The Malibu Kens recorded legacy (as maintained by group member Scott Juskiw) is featured here.
The Basement Tapes
During the Joey Did era, I made an effort to record many of our practice sessions, and even a few gigs. We never had a proper P.A. system at our band practices to allow us to hear the vocals. At our first practice it occurred to me that we could use a cassette tape deck as a microphone pre-amp. Plugging the deck output into a stereo system, or a guitar amp, allowed us to then hear the vocals. By putting the deck into record mode, I was able to record our practices onto cassette tapes. Following each session, I would then listen to the tapes and make an archival copy of whatever I considered to be an amusing incident or a well played song. I managed to collect almost four hours of material, most of it during the first 12 months of our career. These tapes become known as "the basement tapes" since most of the material had been recorded in Ed's basement or my basement.
In 2002, I revisited these tapes with the intention of converting them to CD before they deteriorated any further (as cassettes do after 20 years). The recording quality varied considerably from one track to another. Several tape decks and numerous borrowed microphones had been used to create the original recordings. We never used proper recording equipment such as compressors or equalizers; everything was recorded directly from microphone to stereo tape. Tape dropouts were rampant. I used various tools to clean up the sound as well as possible during the conversion to CD. I used the same titles for the CDs as was used on the original tapes. I had never made artwork for the tapes, but I managed to scrounge up a few embarrassing pictures of the band members from 1980/1981 to use as artwork for the CDs and released them under the name Joey Did & The Necrophiliacs.
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This disc covers the period from January 1980 to May 1980 and includes numerous "firsts" for Joey Did: the first sounds we ever made from room 266 1/2, the first band practice, the first song, the first gig, and the first demo tape. Along the way there are numerous spoofs and improvised performances.
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This disc covers the period from June 1980 to August 1980. This era was known as "drive-in summer" for us because we went to see Rock 'n' Roll High School (with the Ramones) twice a week at the drive-in all summer long. There seemed to be a hall party or house party almost every weekend and we managed to play at most of them. We wrote many songs during this summer, we practiced a lot, we got much better on our instruments, and we had tremendous fun in doing so. This was the best of times for us.
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This disc covers the period from September 1980 to November 1980. This was a dismal period for us. Gigs were becoming sparse, senseless bickering was increasing, Mike quit for a few weeks, Dennis was considering quitting, and we were beginning to get too serious about the band. It didn't seem like we were doing it for fun anymore. Sadly, the best material on this disc are the outtakes from the Devil In The Dark episode of Star Trek.
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This disc covers the period from December 1980 to June 1981 although most of the material is from the first three months. During this era we continued to get too serious about the band, even changing our name to Malibu Kens and releasing a record under that name. But we were still Joey Did, still only a joke band.
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Live Recordings
I made numerous live recordings of both Joey Did and the Malibu Kens over their careers. Few of these recordings survived because they were very bad and I usually erased them after one or two listens. However, they were useful in demonstrating just how awful we were and where we needed to clean up our act. For unknown reasons, the following recordings have survived.
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A live recording of Joey Did & The Necrophiliacs at Bon Accord Community Hall on August 8, 1980. Mike wanted to organize a hall party where Joey Did and The Diefenbakers would both perform. Unfortunately, the only venue he could afford was in Bon Accord, twenty miles north of Edmonton. Very few people bothered to make the drive out there to see two new "up and coming" bands on a Friday night. Not including the band members and Bob Drysdale (who supplied the P.A. system), there were probably only about a dozen people in the audience.
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Mike organized a hall party at Spartan's Men's Club in May of 1981. Dubbed the Wine & Cheese Social, it was a follow up to his largely successful Teen Dance held at the same venue a month earlier. (The Teen Dance was the first hall party featuring punk rock music ever held at Spartan's). The Wine & Cheese Social was not nearly as successful; attendance was poor. Some people complained that the same bands were playing every weekend, and that was largely true. Blank Generation opened with one set that seemed to go on for several days. The Urban Surfers followed with two short sets, while the Malibu Kens ended the evening with two half hour sets.
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The Putrid Faction
The Malibu Kens played The Calgarian Hotel and Bar (in Calgary) a number of times. Sometimes these stints lasted six evenings and included a New Year's Eve show. I recorded some of these shows with varying levels of success. Sometimes I placed microphones around the bar for that "bootleg" sound. Other times I took a feed off the P.A. system for that "pro" sound (when we were lucky enough to have a P.A. system). This recording features tracks that are mostly from a New Year's Eve show on Dec. 31, 1981 but includes a few tracks from other shows that same week.
This recording is currently in the queue awaiting remastering.
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A collection of radio interviews with the Malibu Kens. Despite not being present at most of the interviews, I was not the original recorder of any of these; they were recorded by other people and I simply made a copy of them. The quality of the recordings was quite terrible. I did what I could to clean up the sound as best as possible and I made the final mixes to mono since there was no stereo separation at all on any of them. Wherever possible I removed any playback of Malibu Kens' songs from the interviews because the sound quality was always extremely poor suffering from bad distortion or pitched up a semi-tone (which made Mike sound like he was on helium). If you want to hear the songs, listen to the Malibu Kens demo tapes (Girls Dig Me, Your Face My Ass, Mock Chicken); the quality is much better.
