About the songs : Eat Fats Die Young by BULIMIA BANQUET
Jula:
This song was an expose about the McMartin pre school controversy. This pre school in Manhattan Beach California was run by the Mcmartin’s and their grandson, Raymond Buckey. An investigation indicated that possible criminal acts including oral sex, sodomy, and fondling of genitalia were possibly committed under the pretense of “taking a child’s temperature.” Reportedly, there were photos taken of children without their clothes on. There were alleged threats of animal torture and abuse. There were also allegations of satanic rituals being held there, and secret underground tunnels where they would take the kids for orgies and unspeakable acts. The legal battle lasted from 1983-1990 over the apparent molestation of over 300 kids. “What you see is what you are, you’re a naked moviestar!” were the lyrics to a game that the children supposedly played with some of the staff in which they took naked photos of the pre schoolers. The case was eventually dropped for lack of evidence because the children were not the most reliable witnesses. Al’s brother, Garth went to pre school there, and he lent us the McMartin pre school diploma for the back cover of the album.
AL:
Although both my late brother and my friend Father Larry both went there, there was no evidence of wrong doing according to my brother. I do remember running into Raymond Buckey and Miss Virginia when picking up my brother from the Green Store location. While Raymond was a bit creepy, and carried around (according to a friend) a list of where all the “Glory Holes” were that were located on his college campus; I would say “icky”, but not criminal. I recall that Miss Virginia had to walk with crutches after breaking both her legs after catching a Kindergartener that jumped off the roof. Larry and I tended to believe all the Satanic Sex Magick rituals were taking place carried out to please the Dark Lord Cthulu. Larry made several pentagrams dedicated to the McMartin case, and they were put on display at The Jabberjaw for an Art performance. I took these pentagrams and placed them in a circle while living at Mortville II. After several days, I became possessed and spoke with voices not my own. It took a lot of sage smudging and crystals to perform a Cleansing Ritual to regain my sanity and my eternal soul!
Lyrics and music by Jula Bell
Jula:
Satan’s Doorstep was inspired by a cool little melody that Al played. I was in opera school at the time, and took his motive and expanded upon it. It sounded rather evil, and we just went with it. This was a trimmed down rock version of a semi orchestral piece.
AL:
This piece was especially fun to record because I was allowed to flip the 16 track 2 inch tape over and record backwards! I learned to record backwards from using my old Fostex X-15 4 track recorder; I simply went to the end of a song I was recording, and flipped the tape over and played along with the song played backwards. When I finished, I flipped the tape once more, so only my guitar playing was backwards.
Lyrics by Jula Bell Music by Jula Bell and Al Hansford
Jula:
Satan’s Doorstep was inspired by a cool little melody that Al played. I was in opera school at the time, and took his motive and expanded upon it. It sounded rather evil, and we just went with it. This was a trimmed down rock version of a semi orchestral piece.
AL:
This piece was especially fun to record because I was allowed to flip the 16 track 2 inch tape over and record backwards! I learned to record backwards from using my old Fostex X-15 4 track recorder; I simply went to the end of a song I was recording, and flipped the tape over and played along with the song played backwards. When I finished, I flipped the tape once more, so only my guitar playing was backwards.
Lyrics by Jula Bell Music by Jula Bell and Al Hansford
Ingrid:
If you walked down Hollywood Blvd. in the mid 80’s you probably saw the goons of Scientology trying to corral people into their lair. I stole the questions off the Scientology pamphlet for this song. I was hoping Scientology would sue Bulimia, and we would get notoriety.
Lyrics and music by Ingrid Baumgart
Jula:
This epic song’s music was written by Al and Paul K. Before Bulimia Banquet existed, we all played it in a joke death rock band that we had in the mid 80’s. The band was called Minions of Parody. It had Roger Manning on drums, Paul K. on bass, Al Hansford on guitar, and me on vox. The name was supposed to mean followers of the joke. We thought we were so clever! I met Paul and Roger at USC. The lyrics came from a classical piece by Willan, that Roger and were singing in choir at the time. We thought it sounded much better as a rock anthem versus a choral piece. We altered the lyrics and rocked it out as a tempestuous love ballad. This is the only song that I would play rhythm guitar on during live shows.
AL:
The melody was rooted in the Hungarian Minor scale, also called the Gypsy or double harmonic minor scale. It can sound Middle Eastern like a sitar scale, or Eastern European like a gypsy violin in a Dracula movie.
Lyrics by Jula Bell and Willan
Music by Paul K. and Al Hansford
Jula: Just your average punk rock bulimic anthem.
AL: with me blowing whole tones over it
Lyrics and music by Jula Bell
I think at that time I was thinking of Reaganomics, but look at us now. We might be closer to reaching absolutism after all.
Lyrics by Ingrid Baumgart
Music by Al Hansford
AL:
This song was originally written for my first band “The Null Set”. Mathematically speaking, the null set is a set that has no members; which I thought would be a funny name for a band with no members. I purposely left the verses “fill in the blanks”.
Lyrics and Music by Al Hansford
Jula:
A warning of heed as to the possible outcome of an insidious life of drugs and underage hookin’.
AL:
I played this entire song by tapping with my left hand while muting the strings at the nut with my right hand. I used the whole tone scale-a six note scale with no semitones. All thirds are major, and all triads are augmented. I was listening to a lot of Miles Davis and Ornette Coleman at the time, Free Jazz.
Lyrics by Jula Bell and Richao Polysorbate
Music by Al Hansford
Jula:
This song is an homage to a guy we knew who was in a popular band in the punk scene. He had a reputation as being a tough business man. One time he invited us to play on a show with a side project band that he had. For some reason, despite it being a great bill and an awesome show, it was a small turnout that night. At the end of the night he paid us money that was probably from his pocket. I decided at that point that he was an honorable fellow, and in my mind, I knighted him. He was a very unlikely knight, so it made the song rather humorous. Honestly, 80% of Bulimia Banquet songs were inside jokes, that we found hilarious.
Lyrics by Jula Bell
Music by Jason Greenwood
This song was a transition song between Raszebrae and Bulimia, a very dark period for me. I had read a book about the seven levels of hell. Old magic. Old spells. A cleansing.
Lyrics and Music by Ingrid Baumgart
Jula:
I had a boyfriend who tried to screw with my head, and this was my feminist retort.
AL:
This song was also released on Flipside Vinyl Fanzine Number Three
Lyrics and Music by Jula Bell
Ingrid:
It was the end of a destructive relationship that didn’t end well. Later in life, we became very good friends.
Lyrics and Music by Ingrid Baumgart
Jula-This was a song that was originally done by The Fags. The Fags were a 1984 teenage all girl band/gang starring Jennifer Finch, Maggie Gurewitz, Yasmin Spira, Beth Stinson, and me. It was more of a fun punk rock social club with cute and intelligent punk chicks; but we would jam at Jennifer’s house on tiny amps, or at Program rehearsal studio on borrowed gear. Mostly we would just hang out and talk about being a band, but we also wrote a few cool songs. Digger the Dog was one of them. The lyrics were based on a 1978 television commercial for a child’s pull toy. It was a plastic bassett hound that donned a strange yellow hat. You could pull his leash and his legs would spin around so he could mosey around with you on your adventures. The commercial showed a very enthusiastic boy and had some ole timey music. We modernized it and made it more sinister.
Lyrics by Jula Bell
Music by Jennifer Finch