Archive release

Happy Thoughts

Kamikaze Refrigerators · 1986 · Vinyl-LP · US · UHT 727-2

Includes lyric insert. ©℗ Insomnaural Music, BMI Recorded at Music Lane, Austin, TX Mastered at K-Disc © No Auditions In March of 1982 I made a trip to Austin to record the Big Boys "Fun Fun Fun" EP. That was when i got my first exposure to the Kamikaze Refrigerators. Tim Kerr played me a tape of one of their live gigs and I immediately thought they were pretty interesting. The next night I saw the band at the old Studio 29 and they became one of my favorite Austin bands. In a subsequent article in Flipslide I described them as ...a real interesting kinda deadpan geek-cum-funk and jangly noise thick eyeglasses type band who don't really make any more or less sense than PIL or Joy Division but what the hell, neither do you..." and found myself listening to their tapes more and more and thinking gee, these guys could probably make a great record! Some months later I acquired some new tapes of the Refrigerators and from one of these came their song "Repetition of Danger" which was placed upon the New Alliance cassette-grown compilation "Mighty Feeble" (NAR 013). In the Spring of 1983 I was back in Austin to do more work with the Big Boys, during which they recorded one of KR's songs "Ambivalence". A week or so later I found myself in the studio with the Refrigerators and we recorded these eight songs. I then attempted to get a number of independent labels interested in putting out a Kamikaze Refrigerators record. But to no avail. Either they were "not interested" or "unable to take on the project at this time" or "the band doesn't fit in with the rest of our product". Later that year the band broke up and went their separate ways. I was left with their tapes and kept listening to them and never stopped liking their music. What exists here was essentially a quick, bare bones demo done on 8-track with some of the overdubs recorded directly onto the 2-track during the mix. As a result of this and the band's demise it was impossible for these songs to be given a glorified remix. The Kamikaze Refrigerators should have had a record and they finally do. Here it is. -SPOT