I spoil you, really I do.
Anyway, enough of this pointless preamble, and on with the equally pointless amble. Starting with...
1. Nirvana - D7
You've sunk my battleship! Which is how, of course, Barry Wiper from The Wipers originally came up with the title for the song. The verses articulate his rage at Keith Wiper from The Wipers for cheating by sneaking a look at his board whilst he was in the toilet and then using this illicit intelligence to sink his minesweeper. Which is a euphemism for gay sex.
2. Gravy Train!!!! - You Made Me Gay
This is also a cover of a Wipers song, written by Barry Wiper after Keith Wiper had introduced him to the joys of sinking the minesweeper on that fateful day. They later unofficially married. Its also a really awesome song.
3. Mad Violets - World of LSD (I Wanna Come Back)
Sadly, the "marriage" didn't last, and Barry Wiper took the unusual step of drowning his sorrows in psychoactive hallucinogenic drugs (bloody rock stars, eh? Special Brew not good enough for them, I suppose). Here, the Mad Violets (in their inimitable 60s garage revivalist way) cover his desperate musical plea to Keith Wiper to take him back and free him from his drugs hell, his "World of LSD" and to recommence firing salvos at his aircraft carrier.
4. Human Expression - Calm Me Down (single)
The plea fell on deaf ears. With his customary determination (a determination he also applied to his drugs intake, leading to the earlier "World of LSD"), Barry Wiper tried again and wrote this heartfelt prayer to the love of his life Keith Wiper. So good was it that it prompted the Human Expression to take the unusual step of recording it almost twenty years before it was written in a 60s jangly sunshiney pop fashion. Bless.
5. Ismail Haron & The Guys - Bersedia
The plight of the star cross'd lovers touched the hearts of millions across the globe, including Ismail who, feeling helpless so far away in the Phillipines (and two decades in the past), recorded this in tribute - "Bersedia" being Phillipinesian for "Vaseline". He stole the tune from The Temptations.
6. Elvis Presley - Blue Suede Shoes (That's The Way It Is Concert Version)
This isn't about Barry Wiper and Keith Wiper, obviously. It's Elvis, and Elvis didn't have a time machine (if he did, he'd probably have gone back, made fewer films, fired his manager and gone a bit easier on the deep fried lard pies). It was, however, later covered by Talking Heads and Tanita Tikaram on a tribute album for the anguished pair called "Won't You Come Back and Sink My Minesweeper One More Time, Baby". Their motivation at choosing this particular song is unclear, although Tanita was once heard to say in that lovely, deep, manly voice of hers that "blue is a nice colour, and they seem nice people, uh-huh". She then went to have her chest waxed.
7. The MonoMen -
Barry's descent into drug hell has been well documented. What is less widely reported is that during this tormented period of his life (after discovering the joys of sinking the minesweeper and before whatever I make up later) he took to touring the bath-houses and gay brothels of
8. Melvins - Moon Pie (feat. Kevin Sharp)
This song is over twelve minutes long. It is also less than thirteen minutes long, but that aspect is not as relevant to the point I wish to make. And that point is that it isn't easy making up a load of gibberish regarding Barry Wiper on the spot, prompted by an irreverent off the cuff remark at the end of the first song, you know. It might look easy to be this unrelenting vapid, but let me tell you it ISN'T. Hard bloody work. Thus, the twelve minutes provides me some breathing space - breathing space that I have now wasted a large part of by waffling on about it to you and enjoying having my innards ground out by the Melvins. Moon Pie was, of course, Keith Wiper's favourite dessert and the one eaten at his and Barry Wiper's wedding reception. Rather than using actual moon (that would have been too expensive, even for Barry Wiper), they used the accepted substitute of boiled egg, wrapped in marzipan and dusted liberally with PCP. I didn't make the most of the breathing space, when you think about it.
9. GLC - Roller Disco
Barry Wiper, during his "lost years", liked nothing more than skating round the roller rinks of Murder City, NJ whilst ripped to the tits on LSD and Horse Steroids and wearing little more than a skimpy pair of leatherette hotpants and a wide grin, before desperately scuttling his destroyer with anyone who would take him and experimenting with an assortment of MB Games, such as Guess Who, Connect Four, Ker-Plunk, and Buck-a-roo (which is also a euphemism for gay sex). It was a sad, desperate time.
10. The Rally Packs - Move Out Little Mustang
Barry Wiper knew he had hit rock bottom when he found himself cruising rodeos for horses. He penned this self-reflective ode to his bestiality some years later, which was then covered many decades earlier in a Beach Boys style by these jokers.
11. Lightyears Away (Astral Navigation) - Yesterday
At the height of the sixties psychedelia boom in Britain, this band (with the sort of band name that makes you think you've got it confused with the song title) predicted Barry Wiper's plight by writing a song about the day before. Clever.
12. Man or Astro-Man - Transmissions from Uranus
Barry Wiper's paean to how much he missed sinking the minesweeper with Keith Wiper. Really, with a gift of a song title like that, you should be making up your own entry (hurr, hurr I said "entry").
13. Young Marble Giants - Salad Days
Good friends as they were with the Wiper family, YMG recorded this cryptic and oblique celebration of Keith Wiper and Barry Wiper's joyous reunion as part of their Colossal Youth album. Most cryptic and oblique was the fact that they recorded it a year before the two actually met.
14.
Famously the progenitors of both Mudhoney and Pearl Jam,
15. The Who - Time is Passing
Yes, yes it is. Curiously enough, those were the precise words spoken by Keith Wiper to Barry Wiper when they kissed and made up. Which is the end of it (unless the next song is called something like "Battleships the Game is a Metaphor for Same-sex Loving" by Keith and Barry Wiper. Which is, let's face it, highly unlikely even for me and my rusty spoon music).
16. Keith and Barry Wiper - Battleships the Game is a Metaphor for Same-sex Loving
16. Mudhoney - Revolution
In your FACE, Jason Pierce and The Other One (what the battleship kind of a name is Sonic Boom anyway?). Far too good a song to ruin with waffle of the kind applied to the previous 15 songs (even if it does explicitly reference drug taking and shoving morphine suppository up one's rectum).
17. Pearl Jam - Education
I think sPazTunes belated picked up on the Green River/Progenitor thing and decided to show off it's l33t mixing skillz. Or something. Either way, a thoroughly enjoyable one of Pearl Jam's "Lost Dogs".
18. Wu-Tang - Triumph (feat. Cappadonna)
What up, G. Scary Rap Dudes ahoy! A premium slice, too, with the opening bomb atomically, socrates, lyrical philosophies verse being one of my favourite bits of Wu (as is Meth's verse afterwards). Not many Scary Rap Collectives can sustain your interest over both discs of a double album. Who can? Wu can.
19. Richard Berry - Louie Louie
One of thirty five gillion versions of Louie Louie. The downside, as with all of them, is that its a version of Louie Louie and therefore inherently shit.
20. Love - Can't Explain (stereo)
Bet you can. Stereo is really easy to explain. You're just not trying.
Well there you go. Musical insight and touching human melodrama all in the space of one weighty, moving and emotional post. I spoil you, really I do.
T'ra.
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