Creature From the Deep

I bought an old box of Fruit Brute on eBay last week and it had one of those paper records attached to it. The song was so rad, I had to digitize it to share with MeFi.

Okay, so the truth is that I was late to work on Friday because I came up with this in the shower and couldn't go to work until I sketched it out. I hope that it makes you do the Monster Mash.

(Get Flash to see the track player.)
posted by uncleozzy (12 comments total)

Very cool piece of found music.. but I'm not sure this is suitable for posting to MeFi since you have nothing to do with it.. It's awesomely like something you'd find on the WFMU blog though..
posted by mediocre at 9:26 PM on October 19, 2008

This is both a trick AND a treat! (Someone forgot to read beneath the fold -- I point and laugh at mediocre!)

Neat little wad of bubblegum -- it totally sounds like it was recorded by an animated Archies-style imaginary band.

Boss beat, daddy-o -- you're the ginchiest!
posted by Karlos the Jackal at 3:47 AM on October 20, 2008 [1 favorite]

Ha, should I consider the mission accomplished, then? I thought about posting it without the [more], but then thought better of it. Probably for the best. Thanks, folks.

To be fair, I was fairly animated when I recorded this. I mean, how do you play that without dancing? You don't.
posted by uncleozzy at 5:52 AM on October 20, 2008

This is fantastic! I'm not surprised that mediocre was fooled, with that AM mix.
posted by umbú at 8:39 PM on October 21, 2008

I completely agree. You got the perfect sound, I would have fall for the story without hesitation. Whenever you post it somewhere else where it wouldn't be erased for not being yours, you should go with the first part of the story. Cool, cool song.
posted by micayetoca at 4:10 PM on October 23, 2008

Ding! Awesome alert!
Love this times a hundred.
I almost swooned at the guitar solo, which was fantastic, even though it started to slightly take the song out of the otherwise perfectly-crafted genre-piece but it didn't matter because the solo was transplendent and I would have gotten away with it if it wasn't for you meddling kids!
posted by chococat at 9:44 PM on October 23, 2008

Man, that mix is apian patellas.
posted by potch at 4:25 PM on October 24, 2008

If life was fair, this song would be playing at the Halloween Dance in every school gym across the land. Some music critic recently wrote that no one ever matched the sensibilities of "Monster Mash". Until now.

Only criticism - all that retro sound has, fittingly, washed out the lyrics in places. Please post the words, and maybe make a cleaner demo for when you shop it around, because shop it you should.
posted by AppleSeed at 6:03 PM on October 26, 2008

Ha! Chococat said it best.
posted by Corduroy at 7:54 PM on October 26, 2008

I've had this stuck in my head the past few days. Very solid, I'd love to hear more like it.
posted by gregoryg at 8:23 PM on October 26, 2008

Glad you guys dig this! And chococat, good thing you like that guitar solo, because it's pretty much the only one I play. I'm not much of a lead player. I must have looped that section a hundred times before I recorded anything.

In case anyone is wondering, the lofi effect is just iZotope's free Vinyl plugin (on the 70s EQ setting, I think). There's also a really nasty, crunchy, pumping compressor on the 2-buss that, even without the distortion and EQ from Vinyl, gives it a really nice feel. Mixing through that plug is really weird. The mix is totally unbalanced if I bypass it: huge, boomy bass and general low-mid mud.

And AppleSeed, I turned the vocals down a little in the final mix because the vinyl sim made them stick out too much and, frankly, it's not a very good vocal performance. But here are the lyrics:

CREATURE FROM THE DEEP

We gassed up the van and waxed down the boards,
packed up a picnic lunch and headed for the shore.
But when we hit the sand, there was no one around.
And up ahead on the dune, you won't believe what we found!

He was eight feet tall with scaly skin,
with a face like a fish and a couple-a fins.
He looked big and mean, and he was covered in slime,
so we beat it to the van in double-time!

[Refrain]
CREATURE FROM THE DEEP... yeah!
He's a CREATURE FROM THE DEEP... yeah!
Just a CREATURE FROM THE DEEP...
and he's going to get you!

When we got back to the van to split the scene,
the motor sputtered and shuddered and shot out a smoke screen.
And when the smoke cleared, who was standing outside
but the CREATURE FROM THE DEEP with a gleam in his eye!

So I locked the door and I turned the key,
but the engine wouldn't turn and he was eyeing me.
He took a step back and he raised his hands,
and to my surprise: he began to dance!

[Refrain, ending in "... and he just wants to dance!"]
[Guitar solo; shameless modulation.]

We opened the doors and turned the radio loud.
Before you knew it, we were dancin' with the hippest crowd.
And the CREATURE FROM THE DEEP was dancin' right along:
he was movin' and groovin' and singin' this song:

[Repeat refrain and fade]
posted by uncleozzy at 5:58 AM on October 27, 2008

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!111!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!%!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hell yea!
posted by snsranch at 5:36 PM on October 27, 2008