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Blanks II (Special Edition)

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Tracks remastered and reissued on compact disc, with previously unreleased bonus tracks.

Release Info
Cover Art
Band Memoirs

Release Info

Tracks

Who'll You Give Your Liver To?
Big Bloody Chickens
Nik Nakka
Fatta Like A Pig
Eggheads
Have A Kool-Aid On Me
Sombrero
Wet My Whistle
Doby Doby
Girl's Got Rhythm
Girlfriend's All Right
Bad To The Bone
38 People At My Party
I Love Songs
Sing Me A Song

“Special Edition” bonus tracks (2006 reissue)

Edited Music, Part 1
Edited Music, Part 2
Edited Music, Part 3

The Blanks: Dynamic Drew, Kar, Mark Miller, and Ran

Produced, written, and performed by The Blanks. Recorded live to two-track at Wolfgang-Sly Studios, Houston, TX. Edited by Kar at Wolfgang-Sly Studios, Houston, TX. Tracks 16-18 part of the original mastering package but not released. 2006 reissue mastered by Kar at Lopwood Studios, Cypress, TX. Reissue package design by Kar. Cover adapted from original package art by Kar.
Tracks 1-15 ©1983 The Blanks. Tracks 16-18 ©2006 The Blanks.

1983: First issue, cassette, Tone Master Records.
2006: Remastered compact disc with bonus tracks, Blanks Enterprises.

Cover Art

Click for larger image:

Blanks II CD cover

Blanks II CD liner notes

Blanks II CD label

Blanks II original cassette cover

Blanks II original cassette label (side 1)

Blanks II original cassette label (side 2)

Band Memoirs

In 1983, our freshman album Eggheads was experiencing lackluster sales. We pressed on, however, determined to make good on our musical vision. Wolfgang-Sly Studios was our next stop. We were eager to record but really had no plan for this session. The one-day effort resulted in Blanks II – a live, stream-of-conscious piece predominantly featuring Dynamic Drew's crazed ramblings on top of unstructured music. I believe this is the first time you hear Ran's Casio keyboard and my Moog Prodigy analog synthesizer – newly acquired instruments that still surface in our recordings. With this album, we once again confused the public. But the eggheads, our tight fan base, were with us.

An interesting historical note, the original Blanks II master was missing for a while and later turned up in Wolfgang's dorm room. Not knowing he had the only copy, he would blast it in the dorm whenever he wanted things to get wild.

Late in 2005, I started going through the Lopnihood masters. With Lopwood Studios retooled for mastering, I needed to tackle some of our key recordings. The Blanks II compact disc 2006, was actually our first classic reissue. Many press folks have asked me why we decided to re-release Blanks II first, given the public's original non-acceptance and before other, more popular albums such as Sweet Love. The answer is simple. When I've talk with and heard from eggheads over the years, Blanks II is one of the most requested albums for reissue. So, this release is for the hardcore fans ... that have been with us since the early years.

I encourage newer fans to start with some of our more popular releases before jumping into Blanks II. In fact, this should probably be the last stop on your Blanks listening journey. But just like Mount Everest is the final challenge for a mountain climber who's trained for years, this too will reward you with an extremely challenging and satisfying experience.

– Kar

One of my favorite stories that is often forgotten amongst all the other craziness that went along with the recording of Blanks II had to do with popcorn. Mark Miller had stopped by the studio and left, we had done way too many bubbles and imbibed a lot of green drink. Not to mention we were just out of our minds at the time because of the music we had been making since Eggheads and the polarized reactions we received from the general public.

We looked around the studio's kitchen for microwave popcorn but could only find regular popcorn. Why we didn't decide to just use cooking oil and make popcorn the old-fashioned way I will never know. Instead we thought that we should just put the popcorn in a paper bag from the grocery store and try and microwave that. At first nothing happened, and then some of the kernels started to pop, and we were elated that our experiment was working. We stopped staring at the microwave for a bit to talk about the album. Shortly after this we smelled smoke and turned around to see that the paper bag in the microwave was in flames. Luckily the studio didn't burn down. Kar, Ran, and I just had to laugh at our snack making effort and go on to make what we hoped would be a break through album for us.

We all know how that turned out.

– Spike