Other stuff
THE MANY MUSICAL NOSES OF JOHNNY WEST (1999)
subtitled “an introduction” to my music, this was just recently rediscovered (the case, anyway) after i had forgotten about its existence for years. compiled on 9/10/99, it was an attempt to cobble together some of my more accessible moments for my grandfather. it’s an interesting mix…half of the songs come from the just-completed LIVE AT THE NAKED GIRAFFE THEATER, there are a few tracks from DON’T TALK LIKE A BABY, one PG track, two starving artists tracks, and one of the old out-takes i wish i had the most shows up here (amen). sadly the cd itself is missing. “thirteen lesbian giraffes” is re-titled montenegro here so as to avoid wiener solstice.
JOHNNY WEST & FRIENDS (1999)
home to some interesting rarities, most notably the YOU’RE A NATION out-take 19 to go (which was way too normal and mediocre to end up on the album, even though it’s still pretty silly) and my own faux-religious amen, complete with some catchy faux-trumpet vocal scatting and a rendition of “happy birthday” in french. there’s also another amusing naked larry interview (with the spotlight on YOU’RE A NATION and papa ghostface this time), the completely insane oinky with me doing some flanger-enhanced singing that sounds like a pig squealing while high on acid, and my overhaul of jesse’s wade thrown in for good measure. sadly, i lent this cd to master topliffe himself way back in the summer of 2002, and have yet to see its return. in other words, it’s gone forever. there is no dog.
FUZZY SHRAPNEL VOLUME 1 (2000)
basically a re-mastering of DON’T TALK LIKE A BABY, this is missing about half of the songs from that album. there’s also a nice remix of the starving artists track time ticking away, a “beefy mix” of horsemouth [part 1] with a real bass and some unhinged sped-up guitar from me, and trading places, an out-take from the DON ‘T TALK LIKE A BABY sessions that probably should have ended up on the album proper. i’m throwing it on the big out-takes collection i’m working on because i think it deserves to be in a place where a few people might actually hear it. this cd doesn’t really serve much of a purpose now that i’ve dumped the re-mastered tracks onto the album proper. the idea was for there to be subsequent volumes as i remixed other albums i had backed up, but i never got around to doing that.
SALE OF A DEAD MAN [single] (2000)
i took advantage of another english class assignment’s open-ended nature and wrote a song that was supposed to come from willy loman’s point of view (we were reading “death of a salesman” at the time). it was kind of a waste of a cd, and i didn’t throw it in with the other CHILDREN HAVE NO EYES tracks because it didn’t seem to fit, but at least the silly harmonies made the class laugh a few times. this one will probably show up on the big forthcoming out-takes collection, complete with a much more in-depth back story (because it is a pretty long and somewhat entertaining story). it promises to be an arousing affair.
LAMEST SHIT (2001)
an apt title. little more than a haphazard collection of some of my more accessible moments that i put together for some guy named denis who supposedly had connections in the music world. i don’t think he ever even listened to the cd. at least there’s an amusing drawing of me in the jacket, with a shaved head and stubble, and i somehow managed to misspell tyson’s last name.
SELECTED ACOUSTIC TRACKS (2002)
simply a compilation of most of the acoustic songs from my first three post-GWD solo cds. i gave this to a few places like milk, lift (before it became phog) and the windsor press club, back when i was looking to play live. no one seemed interested. that was nothing compared to the resistance i was met with in the wake of OH YOU THIS when i really had a hunger to play live. but that’s a story for another time.
there’s also the standalone version of WATER ONLY HATES ITSELF SILLY and some other random stuff, but most of it isn’t really worth mentioning.
