An MKT Halloween

Humor me for a moment. Because nine years ago, a little band had their first public performance at a Halloween party in San Diego.

The band was MKT. The Monkey Kicking Turtle.

Now before I reminisce about the Halloween party, you're probably wondering about the name. Basically we had no name for our band. Then our frequently intoxicated/frequently insane bass player, Joe, said that we should come up with some completely random nonsensical name. "Something like Monkey Chicken and Turtle."

We misunderstood him and thought he said "Monkey Kicking Turtle" - the name stuck.

Alfred played lead guitar and vocals, Joe was the bassist, Beave was the drummer. I jedi mind-tricked them into making me rhythm guitar and vocals. Later Mark joined as a guitarist and vocalist. Our buddy Dan Santat did our CD cover, featuring a yin/yang type logo with a monkey and turtle kicking each other. Because depending on how you looked at it, the title could either be a monkey kicking a turtle, or a turtle that kicks monkeys.

We played what we thought of as an alternative rock sound, with a heavy blues influence. But then Joe derided our sound as "gratuitous pop" - and again, the name stuck. Nearly all the songs were written by Alfred - and anyone who's heard his songs knows what a gifted songwriter he is. Plus we did a few covers of the Violent Femmes, the Pogues, the Cure, the Ramones, the Clash, Wilson Pickett. I actually co-wrote one song with Alfred and Beave that I'm actually quite proud of. Still sometimes play that one when no one's looking or listening.

Anyways, MKT played for a few years in San Diego, then broke up for all the usual reasons bands break up, reformed as an acoustic coffee shop band, then re-united for one big last show at Porter's Pub in 2001. Then Alfred moved away to join the New York music scene (his new project is called The Smells of North America - check it out on MySpace).

But now back to our first show - the 1998 Halloween party thrown at Chris & Beave's house. The highlight of the night was at the end of our set, when everyone was good and drunk, and we decided to do an unrehearsed, barely sober cover of "The Monster Mash." I had a print out of the lyrics and got Mark and Shannon out of the crowd to sing them. Alfred did an amazing guitar solo, I sang a little bit of back-up vocals (the "oooo" part), and that's Mark doing a killer impression of famous Czech Dale Stuzka.

And here it is. A low-quality bootleg recorded on audio cassette. Not the greatest completely unrehearsed barely-sober performance ever, but it was a lot of fun.

Listen (mp3)

Maybe you had to be there...