We hemmed and hawed about posting this tape, but (a) we're excited about celebrating Chixdiggit's 25th Anniversary tonight and (b) as Gene Poole says: no tape left behind! Or, unposted, as the case may be.
KJ Jansen told the story of this tape when we interviewed him for Unspooled earlier this year. The way KJ tells it, Chixdiggit played with a band from out east who somehow got ahold of a soundboard recording of a Chixdiggit set (we assume the band used to tape their sets and then review them, like a high school football team going over game videos). Said eastern band started selling this tape via their mail distro, completely without Chixdiggit knowing and well before they had any official recordings out. So when the band first toured out to the east coast, fans were waiting for them and singing along with their songs - and asking for songs that were no longer in the band's set list. KJ says he was pretty mad about the whole thing, but finds it kind of amusing now - and we think this ridiculous thing may have helped boost the band's popularity and help get them to where they are today.
What we like about this tape is that it shows how true to their original mission Chixdiggit have stayed: play short, catchy pop punk songs. What we don't like about this is, uh, the lyrical content on some of the songs. "She Knows" is a bit suspect, and both "Four Chinese Girls" and "If Adam Had a Penis" are pretty dreadful, word-wise. The tape is bookended with two classic tracks, "I Should Have Played Football in High School" and "Where's Your Mom," which kind of eases the pain. Thankfully KJ and the boys grew up just enough to remain true to their winning musical formula, but ditched the questionable lyrics (we'll guess this is why most of these songs were unreleased).
Grab the tape here - and maybe request a couple of these tunes at the Commonwealth tonight?
