The Escaped Fetal Pigs - "You Can Buy A Piece Of The Wall"

The Pigs were fortunate that we were operational during an eventful time since we drew many of our songs from current events. As the band progressed, the humor aspect was lessened, and we started doing some more serious songs. This was one of them, a ballad Mark wrote about the crass commercialism that ensued upon the fall of The Berlin Wall. I didn't do much on this song, except sing backup vocals, but occasionally we'd do an alternate version of the song featuring some verses about The Vietnam War Memorial that I wrote after visiting Washington D.C. for a peace rally in 1991. The video has some good shots of Mark's Flying V guitar, which I always dug. I also dig the audience slow dancing to the song. Odd, since it was not a love song, but by this point in the night, most people were drunk, so why not slow dance to a piece of political commentary? The band is a quartet; Jim, our bass player, is just hidden behind some speakers on the right side of the video. At this point, I think the camera person is drunk or tired, explaining probably why no effort was made to catch Jim in the shot for an entire song.

The Escaped Fetal Pigs - "Crustacean Crush"

This is another song from the final gig of The Pigs. By this point in the show, we were sweating so much, we just went shirtless. This song was a favorite of our sister band, The Copulating Crabs, two of whom, Crissy and Kirsten, helped us out with the song. Mark wrote the song, a tale of freak show summer romance. I mainly just sang backup on it. Towards the end, I try to get Mark to do his Bob Dylan impersonation for the final verse, but he wisely didn't take the bait.

The Escaped Fetal Pigs - "Candle"

Yes, it's yet another Escaped Fetal Pigs video! The Pigs apparently were well-documented where VHS is concerned. I probably still have some more Pigs videos in my dwindling pile of videocassettes that I am disposing of. This tape documents the final show of the band, which happened in the spring of 1992. It was an official farewell show. I found a few tracks on the tape worth sharing, which I'll post over the next few weeks. We went out on a high note. The Pigs played our last show at Howard's Club H, which was significant because that was the club that a few years earlier wouldn't let the many great original bands in town play there. At that time, 1988 or so, the venue preferred to present cover bands that played blues or boogie rock. One of the bands in town, The Exchange, even titled one of their cassette albums Why Can't The Exchange Play Here? Well, fortunately, post-Nirvana, things had changed by 1992, and the venue was more open to original acts, so we were able to play there. This was great because our home club, Good Tymes Pub, had undergone a change in management, and we didn't like playing there anymore. It was nice to play the big club in town instead for our final show. It let us know that we had made it to the top of the heap, such as the heap was in a college town rock scene anyway. We were also likely helped quite considerably by the fact that Jim, our bass player, was working at the club. Still, times had changed where local original music was concerned, which was great. We had decided to end the band because two or three of us were graduating that spring, and the band would have been too difficult to continue with us spread all over the country. We felt it better to give the band an official bit of closure rather than just let the project drift to nothingness. I wrote this song; it was one of my earliest compositions. It was based on a newspaper article I read about a husband whose wife had Alzheimer's, and he performed a mercy killing before she got any worse. Pogeybait, a fellow local band, liked the music, so they used it for one of their songs, which I was happy about, though I was confused why they didn't just use the lyrics as well. Maybe they found them a little melodramatic, but given the subject matter, it is hard for them to be anything else. We still had fun with the number, despite its heavy subject. At the beginning of the song, Simon, our drummer, liked to run laps before he had to come in on drums. He certainly had a challenge at this show with the number of drunk obstacles he had to deal with. I was apparently pretty broke during college because it looks like I'm literally wearing rags here. I really like when Mark, our guitarist, wanders into the audience. We always had a lot of audience interaction and fun during our shows.

New Song: "Flea Market Intellectual"

You can get a pretty good education on the cheap buying the good stuff that comes your way used or free, but you'd probably still be better off with a library card. The lyrics are below.  It's the same deal as always.  If you like a song, then feel free to cover it if you're in a band or whatnot.  I love to hear covers of my songs, so please let me know about your version.  If you start making money, then send me a check/we can work out a deal.  Similarly, if you want to use a song for your Youtube video or whatnot, then just let me know.  It's usually fine by me unless it's a commercial product or whatnot (and then it's likely fine as well--I just want my cut).  Find out first though.  Write me at wredfright ATATAT yahoo DOTT com.

I just bought a book by Camus for a quarter!
So now I know the meaning of life, well, sorta!
I don't need no fancy school.
When I see something cheap, I buy it if it's cool.

I'm a flea market intellectual!

Some say I would be better off with a library card.
But there are so many books, picking one is just too hard.
So I prefer to see what the universe sends my way.
If there's some gaps in my knowledge, like economics, then that's OK.

I'm always reading a book, and sometimes two or three.
But I'm always ready for more, especially if they're free.
Soon I will have more books than I can read,
But I will never have as many books as I need.

Written July 2019
Recorded July 2019