Pop-O-Pies were definitely one of the strangest bands ever to fold, spindle, and mutilate rock’n’roll. The San Francisco band spent their first TWO YEARS in existence playing only one song, a 45-minute or so punk take on the Grateful Dead’s “Truckin’.” Pop-O-Pies resident genius Joe “Pie” Callahan explains why: “It was because band members would come and go. And because ‘Truckin’” was the most popular song I had. And I only had time to teach new members one song. I figured the PAs in clubs were so bad no one would notice. But they did notice.”
And you either loved ‘em or hated ‘em. In 1983 the LA Times named them “absolutely the worst band in California,” a patent absurdity given the likes of Toto, Journey, Jefferson Starship, and other such swill then residing in The Golden State. And the Trouser Press damned the Pop-O-Pie’s 1981 debut, “The White EP,” saying it “ceases to be funny after one or two spins.” (Geesh. I’ve listened to it hundreds of times, and I still find it funny. But then I’m dim.)
Meanwhile both Jerry Garcia and Kurt Cobain loved them, and picky critic Robert Christgau—who dubbed them “New Wave’s first Grateful Dead cover band (Minor Threat don’t count, they’re not new wave)”—gave “The White EP” an A-. Me, I’m in the love tent, because their punk cover of “Truckin’” on “The White EP”—which also includes a “rap” version—is pure genius and funny as hell, as are their takes on the Dead’s “Sugar Magnolia” and The Fab Four’s “I Am the Walrus.”
I’m not quite as enamored with any of the Pop-O-Pies’ originals—although they have their charms—so I guess what I’m really telling you is I’m in love with a cover band that covered exactly three songs. But hey, love is blind, blind as a shit-faced and blindfolded Helen Keller, and just like there are sickos out there with the hots for Anthony and the Johnsons, I happen to be in love with the absolute worst band in California.
Formed by the classically trained Callahan, the Pop-O-Pies featured a constantly changing cast of characters, several of whom (including, briefly, Joe himself) ended up in Faith No More. But I don’t give a shit about Faith No More, I care about the Pop-O-Pies, because like I say they were funny, and what’s more were every bit as dedicated as DC’s No Trend and fellow SF droners Flipper to the proposition that the point of playing live was to annoy, agitate, and alienate every single person in the audience.
In all the Pop-O-Pies put out two LPs—that is if you count 2009’s Joe’s Greatest Disasters 1983-2009, which I guess you should—and two EPs, as well as a compilation album (2003’s Pop-O-Anthology 1984-1993) and a couple of singles. Not a significant body of work, I grant you, but brevity is the soul of wit, as somebody (a premature ejaculator, no doubt) once said.
And brevity is the reason I chose to review “The White EP,” rather than Pop-O-Anthology, which simply has too many damn songs on it. “The White EP” is a nice little six-shooter of a record, and while the history on it is sketchy—I’ve seen its release dated listed as both 1981 and 1982 in multiple places—the band included Joe Pop-O-Pie on vocals, Mark Bowen (aka Casper) on guitar, Ben Cohen (aka Bongo Chang) on drums, and Jeff Ruzich on that four-stringed instrument whose player never gets any respect, unless he happens to be named John Entwistle.
“Truckin’” is the highlight of “The White EP,” and is every bit as brilliant as The Dictators’ take on “I Got You Babe” and Michael Gerald’s Party Machine’s sublime cover of “Age of Aquarius.” “Truckin’” opens with 20 seconds of the Grateful Dead’s original recording, then somebody puts their finger on the record and slows it to a garble. At which point the band breaks into a rockabilly gait, and Joe Pop-O-Pie speed sings, stutters, and repeats himself, as in “Truckin’/Like a do do do do New York/Too close to New New New Jersey.” He sings, “Sometimes the sun’s all shining on me/Other times it’s raining out/Other times I can barely see/Why it makes me/Want to scream and shout—on CO-CAINE!”
“Truckin’” stops and starts, somebody says “Dallas,” which Callahan follows with, “Got a soft drink machine/Houston, too close to New New New New Jersey/Got the corn and beans/Just won’t let you be.” Then the band sings, “Home” and “Truckin’” stops on a blackened buffalo nickel, or Jerry Garcia’s famous missing half-finger, which he lost in a bet with The Captain of The Captain and Tenille, a degenerate gambler and vicious bastard if ever there was one.
I should add here—or somewhere—that the Pop’O’Pies do yet a third rendition of “Truckin’,” the so-called “Slow Version” on 1984’s Joe’s Second Record. And I’ll be honest—I prefer it to the version on “The White EP,” because it features lots of great feedback guitar, the same weird repetitions by Callahan, and some different ad libs that are also pretty darn funny. But all the Pop-O-Pies’ versions are great in their own way, and I kinda think they should have gone whole hog and released an LP with 10 different versions of “Truckin’” on it. I might be the only person in the world who owned it, but boy would I treasure it.
