Plundering the Vaults to Pay the Bills
Disc One- El Cabasa Cono Cobayo / The Beach Is Closed / Testosterone / As Long As / Mattress Tag / No Show / Repent or Die / Lotshark / Cruel and Unusual Punishment / Step Into the Confessional, Johnny / Tanglewood Nature Center / The Big Finish / Nothing In Particular / Swallow This! / Just Plain Folks / 8 Ball / Saving for Trumpet Lessons / Just Like a Love Song / Popcorn In My Throat
Disc Two- It's a Tabloid World / Tweedle Dumbest / Ken & Barbie / Flush / Temper Tantrum / Treadmill / Whose Hat Is This? / Lotshark (Ted's Hair Reweave) / If I Had a Belt I'd Teach You Respect / Now You Must Die / Smells Like Dead Cobain / Bumperstickers / Jock Dance / No Horseplay / Cindy / I Live to be Offended / Security? / Blood, Shit and Lanolin / Thousand Mile an Hour Puke Machine / This Isn't Funny / You Suck Moose Wang / Simon Says / The Piranha Chomp
Produced by John Beatty
Compiled & edited from February to May 1998 in the Park School studios at Ithaca College
Front cover artwork by Craig Miller
Type/layout by J. Nigel Aalst
Personnel
Jeff Guinness - Vocals, kazoo
Johnny VD - Guitars, backing vocals
Clint Beige - Drums
Scotty Cognito - Bass d1, tr1-12 & 19, d2 tr12-23
Martysaurus Rex - Guitar d1 tr 1, 5-19, d2 tr1-11
Rob D. Souls - Bass d1, tr 13-18, d2 tr1-11
Second vocal on "Popcorn in my Throat" by Mike Dickinson.
Backing vocals on "Repent or Die" and "Cruel and Unusual Punishment" by the Indecisive Choir: George W., John B. & Marty T.
Backing Vocals on "Flush", "Ken & Barbie" and "Whose Hat Is This?" by the Rednecks from Hell: Jeff, John, Marty, Scott, Craig & Mac.
Backing vocals on "I Live to Be Offended" and "Security?" by John, Scott, Jesse, Theresa, Liz & Barb (last names witheld to protect the guilty.)
NOTES: Plundering the Vaults to Pay the Bills started life as The Indecision Anthology, a sort of joke compilation based on the Beatles Anthology series. It grew into a compilation of the best versions (or only recorded versions, in some cases) of every song in the Indecision/Piranha Brothers catalog. Every track was remastered and re-Eq'd and sounds all spiffy now (at least compared to the originals). The Best of What We Know tracks were remixed once again (although I will admit that some of the Ultimate Cash In mixes are better, the master tape is A: missing and B: has some kind of print-through on it). Digital editing and effects were used in a few places to improve the songs (most notably major digital editing to cover the tape flip in "No Show" and time compression in "Now You Must Die" and "Treadmill").
The reason it's seeing release is, as the title suggests, money. We racked up a nice studio bill in the summer of 1997 when we went in to record a full-length album. Unfortunately, we had some problems, including being overcharged and the bass player walking out of the session. In the end, we're left with 2/3 of the bill, a half-finished tape sitting in the studio, and no money to finish the recording. The fate of the unfinished recording has yet to be determined, but the limited edition Plundering release will hopefully help pay the studio bill.
Unfortunately, as is usually the case with the Fink Squad, this release didn't make any money at all.