Billy & The Boingers - I'm A Boinger / You Stink But I Love You

A free flexi-disc attached to a Bloom County strip-reprint book in 1987.

Encoded at 320kps using the highest quality settings

Recorded from vinyl and cleaned up manually to remove all but the most minor pops/clicks.

Why did I clean it up manually?  Software can't tell the difference between those transients that are in the recording and are supposed to be there and those that came from debris or defects that the needle hit during playback.  I tried many such noise/click/pop removers also called "restoration" and they always took away the snap from lots of things in the recording, especially noticeable with the high-hat and snare drum.  Doing it manually is very meticulous and time consuming but imho well worth it.  If I used some software and it took too much out, you can never put it back.  You want the rest removed?  It's still there, do it yourself if it bothers you that much.  I prefer a few minor glitches to having the recording damaged beyond repair.  Since this is still not available on CD, and until now not at all in any quality worth listening to for download, I hope someone else appreciates this.

The story behind the music:

Billy and the Boingers were a heavy metal band that started out in life as Deathtöngue.  The brainchild of lawyer Steve Dallas (who wrote a majority of the lyrics), the band consisted of lead singer (and tongue player) "Wild" Bill Catt, drummer Hodge-Podge and tuba player Opus Croakus.  They had a failed single with "Demon Drooler from the Sewer", and blew a chance with CBS Records when Clive Davis was not too appreciative of their follow-up, "Let's Run Over Lionel Ritchie with a Tank".  

During the congressional hearings in the 1980s lead by the PMRC, Steve decided an image change was due.  No longer were they Deathtöngue, but instead Billy and the Boingers.  Under this moniker, they released one album, Pimples from Hell, and the single you see before you.  

"I'm a Boinger" was written by Dallas, and features him on guitar.  Most importantly, the song features Bill's tongue prominently, and touches on a number of questions and concerns from late '80s political pop culture.  It was their reintroduction to the world, and did modestly well.  It was the b-side, however, written by Bill, that truly took off.  "U-Stink-But-I-Love-U", powered by Opus's tuba playing, was an instant chart success, and was picked up as a jingle for Wheat Thins.

Sadly, things went downhill after that.  Bill was photographed reading the Bible with a nun, and the scandal led to the Boingers' disbandment.  Bill later became a televangelist, while the rest of the band went back to private life.

[In reality, the flexi came with the book Bloom County Bootleg, which contained the entire series of strips Berke Breathed had written lampooning the glam metal scene.  The strips originally appeared from 1985-1986.  It was announced that a contest would be held to provide a true voice to Billy and the Boingers for a flexi to be included in the book, and the single is in fact two bands.  The Harry Pitts Band on the A-side, Mucky Pup on the flip.  Both songs are great (and, yes, there is tuba on the b-side) and are within the tradition of Bloom County, which is one of the few comic strips from the 1980s that really mattered.  If you can, make sure you get both the book and the single.]