Chris Ballew - Various Instruments
Mike Musburger - Drums
Jason Staczek - Organ, Clarinet
The Giraffes started as a one man band, but later turned into a full-time band including drummer Mike Musburger (Fastbacks, Posies, Uptights), and multi-instrumentalist Jason Staczek.
"Founded by Chris Ballew, the former lead singer and songwriter for the multi-platinum artists The Presidents of the United States of America, The Giraffes' first album, 13 Other Dimensions, was released in February 1998 and featured a made-up band of hand puppets invented by Chris. The group consists of Chris on acoustic guitar, Mike Musburger on drums and Jason Staczek on organ and clarinet."
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Written by Chris Ballew © 2000 Raw Poo Music (ASCAP)
Listen clips from The Giraffes - Days Are Filled With Years album.
Official site (First Album):
Giraffe (giraffe) - lead vocal and rythym guitar
Chickey (earless rabbit) - drums
Munkey Sr (large monkey) - lead vibrato wah wah guitar
Munkey Jr (small monkey) - horns and strings
Barry Lowe (bear) - basitar
Yoko Glick (duck on wheels) - piano, organ and clavinet
Somewhere in the lush green of the state of Kentucky in the back yard
of one of the shackey houses on an moldy river there was a giraffe named Giraffe
and an earless rabbit named Chickey who spent all thier days banging away on a
broken guitar and a childs drumset they found in a music store dumpster. They
wrote songs as fast as they could forget them, improvising on any topic from a
stuffed crocodile in the garbage to a fly found trapped in the freezer. They
loved whatever turned thier imaginations into music. It began when the two of
them sang songs together as babies and they never lost that innocent urge to
tell stories and make noises.
In the fall at the annual art fair in town Giraffe and Chickey would set up
thier now legendary "Puppet Jukebox". In between buying bronze flowers and
curiosly thick oil paintings, anyone with a couple of words for the boys could
walk up and pay 25 cents to have thier fragments instantly turned into full
songs by the fuzzy geniuses.
The word got out and Monkey Jr., a local child prodigy who already had two
singles in the top ten at the tender age of 8, came to see what all the fuss was
about. Sure enough when he said the words "dimension" and "chocolate" to Giraffe
and Chickey they counted off a beat and launched into what was to become
"Chocolate Dimension", the first cut on thier first album as The Giraffes.
Monkey Jr rushed home and told his father Monkey Sr about the dynamic
songwriting duo he had seen at the fair. At the time Monkey Sr was the leader of
a jazz trio called The Pantaloons which included Yoko Glick on vibes and Richard
Stevenson (p.k.a. Barry Lowe) on bass. Monkey Sr was always on the look out for
quality players but he was doubtful of the story pouring out of his hysterical
son, but he agreed to come downtown the next day and see the show.
Needless to say when Monkey Sr threw the words "mouth" and "poodle" at them and
they wrote the song "Poodle Mouth" on the spot he was extremly impressed by the
jazz-like tones. He left humming the tune and couldn't stop for days. He
eventually agreed to let his son record the pair in Monkey Jrs basement 8-track
studio.
Two days before the session was scheduled Giraffe and Chickey went to the "Worm
Hole" which was a small local jazz place that Monkey Sr and The Pantaloons had a
steady gig at. The crowd was confused and delighted when Giraffe and Chickey
grabbed thier drums and guitar and jumped up on stage and joined The Pantaloons
during thier big hit "Lonely Chicken". Monkey Sr was shocked but couldn't ignore
the crowds obvious pleasure at the tiny driving sound they had suddenly
achieved. They jammed on into the morning and had breakfast together.
Monkey Sr was so excited by the new sound they had achieved he proposed
combining the two bands. So he brought in Barry Lowe to play his patented two
string "basitar" and Yoko Glick to play her patented 76 key "electric
pianorgan". The first song they recorded was the bouncy and whistful "Comin
Around" and at the end of the session Monkey Jr was able to say with
confidence,"Puppets, you've just recorded your first number one!".
The album that you will hold in your hands is a re-issue of the original work
which was recorded in the spring of 1974. By 1975 the group had moved to Seattle
and released several more albums that nobody noticed. These recordings were
never appreciated until a transient found the tapes in the corner of the
basement room in the now aboandoned Monkey home and passed them on to Chris
Ballew. He took them into Raw Poo studios and worked some sonic magic to remove
all the mold from the tapes and the Giraffes were re-born!
There is no way to know how these records were made or why they were never
released. Theories abound but there are no answers. The band members have long
since faded into obscurity and vanished without a trace leaving behind several
albums and short film clips and that is all.
Thanks to the people at My Own Planet Records the world will finally get to
enjoy this small and often overlooked tresure trove of mellow-psycadelic-
pop-puppet-rock-music called The Giraffes. ENJOY!
IMAGINE THE SOUND!!! THE LUSCIOUS SOUND OF
SONGS!!! SONGS SUNG BY SMALL PUPPETS WAY BACK IN THE 1970'S!!! THIS IS THE
ESSENTIAL MAGIC COMBINATION!! THIS IS THE GIRAFFES!!!
