Oingo Boingo "Alive" 2x LP NM- Orig The Police Danny Elfman

$

50

Oingo Boingo "Alive" 2xLP MCA Records (US) 

Vinyl is NM-, Jacket is EX

Original Press

Out of Print!!

Track Listing:

Oingo Boingo /?????o? ?b????o?/ was an American rock band, they are best known for their hits "Dead Man's Party" and "Weird Science". They are also known for their soundtrack contributions, their high energy Halloween concerts, and for their unique mixture of styles including ska, punk, new wave, funk, and other world music genres. The band was founded in 1972 as The Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo, a performance art group. The band was led by songwriter/vocalist Danny Elfman, who has since achieved success as a composer for film and television.

The group's format changed twice. In 1979, it reshaped from a semi-theatrical music and comedy troupe into a ska-influenced new wave octet and shortened their name to Oingo Boingo. Towards the end of the 1980s, the band began shifting to a more guitar-oriented rock sound, and away from the use of horns and synthesizers. The band retired after a sold-out farewell concert on Halloween 1995.

Early years

The Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo, formed in late 1972 by Richard Elfman, was a musical theater troupe in the tradition of Spike Jones and Frank Zappa, performing an eclectic repertoire ranging from Cab Calloway covers to instrumentals in the style of Balinese gamelan and Russian ballet music. The name was inspired by a fictional secret society on the Amos 'n' Andy TV series called The Mystic Knights of the Sea. Most of the members performed in whiteface and clown makeup, and a typical show contained music ranging from the 1890s to the 1950s, in addition to original material. This version of the band employed as many as 15 musicians at any given time, playing over 30 instruments, including some instruments built by bandmembers. While this Richard Elfman-led incarnation of the group performed live, it did not issue any recordings.

As Richard Elfman's interest shifted to filmmaking, he passed leadership of the band to younger brother Danny Elfman, who had recently returned from spending time in Africa playing violin and studying percussion instruments. They gained a following in Los Angeles, and appeared as contestants on The Gong Show in 1976, winning the episode they appeared on with 24 points out of a possible 30.[7] The Gong Show presentation included an accordion, a purple dragon and a gaseous rocket-man. Later in 1976, The Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo released a doo-wop styled novelty single about kidnapped heiress Patty Hearst entitled "You Got Your Baby Back". Both this track and the B-side "Ballad of the Caveman" were written and sung by Danny Elfman. The band appeared as extras in hallucinatory sequences in the 1977 movie I Never Promised You a Rose Garden.

When the group began to move away from its cabaret style towards a more pop/rock format, Richard Elfman made a film based on the band's stage performance,Forbidden Zone, which was released in 1980 and filmed in black and white with a cast mostly made up of band members and friends. In one scene, Danny, as Satan, sings a version of Calloway's "Minnie the Moocher" with modified lyrics integrated into the plot of the film.[8] In another, Richard sings the 1920s novelty song "The Yiddishe Charleston". The movie attained cult status[9] and provided a springboard for the film and music careers of Richard and Danny.

I.R.S. years (1979–1984)

Various reasons were given for the band's transformation from musical theater troupe to rock band. They included cutting costs, increasing mobility, exploring new musical directions such as Danny's interest in ska and a desire to perform music that didn't need theatrics.

While the troupe was transforming itself into a rock band, there was some confusion about what name the band would use. Later, the full name was shortened in the other direction to Oingo Boingo in 1979, and the band's song "I'm Afraid" appeared on the Rhino Records Los Angeles rock and new wave compilation, L.A. In.

That same year, the band issued a very limited edition promo-only record called Demo EP intended for distribution to radio stations and recording industry A&R representatives in an attempt to help land a major label recording contract. The effort paid off as the Oingo Boingo Demo EP caught the attention of I.R.S. Records, and a slightly altered version of the EP was reissued by the label in 1980 as the band's first official public release, an EP known as Oingo Boingo.

The band had coalesced into an octet: Danny Elfman on lead vocals; Steve Bartek on guitars; Richard Gibbs on keyboards; Kerry Hatch on bass; Johnny "Vatos" Hernandez on drums; and Leon Schneiderman, Sam "Sluggo" Phipps and Dale Turner on horns. Early success for the group came in 1980 with the song "Only a Lad" from the eponymous EP. The song aired frequently in Los Angeles on KROQ-FM and complemented the station's then-unusual new wave format. Although their sound was classified as new wave and was compared to Devo, Oingo Boingo defied easy categorization. Their use of exotic percussion, a three-piece horn section, unconventional scales and harmony and surrealistic imagery was an unusual combination.

Following regional success of "Only a Lad", the group released its first full length album, also titled Only a Lad (and featuring a new recording of the song), in 1981. Oingo Boingo also appeared in the 1981 film Longshot, performing their unreleased song "I've Got to Be Entertained". The band, recording for A&M Records, released albums in 1982 (Nothing to Fear) and 1983 (Good for Your Soul) that drew comparisons to Devo and later, Wall of Voodoo. At this point, new manager Mike Gormley, who had just left the position of VP of Publicity and Asst. to the Chairman of A&M, negotiated a release from the label and signed the band to MCA Records. The first release was officially a Danny Elfman solo record in 1984 (titled So-Lo); it was actually a group effort released under Elfman's name. Subsequently, the band would record under their own name for MCA.

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