FUN
(released on Capitol in May 2001)
In the two years after CARTOONS was released, Plaastik received very little publicity, but by the end of 2000, much was being made of Nick Parker's very public changing of his name to "Jesus Killer." (He changed it back in December 2003.) He claimed it was "a statement" but never explained what that statement was. (He's since said it was just a publicity stunt.) In interviews he spoke at length about the next Plaastik record, which for a time the band had considered issuing under a different name. Bored with the logistics of pop music and not getting along very well at all, Plaastik had cancelled a series of sessions that were to commence in the spring of 1999. Instead, Nick, his new wife Janet, Christina, and Jeff went into the studio and noodled around on keyboards, guitars, and drums for days on end, put it all on tape, and forgot about it for a year.
In May 2000, after having little contact with one another for ages, Capitol began to grumble suspiciously about the lack of new material from the band. Breakup rumors were everywhere. Nick reconvened the band for a meeting and they decided recording would begin in the summer. When Jeff, Jay, and Kevin visited Nick at his loft, they decided to go to the studio and listen to what had been put on tape the previous year, expecting a good laugh. They ended up loving the unconventional, playful material they heard, and album sessions thereafter had less to do with recording material and more to do with figuring out how to release what already existed.
By September, the new album had a name -- SCIENCE CAN BE FUN -- and it would be wholly experimental, "a new kind of album," one long track with vocals wandering in and out of the mix, fragments of songs here and there. Eighty minutes. When Capitol caught wind of this they warned the band that losses were potentially astronomical, since they'd already put money into getting a producer (Flood) and scheduling sessions that never really happened. They couldn't really do anything, but Nick relented anyway, and he decided to try to do something with the raw materials.
For the third time, the band ended up opting for the "two separate releases" option. The nine hours of material had already been edited down into around 110 minutes of usable and good music. The bits and pieces that were especially good and didn't need to be complemented would be issued as instrumentals on one album, while some other good bits would be edited into A and B sections and such to transform into pop songs on another release. By December the band had even decided they would tour behind it.
Nick took charge of the unorthodox release, which came to be called FUN, while Christina and producer Flood looked after the pop album, SCIENCE, and the rest of the band rehearsed the tour and planned for all sorts of U2-style bells and whistles: giant video screens, pyrotechnics, and even costumes.
Three months of work persisted. (Flood: "The best sessions ever. All I had to do was sit around and tell them what I liked and what I didn't like. I wish more bands would finish the music before I came in.") Finally, the two records were ready, a press release came out, distressing already-dismayed fans about the direction of the group, and the tourdates were released. True to form, neither album had ended up being as black and white as first intended. In the middle of one of the long jams, Nick had burst into song, singing a poem he'd just written. This ended up on FUN as "Nightroad" and has become one of the most popular recent Plaastik songs. During another, he improvised spoken-word lyrics; this became a single for FUN, "My Joke is Lost." Also, the one instrumental bit no one could get enough of, the half-hour "Science," became the last track on the conventional record.
Both the records were released the same day, and although no one loved them, they were obviously an improvement on CARTOONS, and it was good to hear the band having fun and taking risks again. FUN hit #19 on the album charts.
tracklist:
1. But Why? (You Had Your Fun) (single 1)
2. My Joke is Lost (single 2)
3. Band
4. Conspiracy (single 3)
5. Nightroad
6. Suite
But Why? b-sides
X-Periment
What's Going Ahn
My Joke is Lost b-sides
The Final Plaastik Song
Eight-Track Poppin'
Conspiracy b-sides
Conspiracy [single edit]
Past Thirty
Uh-Huh