wine
- (Or gotta quit something finer)
- Give the man 30 days again
- (But gotta mention new supplier)
- Indeedy Section "D" (Please sample Ben Stein for this line. Only)
- If they say that thirty down
- is crushing you in town
- Comptroller comptroller comptroller.
- Proof of spirits - put writing
- don't get lawyers - no fighting!
- Circumstances warrant - potato fluid not for lighting!
- "Eeeeeee!" (fade to...)
- ...affected by the procedure set forth in this regulation
- which is in the outgoing wholesaler's inventory on vacation.
- On or before the conclusion of this notice period
- shall be purchased and paid for by the supplier or incoming wholesaler
- at the laid-in cost of the out-going wholesaler
- before the in-coming wholesaler is allowed to distribute the product
- in the Maryland market.
- (deep breath)
- If a supplier, other than the current brand owner or authorized agent,
- acquires a brand and wants to designate a wholesaler other than the existing wholesaler,
- the supplier may not file the brand under Regulation .05 of this chapter,
- until the supplier or incoming wholesaler has purchased the inventory of the outgoing
- wholesaler at the laid-in cost of the outgoing wholesaler.
- "Section F & G" Ignore those rules if they don't apply!
Free Your Cones
MP3
Lyrics: Karlo X / Dean Lenort
Arrangement: jwgh
Album: Needs More Wanger
Dean Lenort suggested that a song sketch Karlo X posted a while ago be fleshed out and made use of. ZIP DRIVE CLICK OF DETH then made a demo recording of it. Here's what Dean had to say about it:
- ;Karlo is the man you really need for this effort as he is Kibology's undisputed
- king of rockenroll. I'm sure you'll agree when you look at the snippets of
- Kibological lyrics that I've included below. The entire post can be found at:
- Message-ID: 8F9FBB5Cktakki@216.206.190.193
- but I've helpfully included the part you'll need to get started on the lyrics.
- ; SINGER: So, I was sitting by the river...
- [...]
- SINGER: ...and there was this lonely orange cone...
- [...]
- SINGER: ...and I wrote these lyrics...
- [...]
- SINGER: [picks up acoustic and starts strumming out-of-tune chords]
- [...]
- SINGER: [singing] ...the cones, the cones, we set them free...
- [...]
- SINGER: [singing] ...let me feed from the durian of your heart...
- ;Of course they need to be fleshed out a bit, but as you can see there's some
- excellent:seed material there. Why these words beg to be set to dueling
- theremins!
The Final Frontier
(MP3)
Lyrics: Casey B
Arrangement: Casey B
(Original Song: A. Courage)
This one's fairly self-explanatory.
Love is the final frontier, a brave and exciting idea; the feeling is indubitably true, though the logic's unclear.
I know love uncovers your soul, of your heart surrenders control; it turns friendships to duels, princes to fools, it can swallow you whole.
So how, in the face of it now, can I cope with my heartbeat in rhythm with yours?
Why, with my logical mind, can I no longer point out its rational flaws?
This must be evidence of a much greater force from above that so compels me to go where I've not gone (before): boldly falling in love, boldly falling in love.