“The Catholics Are Attacking” is a slow reggae number, featuring Callahan going “Oh oh oh oh oh oh oh uh oh” followed by the band singing, “The Catholics are attacking.” I like the melody, but the lyrics—the best of which are, “The Catholics eating hearty/They’re eating Shake and Bake/But at the Nazi party/They eat ice cream and cake”—aren’t as funny as they could be, sounding as they do like every other punk and hardcore band in the world’s typical rant against the powers that be. I mean, the Pope scares me too, as does his weird car, but if a diatribe ain’t funny, I might as well be listening to Minor Threat. What I do like about the song, in addition to the melody, is the instrumental passage that features one cool guitar solo, some very dissonant piano plinking, and what sounds like a bullwhip but probably isn’t, seeing as how bullwhips are typically found only in cool S&M dungeons, and not in recording studios.
“Anna Ripped-Me-Off” is a 51-second Larry David “eh” of a song, with no real redeeming virtues other than it’s fast and includes a maybe six-second guitar solo that is really twisted that I like. It opens with Callahan’s ubiquitous “1-2-3-4!“, and the lines “Anna ripped me off/So stop it” get repeated a lot. Joe again shouts “1-2-3-4!” in the middle of the song for no apparent reason, and he finally says, “And Anna?/You really suck/1-2-3-4!” If nothing else, Callahan must hold the world’s record for shouting “1-2-3-4!” three times in less than a minute, but “Anna Ripped-Me-Off” is a nonentity of a song on an album whose other tunes at least take a stab at being unique.
“Timothy Leary Lives” is great not because it’s particularly funny; Callahan seemed to resent Leary for working for the CIA (untrue, as far as I know) and for making his living on the lecture circuit, and his lyrics are infused with Jello Biafra bile. That said it boasts a few good lines, such as “He really liked his LSD/He really thought it was great/He dumped a bunch in the water supply/And left the rest to fate.” No, the reasons I love “Timothy Leary Lives” are two-fold: (1) it has a good beat and you can dance to it, and (2) Callahan, instead of including a real guitar solo, simply imitates one with his mouth, and it’s hilarious. It must have been done before, but I can’t think of when or where, and Joe deserves big bonanza bonus points for this groundbreaking bit of sublime stupid.
“Truckin’ (Rap)” has really grown on me over the years, although the Beastie Boys the Pop-O-Pies ain’t. Still, I like the song’s sheer velocity, its guitar riffs that sound like trains and real trains that sound like guitar riffs, its female backup vocalists, and its cool keyboard solo, not to mention its funky bass. Callahan doesn’t mess with the lyrics as much as he does on the band’s other versions, and it’s not as funny, although he does some ad libbing, such as, “Travelin’/No point in stickin’/Visit the Colonel/And buy some chicken.” Callahan name-drops Soft Machine and J.R. of TV’s Dallas, and grows increasingly demented towards the end, speed-rapping repeated phrases such as “Too close to New York/Too close to New York/Too close to New York” and “You gotta take some take some take some take some take some” before finally falling into baby talk and gibberish (“Gaa goo and gaa gaa gaa/Wooba da ba dee/And blah blah blah”). Life on the road will do that to you, and I definitely recommend “Truckin’ (Rap)” for long car trips (or acid trips), especially to New Jersey.
I dig “Fascists Eat Donuts” because it boasts a great buzz-saw guitar that plays the same riff for the opening minute plus, before Callahan shouts “1-2-3-4!” and the band repeats the song’s two lines, “Make those donuts with extra grease/This batch is for the chief of police.” Then back comes the buzz-saw guitar, and the damn thing could fell an entire forest of trees in the time it goes on. Unfortunately the song ultimately slows, the drummer throws in the occasional cymbal just to justify the expense of buying them, and Callahan shouts “1-2-3-4!” again. At which point the band repeats the two lines of lyrics, only slower. Then the song stops dead. The Melvins performed an unrecognizable cover of “Fascists Eat Donuts” live just this year, so it obviously lives on in the hearts and minds of Pop-O-Pies’ fans, who may dwell in secrecy but are Legion.
The Pop-O-Pies may not have made much of a dent in the music world, but they were bizarre and funny and I will never fail to laugh at the way they close their cover of “I Am The Walrus” with a chant of “Smoke pot/Smoke pot/Everybody smoke pot.” Or their blaring “Sugar Magnolia” with its lines, “I threw my baby into the river/And she never came back for air.” The Pop-O-Pies were true musical aboriginals, and on their version of “Sugar Magnolia” off Joe’s Greatest Disasters 1983-2009 Joe proudly shouts “Same three chords!” Because that’s the kind of band they were. Crack musicianship didn’t interest them. Cracking wise did. And those are the kinds of bands I love.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
B
