The Two Felipes - Hot Off the Grill

For the beginning of the new year (and a new decade, according to some on NPR), I bring you the origins of one of the most important bands to my musical upbringing.

Hot Off the Grill was The Two Felipes' first tape, and it's basically a "demo" for what would become Eat Your Fill. It's pretty interesting to hear the orignal versions of these songs in comparison to how they evolved only a few months later.

A must for all Felipes Fanatics!

The images and music were uploaded with Dan Vebber's full consent. Thank you, Dan!

The Two Felipes
Hot Off the Grill CS
(Flaming Cow Productions)
1986

Download Hot Off the Grill as a .zip file!

Sample tracks:

Industrial Strife

Jay's Plan

Fish

More Felipes!!!

The Two Felipes - Rock the Boat

I know I said that the Pyroclastix live tape would be the final entry of the live series for the week, but I have this ready and I feel like giving you a bonus. Think of it as the unwanted sequel to your favorite horror flicks, only way, way cooler.

Quite honestly, I'm not sure if I have the title of the tape right. Ack burned it for me from stuff that vocalist Dan Vebber gave him, and Ack labeled it as Live as the Dickens! In the jumble of Two Felipes scans he sent me, though, there was this tape cover that didn't seem to fit anything else Felipe-related, so I'm using it here. If I'm wrong, sorry - perhaps Dan can correct me.

In any case, this is a vintage live Felipes recording made between Eat Your Fill and Beaker Full of Death, so it's probably from around 1987 (as the tape insert indicates). I think the club was called The Unicorn, which was most likely in Milwaukee, WI. It must have been a soundboard recording because it's pretty clear.

The setlist mostly contains songs from Eat Your Fill, though "Door to Door Shoeshines from Beaker Full of Death is here, as well as covers of "Iron Man" and "La Cucaracha." No, I'm not kidding - download the tape!

The images and music were uploaded with Dan Vebber's full consent. Thank you, Dan!

***UPDATE 6/18/09***UPDATE 6/18/09***

According to Dan Vebber:

"Yeah, "Rock the Boat" was our proposed "next" album that never materialized. (We generally worked backwards, album concept/artwork first, music second, hence the tape cover.) And I think we had actually decided to call it "Hot Glue Gun" by then, so the artwork I did wouldn't have worked.
That Unicorn show was pretty awful. I think there were like, two people in the audience."

So that solves the mystery of the tape cover.

As for the show, there may not be many people in the audience, but it's a damn good document of The Two Felipes during their existence, regardless. Leave a comment and tell us what you think, Felipe Fanatics!

***

The Two Felipes
Rock the Boat CS
(Flaming Cow Productions)
1987

Download Rock the Boat as a .zip file!

Or try out some sample tracks first:

Explosive Enemas

Iron Man

Headache

Evil Robyn

Download more Two Felipes!

The Two Felipes - Beaker Full of Death

Ask, and ye shall receive!

I'm not too sure on my Felipes chronology, but I think this was their third "album." It really shows the band progressing, too. The production is better than previous recordings, the songs are stronger and more experimental (check out the Coltrane/Sanders saxophone duels in "Air Jammer Road Runner" and the "sampling" in "Morning Bloke") and Dan Vebber's lyrics are at their most punk rock. If they had been from anywhere but Milwaukee, this tape would have been noticed, but then I wouldn't be posting it on this blog if anybody knew who they were.

Beaker is also notable for its science fiction themes - precursors to Vebber's work on Futurama - and its tongue-in-cheek politics - staples of Vebber's work on American Dad.

By far, this is the best Two Felipes album!

The images and music were uploaded with Dan Vebber's full consent. Thank you, Dan!

The Two Felipes
Beaker Full of Death CS
(Flaming Cow Productions)
1988

Download Beaker Full of Death as a .zip file!

Or try out some sample tracks first:

Air Jammer Road Rammer

Morning Bloke

Door to Door Shoeshines

Star Trek

Life in Hell

The Two Felipes - Eat Your Fill

(The Two Felipes live in Milwaukee, WI circa 1986)

Considering this is my first music post, I thought I'd upload one of the most influential recordings that ever came into my life.

When I was in my mid-teens, my dad and I used to frequent Aron's Records (RIP) in Hollywood. Actually, frequent is an understatement - it was like a second home. They had a 99-cent tape section that we'd always carouse; my dad would find high quality tapes that he could erase and re-use and I'd look for all the tapes with handmade covers, which were either demos by unknown bands or homemade recordings.

One day, my dad went to Aron's during the week without me (I lived with my mom) and he called me to tell me he found a tape for me. He told me it was really awful, but it had a song called "Explosive Enemas." He gave me the tape and, for whatever reason, I ignored it for a while. Anyway, a few weeks later, I was on the phone with a friend and I mentioned that my dad had given me this tape, and my friend suggested that I put it on. I did and my life was changed forever.


The Two Felipes were vocalist/lyricist Dan Vebber, Steve Marchese on baritone sax, Kris Desch on alto sax, Karl Desch on keyboards and percussionist Jay Tollefsen. The result probably most closely resembles very early Negativland or Residents, but these five Cheese Heads had a sound that was completely their own: screaming sarcastic vocals, bad saxophone playing, cheesy Casio keyboards and metronomic beating on a bucket for drums. If I didn't know any better, I'd say this tape was utter crap, but I do know better, so I recognize the sheer genius of The Two Felipes.

The tape quickly became an obsession. I'd play it for anyone who'd listen, each person becoming as obsessed as I was - everybody wanted a copy of it. (One friend eventually went to Columbia University in NYC and he played it on his lunchtime dorm radio show.) The tape became regular listening in my car when I'd drive to and from school during mid-terms and final exams. I even wrote a fan letter to the address in the tape, but I never got a response. For a long time, The Two Felipes remained a mystery.

(Original lyric sheet.)

My first real job was at a computer chip distribution company. One April Fool's Day, I convinced the receptionist to re-route the hold music, so when incoming callers were placed on hold, they'd listen to The Two Felipes instead of Michael Bolton or whatever the standard hold music was. Oddly enough, nobody said anything about it at all...

Over the years, I'd hear snippets of information about Dan Vebber. A good friend of mine, who worked for Comic Con in San Diego, told me Vebber's number was in the Rolodex, but he wouldn't give it to me for some reason (something about professionalism). I saw Vebber's credit on Futurama and I had no doubt it was the same guy - that sense of humor is unmistakable.

Finally, my friend, Ackronomicon, did some searching and found out that Vebber's wife worked next door to him at NBC. He spoke to her, she spoke to her husband and finally I spoke to the man himself, Dan Vebber. He told me that The Two Felipes were his high school band and that his family had taken a typically mid-western whitebread vacation to Los Angeles in the late '80s. Seeing his chance to promote the band, he brought tapes with him and handed them out on the Boardwalk in Venice Beach. I guess it's one of those tapes that ended up in my hands so many years later.


Dan Vebber edited The Onion for a while. In addition to his work on Futurama, he has written for American Dad!, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Daria. From what I understand, the other Felipes went on to be doctors, lawyers and respectable businessmen.

The Two Felipes story isn't quite over yet, though. There are two other full length studio "albums" and some live recordings as well, so leave some comments and let me know if you want me to post that stuff in the future.

The images and music were uploaded with Dan Vebber's full consent. Thank you, Dan!

The Two Felipes
Eat Your Fill CS
(Flaming Cow Productions)
1986

Download Eat Your Fill as a .zip file!

Or try out some sample tracks first:

Rick the Drunk

Explosive Enemas

You're a Bird

Evil Robyn