IMAGINE A LITTLE GIRAFFE AND AN EARLESS RABBIT
WITH THE ASTONISHING ABILITY TO IMPROVISE SONGS OUT OF THIN AIR INSTANTLY WITH
ONLY SECONDS TO PREPARE!!! IMAGINE A FOURSOME OF HOTEL LOBBY JAZZ PUPPETS LED BY
A FATHER AND SON TEAM OF WILD MONKEYS ON GUITAR AND HORNS BACKED UP BY A SHY
BEAR ON THE TWO STRING BASITAR AND A SMALL DUCK ON WHEELS TICKLING THE IVORY
KEYS LIKE SHE HAS A DARK SECRET!!! NOW IF YOU WILL IMAGINE THESE TWO MUSICAL
PATHS COLLIDING AND CREATING A SOUND LIKE NONE YOU CAN POSSIBLY IMAGINE!!!
BACK IN THE EARLY 1970'S THIS STORY ACTUALY CAME
TRUE AND THE GIRAFFES BEGAN A NINE YEAR RELATIONSHIP THAT WOULD PRODUCE SOME OF
THE MOST ENTERTAINING MUSIC YOU HAVE NEVER HEARD!!!! NOT SINCE DORIS AND THE
DOORKNOBS HAVE A BAND SO SUCCEFULLY CAPTURED THE INNER RAMBLINGS OF AN
IMPROVISING PUPPET!!!!!!!! BETWEEN 1974 AND 1979 THESE INERT GENIUSES
EXPERIMENTED IN THE BASEMENT OF A SOUTHERN KENTUCKY HOME UNTIL A FREAK ACCIDENT
DROVE THEM TO SEATTLE AND INTO COMPLETE OBSCURITY......FOREVER!!!! THANKS TO
ARCHIVIST CHRIS BALLEW AND THE FOLKS OVER AT MY OWN PLANET RECORDINGS IN SEATTLE
THE ALBUM, "13 OTHER DIMENSIONS" , WILL BE THE FIRST OF MANY REISSUES OF THE
ORIGINAL RECORDINGS BY THE GIRAFFES THAT WILL COME OUT IN THE NEXT FEW YEARS!!!
YOU OWE IT TO YOURSELF AND YOUR EARS TO TAKE THIS SONIC GEM HOME AND ENJOY IT
OVER AND AGAIN!!!
- CASPAR BABYPANTS (SEATTLE 1979)
The Truth
These recordings were actually done over the course of the current decade by
Chris Ballew, former lead singer/songwriter of The Presidents of the United
States of America, on his 8-track cassette machine in a basement studio.
Chris wrote the songs, played all the instruments and produced The Giraffes
Record. The people at Columbia Records were kind enough to license the material
to My Own Planet Recordings because Chris and Michele thought it would be fun to
put it out.
The Rant
Well, here I am having finished being a "rock star". It feels good to have been
lucky enough to have it happen the way it did and to back off when the gettin
was good. I always fantisized that if I ever did become famous that it would
happen because people wanted to hear the music and see the band before the
record companies took notice and that I would quit at the top of my game.
So I get to wipe my brow and say "PHEW!"
Now I get to go back to making music the way I was before the freak accident of
being in a national and worlwide touring rock band happened. I used to make up
songs and record them at home and make little cassette tapes that I would give
to friends or sell for five bucks out of a bag. Those tapes were wierd and
diverse and had all kinds of combinations of instruments and song types on them
and that made making music challenging and fun for me. Then as I gave out more
and more tapes I would start meeting musicians who liked the tapes and we would
maybe form a band. But talk of going professional was always frowned upon and
the person who brought it up was usally laughed at or told to sit down. No band
ever lasted more than a year of two and that was healthy.
Obviously the oportunity to experience the whirlwind of attention and activity
that the Presidents experienced doesnt come around every day and you can't plan
that sort of thing. So even though deep in my gut I thought it was the craziest
thing I had ever heard of' we took the plunge. I have no regrets about that
decision and it was fun. But the repetitive hard sell business like nature of
that experience didnt agree with my own creative style in the end.
And now ladies and gentlemen I give you the Giraffes!
My hope is that I can go back to opperating in the way that I want to, making
diverse and interesting albums without the brain numbing boredom of touring and
repeating the same songs over and over again. I hope I can make a living making
recordings in the same way an artist makes a living making a painting or
sculpture. They have a style but unless they chose to they dont have to repeat
themselves. I don't even know how to play alot of the Giraffes songs because
they come together on tape as I record them or the instruments are all in wierd
tunings and I dont remember what I was playing. And I like that alot. I don't
know the material so well that I hate it and I can sit back sometimes and enjoy
a Giraffes record like a fan.
Actually, a big reason why I started making tapes in the first place because I
wasn't hearing the music I wanted to hear on the radio so I just decided to try
to make it up myself. So it is important that I can improvise and enjoy my own
recordings as if I didn't even make them.
It feels so good to finally be addressing the sound I have in my head with out
making comprimises. Being in a band is a thrilling experience when you are
playing live and getting the good love from the audience. There is nothing like
it. And it also involves democracy and I found I got less and less interested in
the sonic comprimises I was making. But it is no good being a dictator and so
after four years of letting the real sound I wanted to hear sit on the back
burner I am super excited to try to get it out of my head and onto tape and into
your ear and see if it is as good as I think it is.
The Giraffes is my vehicle for this and it feels good to be the puppetier insted
of the puppet!
I would love to make alot more Giraffes records and little super 8 films of them
performing and have people continue to enjoy them and to continue to enjoy
making them for a long time until I am old and crusty. Who knows this may turn
into a live band in the future but right now it feels best just to hang back and
experiment and see where it goes.
STAY TUNED!!!
Main releases:
13 Other Dimensions
The Days Are Filled With Years
List of all known The Giraffes songs: |