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Demo Tapes
All demo tapes were recorded with 4-track reel-to-reel recording equipment (and little else) in somebody's basement. Prior basement recordings were all done "live" in that there was no overdubbing of instruments or vocals. Demo tapes, on the other hand, were recorded using multiple passes to layer instruments and vocals over the available tracks and then mixing those tracks down to a stereo (or mono) cassette master. Demo tapes were used to promote the band on radio stations or to get gigs but they were never released on vinyl.
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Girls Dig Me is the Malibu Kens first demo tape, recorded in July 1981. Eager to rid ourselves of the Be My Barbie single and its punk rock sound, we sought to make a new recording as quickly as possible that we could use to promote the band. All tracks were recorded in one ten hour session. We borrowed a Teac 4-track reel-to-reel, mixing board, and some microphones to make the recording. We set up our equipment in Jim's basement and got Myron Nebozuk to operate the recorder and mixer while we played. Drums, bass, and guitar were recorded in one pass (in stereo) for all songs. We then used the remaining two tracks to record vocals, additional guitars and percussion. Each of the four tracks had multiple instruments recorded on them which meant we had to get the balance correct at the recording stage. This was especially difficult to achieve since we lacked essential equipment such as compressors, limiters and proper microphone preamps. The final mix required a lot of manual level adjustments (riding the faders), particularly for the vocal tracks. Mixing was accomplished the following day, in another lengthy session, and resulted in a cassette master containing 12 tracks of mayhem. Tracks that we were very proud of at the time but would come to hate before too long.
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The seven tracks on this disc comprise the Malibu Kens second demo tape, Your Face My Ass, recorded in October 1981. We quickly grew tired of our previous effort and sought to come up with a new recording that better reflected our intent to be less punk rock and more garage rock. Once again we borrowed Myron Nebozuk's Teac 4-track reel-to-reel, a mixing board and some microphones to make the recording. We set up our equipment in Ed's basement and handled the recording ourselves this time. We recorded drums, bass and guitar for all songs in one pass, bounced those down to a mono mix, then used the three remaining tracks to add vocals and additional guitars. We still did not have compressors, limiters, or proper microphone preamps and had to do a lot of manual level adjustments (riding the faders) while recording, particularly for the vocal tracks. Recording was done in one day and mixing was done on the following day to a cassette master.
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Mock Chicken is the Malibu Kens third (and final) demo tape. Mock Chicken took months to record and was never completed, nor could it be, since it was a running document of all of our original work. Rather than being simply an archive of finished songs, Mock Chicken was an opportunity for us to develop our rough ideas into completed songs. We had many songs in development that we didn't know how to complete. By recording them to tape we were able to work out different vocal melodies, lyrics, guitar leads, background vocals, and instrumentation. The drum and bass tracks for several dozen songs were all recorded in one day. Mike and I then spent the next few months painstakingly developing these drum and bass tracks into completed songs. We recorded almost every weekend at my house trying out different instrumentation, lyrics, and melodies. Some songs were easy to record, some were very difficult, and some we just couldn't figure out what to do with and they were never completed.
This recording is currently in the process of being remastered.
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Rock Snot
Rock Snot was recorded during the first 6 months of 1982 when the Malibu Kens were on hiatus due to Mike relocating to Calgary. The initial impetus was to create "studio quality" recordings of the Joey Did era songs that the Malibu Kens no longer performed. Initially there were only about 15 songs that were slated to be recorded but with no songwriting happening on the Malibu Kens front, Ed and I used this as an opportunity to write a few dozen new songs without any constraints regarding musical style or acceptability. Eventually, we wound up with a 40-track 90-minute opus featuring a mashup of punk, pop, and experimental songs that would eclipse anything that Joey Did or the Malibu Kens had accomplished to date. A few dozen cassette copies of Rock Snot were made and sold (at cost) under the name Joey Did & The Necrophiliacs since the music did not fit with the direction the Malibu Kens were undertaking. It turned out to be surprisingly popular. I believe this remains the most popular recording that I've ever been associated with.
This recording is currently in the queue awaiting remastering.
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Vinyl Releases (and non-releases)
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Be My Barbie includes the songs Crude City and Wednesday Morning and was the first time the Malibu Kens appeared on vinyl. It was all Dennis' fault. The Modern Minds had released an EP, and the Rock 'n' Roll Bitches were about to release their EP. Dennis wanted to be the next band to release something on vinyl and managed to convince the rest of us. Created at Homestead Recorders in March 1981, only 150 copies of Be My Barbie were sold during the following summer months before the record was abandoned by the group.
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West Watch was supposed to be the first Edmonton compilation album. Unfortunately, the album was never released. The Malibu Kens recorded Physical Poison for West Watch.
I don't have a copy of this recording. If you have one, contact me.
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Following the failure of West Watch, Barry Peters came to the rescue with his own Edmonton compilation album: It Came From Inner Space. These sessions were the last time the Malibu Kens ever worked together on a recording and they also mark the only time that Mike ever played guitar on a Malibu Kens studio recording; I had played all the guitar parts on all previous recordings.
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