"Peppermint Girl" is the 9th TA-80 release. It's contained on a compilation album called "God Save the Queers", released overseas by CR Japan in 2007 and in 2008 by Asian Man Records in the U.S. It was partially recorded in the basement studios by Randy Curtis and partially recorded in our bedroom by our own damn selves. The line-up was Amy, Jamin, Jens & Pat.
In 2006, when Joe Queer asked us to contribute a song to the upcoming Queers tribute album, the first song to pop in my head was "Pepermint Girl." I loved the song and it was the only one I could imagine us pulling off. Although, shortly after reording "Peppermint Girl" I finally heard the Queers "Today" e.p. and I remember thinking if I had heard "I Don't Want to Go to the Moon" earlier I would have covered that one instead.
We were really excited to do this. I had been a longtime fan of The Queers and it was a hoot to see our name on a cd along with other band's I had admired growing up like Screeching Weasel and the Dwarves.
As for the final results, I have to say I'm a little mixed. I love the second half of "Peppermint Girl" but not so much the first half. I wish we would've used something other than the "Rugrats" style keyboard sound...but I think the harmonies at the end really pointed the way to where TA-80 were headed. Also the Mellotron at the end? Hell yes! Strawberry Fields forever and ever!!!
This was a good thing to have done. It really got us out there. Every night on tour somebody would come up to us who was a big fan of our cover and we still get album orders from all over the world (Japan, Spain, etc.) Not to mention a later tour we did with the Queers.
Track Listing:
1. Love Me (Dwarves)
2. Danny is a Wimp (Screeching Weasel)
3. Kicked Out of the Webelos (Teengenerate)
4. This Place Sucks (New Bomb Turks)
5. I Don't Wanna Work (Black Tie Bombers)
6. I Like Young Girls (The Nobody's)
7. Goodbye California (Toys That Kill)
8. Boobarella (Beer Bellies)
9. Burger King Queen (Groucho Marxists)
10. Rambo Rat (The Jolts)
11. You're Tripping (The Hard Ons)
12. Monster Zero (Disgusteens)
13. Granola Head (Cletus)
14. Daydreaming (Parasites)
15. Hi Mom It's Me the Front-I Hate Everything (Toothless George)
16. Fuck the World (I'm Hanging Out With You Tonight) (The Unlovables)
17. Teenage Gluesniffer (Le Volume Etait Au Maximum)
18. Too Many Twinkies (Teenage Rehab)
19. I Didn't Get Invited to the Prom/Debra Jean (The Steinways)
20. Peppermint Girl (TA-80)
21. I Only Drink Bud (City Mouse)
22. Stupid Fucking Vegan (The Secretions)
23. Homo (Snot Rockets)
24. I Wanna Be Happy (The Femurs)
By the way, Le Volume Etait Au Maximum's cover of "Teenage Gluesniffer" totally steals the show here. Buy it and find out for yourself! It's available at http://www.amazon.com/God-Save-Queers-Various-Artists/dp/B0010V9086 or
http://interpunk.com/item.cfm?Item=154713& .
I have no idea how many of these were printed, thousands and thousands I'm sure. We've never played "Peppermint Girl" live I don't think but we have played in practice once or twice. A slightly different version of the song is also available on "Atari Du Cirque" avaialbale at http://interpunk.com/item.cfm?Item=68094&.
Hell yes.
- Jamin 80
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We've all had our shaky moments in life. The few months preceding the recording of this song is mine. I had been working at AOL for a few years and I was really happy and comfortable. The band had broken up and gotten back together for what seemed like the hundredth time. I was 22 years old and wondering if I should keep striving for a pretty much impossible dream. I had a total breakdown one night and told Jamin that I was done with the band. The only people up until now that had ever heard us were family and friends and it was starting to look like we weren't ever going to do anything seriously. This disappointed and defeated me and I broke down. Jamin said enough to keep me going for at least another week. In that week, I decided to send a message to Joe Queer and ask him to listen to our music.
I didn't expect anything from it. I figured he wouldn't even respond to me. Much to my surprise, he responded to my retardedly long winded email and said that he'd love to hear some of our music. I sent him a copy of "The City Sleeps With One Eye Open", hoping that his love of Jesus and Mary Chain might win us some sympathy. I also sent him a link to our myspace. A few days later, he responded back saying he had listened to the song and the songs on our myspace and that he loved it. He then mentioned his tribute album and said he'd love for us to do a song on it and that he'd call me once he got off tour. Sure enough, my phone rang early one Sunday morning and when I answered, I heard the thick North-Eastern accent of Joe Queer asking if I was Amy. That conversation led into Joe formally asking TA-80 to record a song for a Queers tribute album he was planning on releasing later that year. I said, "Absolutely" and emailed him within an hour, telling him that we had decided to record "Peppermint Girl." He thought it was perfect and the 15 month journey of recording "Peppermint Girl" began.
