“And I find it kind of funny, I find it kind of sad, The dreams in which I’m dying are the best I’ve ever had”:

Welcome to our 17th album. Another, yet again compilation. 63 tracks & an unintentional, but very welcome, 69 minutes. A tough feat but this may be our most eclectic yet. I was emboldened to finally throw this together after seeing what is now the cover art by Brendito, one of my favorite pals/creators. She said she would only allow Portland’s Worst Band to use her work and not to be too cocky, but fortunately we fit that bill.

This visual-less direct-to-dvd TV movie, a sequel to our 2019 barf-fart fest, was influenced by Clockwork O. by A. Burgess, crying, Dylan, blunders and cock-ups (yours not mine), Jazz, Laurence Sterne, Lucy Maud Montgomery, Monty Python, Studio Ghibli, and synthesizers (when they were in their prime). A once again unconscious attempt, at times, to channel the lo-fi sounds of The Vaselines. Like our previous effart (not effort) we’ve continued with the soundbites, sandwiched like soggy lettuce, in between each song, an ode to the great, long forgotten mix-tape. This time we start these bites from shortest to longest, as well as adding some other, somewhat unnecessary, probably unnoticeable, song-list patterns in there.

After doing mushrooms for the first time in years, I sprawled out on my kid’s trampoline alone on a surprisingly warm NW fall day and sucked on frozen mangos and then Peanut M&M’s, one at a time, while I listened to Frank and the Catholics on shuffle. As it was probably the highest my endorphins had been in years my thoughts turned deep. I thought of how, besides what I already had in life, this was the only other thing I wanted: easy, affordable and legal access to psychedelics, and the wage to not only afford an occasional day off to partake, but also a wage that would allow me to not stress and overeat to the point where I could just get high and gulp candy on occasion. The world physically and mentally seemed so backward, and I just wanted to distribute my medicine to every naysayer that had never tried it. Thus everything felt like a scam to keep me from my wonderful day of “candy,” which is possibly the most hippie-ish inkling I’ve ever felt.

This might be the most accurate time capsule of any album I’ve ever worked on in the last two decades, and maybe not coincidentally the closest I’ve arrived living in the moment. Clips of podcasts, movies and audiobooks are just a little sample of what occurs in my free time. This also might be the most productive I’ve been, recording wise, and in such a small amount of time, as most of this was recorded in the span of 8 months last year, right after our last album was thrust onto the web, and despite not rehearsing for about 3 months of that time.

The last year might’ve been the best year for the band so far (we won music video awards somehow, had one of our songs used as a theme song to a great podcast, and got a great new member) but somehow for the first time in almost two decades, I consider hanging it up. It took everything in me (including things in my digestive tract) not to evacuate.

The same as how last year felt, this album is very manic. The gloomiest songs we’ve ever made and yet some of the silliest. Some of the most overproduced and some of the most under-produced. My bandmates being the fun ones this time around, and me being the bummer, not too different from real life, as of recently. I don’t generally play weepy songs, but I have a lot lately, even when I didn’t feel sad. Mentally I was getting more relaxed since 2017, which allowed for more play time, and me being able to afford a little bit better technology helped as well, but as the end of 2019 came along I quickly became dismal because of work, making the year overall some of the best and worst moments I’ve had in about five years. The album, for better or worse, is sometimes what the cycle of life feels like to me. It starts off with a sad song, has mostly fun songs in between and ends right back with a sad song.

That last sad song, This Guitar is For Sale, was one that I listened to on repeat as I was coming off of those same aforementioned mushrooms, and it really hit home, as they say. I attempted to record it but you could tell that I had to pause in between parts to scroll up on my phone to read the tabs, not to mention by the end I’m actually gently weeping on my guitar. I was planning on trashing that version and doing the song justice but opted to keep the pathetic happenings in there, if nothing more than for a piece of molly BANG history.

On a lighter note, as they say, I put the track about “Third Eyes” because I confused it with “One-Eyed Bandit,” an obvious phallic reference, so I was planning to cut the track last minute as it wasn’t about weiners but when I looked it up it apparently meant “bumhole, it cries solid brown tears.” So for the chance to quote that alone, I kept it.

This time around we include covers by folks like Tears for Fears, Magnetic Fields, Horace Silver, Stephen Trask, Willie Nelson, Walter Vinson, Shel Silverstein and some other band I’ve never heard of. The Stephin Merritt song I constantly had stuck in my head and since, in my opinion, he is one of the best songwriters in the last 20 years I felt obligated to record it. Song wise, it’s my favorite on there. The Hedwig song was chosen as that’s basically the last great musical that I’ve heard (although I was more into the They Might Be Giants version), and the John Prine song was chosen as last year, for me, was the year of exploring his entire catalogue (listened to him more than anyone else, it was a “JP year”) and I found that not only was it worth it, but that to me he is one of the top ten best songwriters of all time, easily in the same category as Bob D. or Black Francis.

We once again had two wonderful guests/honorary band members on here as well, Patrick Luckett and his band 87 and Paul H. Daug of Leftover Hot Dogs, adding even more toppings to this spectacular muck. To close, this album is dedicated to the irreplaceable Andre Williams, Kim Shattuck, David Berman, Roky Erickson, Clydie King, Daniel Johnston, Lorna Doom, Ginger Baker and Dick Dale, who all kicked the bucket in 2019. File under Candy Rock. This is rated PG-13, or almost R?

Sincerely, joe FITZ

PS. If you find the track title that pays homage to my favorite band, the Pixies, then I owe you a drink, no I take that back, you owe me a drink…

“This guitar is for sale, I'll let her go cheap
She's pretty to look at but she don't earn her keep
She can roar like the west wind, she can weep, she can wail
But the tunes that she plays just ain't sellin' today
This guitar is for sale.

“She's won me some ladies with her sweet lovin' songs
And she's stuck right here with me when the ladies were gone
And the ladies are gone
But hard times and trouble been doggin' our tail
So if you got the dough buddy take her and go
This guitar is for sale…”

-Shel Silverstein, This Guitar is For Sale