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China Cabinet Oracle

EP celebrating The Blanks 20th anniversary. Remastered and reissued on the 2008 China Cabinet Oracle / Destroy These Cakes compact disc.

Release Info
Cover Art
Band Memoirs

Release Info

Tracks

Little Known
Twentieth Anniversary Single
Lucky
Space Needle
Farewell to The Blanks VI

Kar: vocals
Mr. Ed: guitar and backing vocals
Ran: bass guitar
Spike: drums

Written, performed, and produced by The Blanks. Recorded at Original Studios, Houston, TX and Aberdeen Music Labs, Houston, TX. Mastered by Kar at Hudson Oaks, Houston, TX. Cover art by Ran. Package design by Kar.
©2002 The Blanks.

2002: First issue, mini compact disc, Blanks Enterprises.
2008: Remastered and reissued on the China Cabinet Oracle / Destroy These Cakes compact disc, Blanks Enterprise.

Cover Art

Click for larger image:

“Little Known” conceptual cover (unreleased single)

2002 CCO/DTC promo sampler

Band Memoirs

This EP celebrates twenty years of music. Three of the five songs reflect directly on our career. The first single, “Twentieth Anniversary Single,” celebrates popular themes, characters, and events; while “Farewell to The Blanks VI” unravels them, describing the end of the road for The Blanks. And “Little Known” explores the mysterious life and death of our first manager Little Man. Perhaps generating more questions than answers.

“Lucky” is one of my favorite songs we've ever done. Even though I wrote the lyrics, I'm not sure what's going in the song. I become more intrigued with the characters each time I hear it. Part of me wants to stay away from these townspeople and part of me wants to seek them out to learn what makes them tick.

Some have asked what the title, China Cabinet Oracle, means. First, china gifts are presented for twentieth anniversaries. Also, we felt an oracle was at play here, a vision or visionary. Is there an oracle trying to tell us something? Is it Little Man? Is it a forewarning told through the tale of crazed vigilantes? Is the album itself the vision? Or is something else the China Cabinet Oracle? And are we being tricked by what we “need” to hear or do we hear the straight truth?

I hope fans will enjoy these songs with friends and family and reminisce about their favorite Blanks moments.

Finally, just for the web, we're posting a rarity from the archives. You can see the artwork for the unreleased “Little Known” single. The track kicks off China Cabinet Oracle, so fans never missed out on the tune ... just the sweet artwork and packaging, which I know is dear to their hearts. I've also posted a picture of a non-commercial release, an in-store promo we released to simplify the promotion of our recent EP's and singles. It proved quite popular among music insiders. I periodically get calls asking for copies or replacements. These in-store promo CD's have become collectors items. In 2008, we remastered and reissued both Destroy These Cakes and China Cabinet Oracle on an official combined CD release.

Hope you enjoy.

– Kar

This time around we tried a little harder to all get on the same page. Ran, Mr. Ed, and I went around listening to the same music. I think it was a lot of Strokes and Radio Head. The Radio Head stuff was from Kid A, and pretty experimental. It was inspiring.

Having the three of us focusing and discussing what we all wanted in advance was a huge help. Once again just the three of us would go to Original Studios to put down the music. We'd added some new effects to the studio but I believe there were some technical difficulties as well that caused us to change the microphone placement and cause a little initial panic. The sounds coming out of Mr. Ed's guitar was exactly what the band needed. I hadn't really heard guitars make some of those sounds before, and I loved it. The session was short and very inspired. I couldn't wait to hear what Kar was going to do with this music.

I remember talking to Ran while I was in New York, asking him what he thought about the progress on the new EP. Ran hadn't really heard what Kar had in mind, and had only just gleamed a small part of what Kar was working on. Ran admitted that it was a work in progress but hearing that stuff worried Ran. I was in another state and there was nothing I could do. I just knew that Kar would put something down, and that he wouldn't settle for anything that didn't work, so if he tried something that we ended up wanting to change we'd deal with that when the time came.

It wasn't too much later that I talked to Ran and he'd heard more of what Kar wanted to do with the music and he loved it. I was very excited when I heard the finished product myself. It was maybe the most excited I'd been about a project since the Warrior Ethos. It was a new sound, it felt like we were more creative than usual.

– Spike