A Portrait of the other half of The Obvious as Punks

Dot-Pop!

The Obvious was the best band I was ever in, just ask Alex Mutrux, even though it was never one of Alex's "favorite" bands or anything like that. Jim Saltsider himself gave us our entire supply of ultra hipster insiderness thanks to his dabbling's in White Pride and sundry other crimes.

But the Obvious, more than anything else, was what is indisputably known as a new wave band, though aspects of punk and post-punk nihilism were in evidence in every single recorded instance of the band.

And this is where we find Saltsider and Mutrux sitting inside the filthy trash container in front of my Mom's apartment where I was crashing right after the O-PP Club fell apart.

Look at Jim Saltsider grinning his evil elfin Kaya-Ungu-Mala smiles at the camera while fingering leftover crumbs of Sugar Smacks, while Mutrux thumbs through a magazine, seemingly unaware of his magnificent hipster past, instead rather annoyed but still game enough to crawl in there in the first place.

He wrote this song for the Oui Oui Twins, who had some lyrics that no one seemed to like that were something like "I've Got Class!" and if you check back here every so often I'll get around to posting it, since I have a very lousy cassette tape of a practice with this song.

I rewrote the lyrics and we sped it up quite a bit before we finally recorded it in the second of our two recording sessions. This version has Mutrux on guitar, me on guitar and vocals, Kevin Brueseke on drums, my brother Augustino on bass and Sally Barnes on Arp.

"Dots dig dada den drink soda pop!"

It was a typical boy teen delusion grown stale - the idea that somewhere there were dots, dots who somehow dug you, dots who doted on you, dots only signed to shine with the phosphorescence you provided. And that was supposed to be enough. And that was supposed to be the end of it. But it wasn't, and it hardly ever was any other way.

You got used to the dots, started to kind of expect them one way or the other. Dots, you'd tell yourself in moments of deepest introspection, these Dots are just plain daffy. One day these dots came to you in the form of a Oui-Oui Twin or two. And from then on out it was just the Obvious - with and without Chuck DeClue.

It was a big mystery to anyone as much as me, what I would say when we actually recorded the song. I tried to keep it on the one but must admit I Kerouaced it on up as much as a trained stream of consciousness boys can wain it. Can wing it. Wanna wang it, dol-gang it to death and damnation!

We'll start out with Feedback & Flashback,
The world's most engaging Dots.
They decided to use what they got to ooze
And they moved at the party to prove:

Dots pop Dot-Pop.

"Let's take a break here to clarify the vague terminology in this song: Dots are beauty personified, and pop is the ultimate explosion of love."

We tied up the dots in cellophane-
We intertwined them between our strings-
Played chords on their epidermal kernel-
Pop dots - have a little fling!

"When dots drink each other's Dot-Pop, it's only a question of abnormal florals or oral morals."

Dots dig Dada den drink soda pop

You know you know nothing if you don't know you know what you know.But, anyway... You don't have to remind me what I don't know even if I did I might not anyway bein the way I am and all. I'm not saying I know, I'm just asking if you do, and if you do, then everything you do is inclusive in the limited plan of action and law allowable under precedents long-established and benign.

Download "Dot-Pop!"