This is my old band from the eighties. Started with good friends Cindy Brolsma and Lisa Jenio. They are the core of CP but the whole thing was already kaput when this album was finally finished. I had to leave out some songs for legal and artistic problems (borrowed lyrics and at one point I segue into "Hey Jude" (what was I thinking?). I just wanted to play fancy guitar stuff...and I wrote the music first to all of them. I came up with guitar riffs. But they are outshined by the lyrics which were inspired by what I was reading, which was some extreme non fiction about child abuse, satanism, teen suicide, incest and serial killers. All hot topics in the eighties. I guess The Shaggs were an influence but so was the Skeleton Crew albums and Massacre's first. I was into all this extreme stuff but wanted to play off of the graveness of the subject matter with childlike vocals. Soundclick is like my graveyard of my dead old bands. Dave Sardy is to blame for making the record sound so good. I miss him. I was really into playing guitar then. I didn't think about vocal melodies too much. WARNING--These songs are very intense and assaultive and dense. I would consume them in small portions. Don't try to listen to the whole thing at once. As one 'fan' said to me "Music is spiritual and your music is oppressive." Plus we take sudden turns from brutal horrors to humor. Abusive music about abuse...Whatever. Enjoy (?)
Cindy, Lisa and I started rehearsing in Cindy's bedroom. We went through a lot of players. Martha Atwell was a first on violin and guitar. Doug Seidel played guitar for awhile. Too many drummers to mention. Dave Sardy really made the album sound great. I miss that guy. He was a great CP enthusiast. I can't remember the stories but I bet there are a ton of them. They were great friends and we had a lot of fun even though I was a bit tortured and tempermental.
We did play all over New York City and Hoboken. The good people at the Bitter End hated us--well half of the audience loved us (our friends). There was a guy there who was really spooked by us and thought we were satanists (we weren't). We just like to fuck with people's minds. Another hilarious moment was when the magnificent Kirby (our first drummer ) walked offstage and the rest of the band eventually followed suit...but I kept playing without them. That was at CBGBs. We broke up onstage.
I just wanted to get better at the guitar so I would come up with difficult guitar riffs and build a song around it. Lyrically, I was inspired by the horror of the world I was reading about at the time. Child abuse/child sexual abuse/suicide/eating disorders/serial killers. It was very eighties. I was watching a lot of television and reading a lot of non fiction which was horrifying me. I decided to be horrifying back to a world (humanity) that let me down and disgusted me.
Led Zeppelin was the sell out song. It has nothing to do with the rest of the album. "Arena of Shame" (coined from John Bradshaw) That first song was to get people's attention--to get them to listen. The healthy minded stopped at that song but the sicker ones (my brethren) (the masochists) kept going and listened to the rest of the mess.