We had worked with Randy before on "Think Tomorrow" and "Small Moments". I thought he did an okay job on those songs and felt confident in bringing him on to record "Peppermint Girl". We had Pat 80 playing drums for us at the time. He was a good drummer. I wanted him to work because he was the brother of our old drummer, Matt, but he didn't work at all. We stalled out majorly while Pat was in the band. He didn't want to be in a band. He did a good job with us but it wasn't what he really wanted to do and I think you can hear it in the recording.
The recording of this song was a real eye-opener for us. We demoed the hell out of this song and figured out an extremely complex vocal arrangement for the end. We listened to Joe's version and we were all left feeling that it should've been more. I can hear where Joe wanted to go with it, but based on conversations we've had since then, no one else in the band (at that time) was into doing a big Brian Wilson outtro. We weren't afraid to do it, though. Joe coached us along the way and I constantly sent him demos to make sure that he liked what we were doing. He gave us clear and un-opinionated feedback. Joe is great at telling us exactly what we should hear and not at all what we wanted to hear. I appreciate all the guidance he gave us and could never bring myself to talk shit about him. Despite anything that eventually happened, he helped us so much and I will forever appreciate that.
We recorded this song in some all night sessions with Randy. I remember coming out of the Basement studio at 7 a.m. and watching the zombies wander around downtown Tucson (at the bus station). Creepy shit. It was good fun, though. The recording of this song ended (promptly) with Pat leaving the band and Melissa joining. I wish we could've had Russ on drums for this. I don't mean to slight any former members of TA-80, but the line-up we have right now fully understands and loves this song (the original). It would be amazing if we did it now. Even recording with Randy wasn't great. I still had to take the masters home and add all the vocals onto the ending that you can all hear now. Randy didn't get it. I think he wanted to but he just didn't. Sometimes, we're the only ones who know what's best for us. That's just the way it goes.
- Amy 80
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Wow... "Peppermint Girl" This was cool. Uhhh.. Man, I'm really distracted by the Johnny Carson best-of we're watching right now... Okay, um, let's see, here. We did it at Randy"s Basement Studios which was the first time I got to record in a "real" studio and... Waitasec, Charles Grodin's book and stuff... Yep, and the great Flydini. Uh-huh. It's a good bit, the eggs are funny. Oh, yeah, and the phone, too. Man, I'm really glad we watched this. Yeah, and so we recorded this thing at Joe Queer's request and, damned if'n it didn't do wonders for us. When we went on tour, there were people at the shows that actually knew our shit and that was, no shit, amazing.
I guess, now that they've gotten to the Robin Williams/Bette Midler horseradish, I could prolly mention how the whole studio experience really did teach us a thing or two. Namely, that most studios aren't set up to handle anything like what TA-80 needs when we record, even back then. Fer Christs sake, we went into this with the implicit goal of achieving what Joe hadn't on the original, i.e.: a big crescendo of music and vocals a la Brian Wilson. It had to be big. Huge! And we did it, but we had to do it at home to finish it. Apparently, the "studio" couldn't handle the multi-vocal arrangements that we were recording and we had to beef 'em up with our own, new, set up. And the drums got a treatment, too (this is technically the 'or two' part of what we learned, but it would be inaccurate to say we completely quit compromising on drummers). "P-Ting!!!" The ring. Amy did the punch-ups and they sound great. Pat coulda finished this, but he didn't. His decision, not ours. It ended up sounding pretty good in the final mix anyway, but when we got it back from mastering, it had an inexplicable click in it and the ending had a fat fuckin' fade in the outro (originally, my favorite part of the song). Whatever, it was a cover. I hate doing covers. I'll come around eventually, but when I have to learn a non-TA-80 song, I buck like a spring colt. All in all, though, I do like this track.
Discounting "Small Moments", I think this is the first TA-80 song I was on that was recorded and it sold all over the damn world. Wherever the Queers are a-shuckin' merch, there's a CD with me on it. That's worth whatever shit went down while we were makin it. Plus, we requested (and finally got) the Japanese release of the album for our library, and man, that is pimp.
- Jens 80
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