Glory To The Blanks

Ok, flashback...

So, it's 1992 and my buddy Kevin Paetzel, (a fellow Pixies, They Might Be Giants music freak and an amazingly talented copywriter currently working at the Richards Group in Dallas), so Kevin turns me on to this wicked awesome little album called Sweet Love by The Blanks from Houston, featuring Kevin's brother Karl, or Kar as he's know in context with the band. It was actually a cassette tape, not an album.

Sweet Love was produced, written, and performed by The Blanks, recorded at Drum Room Studios, Houston, Texas and Red Oak Studios, Austin, Texas and then mixed at Red Oak Studios, Austin, Texas.

My favorite/lucky numbers are 61 and 9 so I especially dig the fact that the album was finished on the 9th day of the 9th month of 1990.

Long story short, I fall in love with Sweet Love, and fall head over heels with the infectious and incredibly perfect song Sweet Sally! Sweet Sally, features both Kar and the sexy guest vocals of the mysterious Miss Red Sugar and has been stuck in my head for the last 17 years!

So, after sharing my love for Sweet Sally with Kevin who then told his brother Karl about it I was super stoked when Karl asked me if I wanted to contribute my version of Sweet Sally to a tribute album called Glory To The Blanks!

Sweet! Since my first listen I'd been trying to learn the song on my acoustic doing both the male and female vocals and so yeah, I'd love to try and record it!

So Karl comes in from Houston one weekend back in 1995 and we set up his 4 track recorder in my little tree house apartment on Thelma in Olmos Park and after a few beers and about an hour or so of recording we finished my contribution to Glory To the Blanks! This was before I came up with the name Tiki Bongo and so it's under the name Area 51 on the lp.

Anyway - I still totally dig the original Sweet Sally even more now and just this morning Karl sent me the long lost version of my take of Sweet Sally and so here it is in all it's lo-fi glory complete with whistling! I've also posted the priceless original Blanks version so you too can experience the magic of Sweet Sally! Enjoy!

The Blanks: Sweet Sally
Area 51: Sweet Sally

Thanks again to Kevin for sharing and Karl for including me!



Glory to: The Blanks!

Make It Louder!

Migwell