We've been obsessing over hurricane Irma pummeling the Caribbean and now Florida --watching webcams from places we know from idyllic vacations now empty of people, just palm trees dancing in the winds as the storms move in. With first Harvey, now Irma, and next Jose, this hurricane season is starting off terribly. Favorite beach-side restaurants like Nat's on Savannah Bay in Anguilla are just gone now. And then we've got huge wildfires in Southern California, and a huge earthquake in Mexico. All this natural disaster on top of the political chaos and so-called leaders blustering about nuclear conflagration and it's enough to make you wonder if the whole world is spinning way, way out of control.

Which makes me put my mind elsewhere, elsewhen: Ithaca, NY, March 1982. To something just FUN and FUNNY. It's what we all need right now. Laughter! Pizza!!! Tim and I were not quite 17 years old, and we'd started getting together in October 1981 for little recording sessions as The Tim & Andy Band at times when Jon wasn't available to jam as The Raid (which eventually became EBA). It allowed us to experiment with different styles like jazz and country, and experiment with overdubbing to layer parts onto compositions we couldn't perform as a two-piece or three-piece band. But we'll get to some overdubbing next week. Last week I highlighted the first tune we recorded together, a jumpy, jazzy instrumental called "jath", from October 1981. This song is still just me and Tim, with no overdubs, but Tim's playing Jon's drums instead of bass. Tim's singing the lead vocal, and I'm singing backup vocals and electric guitar. We also do some fun TouchTone and cash register sound effects! We made this up as the tape rolled and are obviously having so much fun!

This was part of a wild long weekend session in Tim's basement up on the hill --Mount Pleasant-- on the 19th and 20th of March, 1982. Recorded with two mics into a cassette deck. Released on our sixth album, Mount Pleasant.

We got together to jam as a band every Saturday night in Jon's basement there on Blackstone Avenue, and it was always a Domino's pizza party. After we'd finished college Jon's parents cleaned out the basement and had us deal with all the pizza boxes we'd stacked up along the wall behind Jon's drums. The pic below was taken at that cleanout party in the fall of 1989.

Thanks for listening!

-Andy

Pizza!!!

(boop-boop-boop-boop-boop-boop-boop)
(ring-ring)
"hello Domino's Pizza"
"hello I'd like to order a small pizza, please"
"ah, ok, is there anything on that?"
"uh, yeah, I'd like to have pepperoni, please"
"okay, I'll get you a price on that"
(cash register noises)
"ah, that'll be $4.63" (!)
"ok, thank you"
"ah, what's your, uh, address there?"
"112 Blackstone Avenue"
"okay, we'll be there in about half an hour"
"okay, thank you"

call him on the phone
order a pizza
gotta have pepperoni
gotta have lots of cheese
gotta have crust
that melts in your mouth
it's a pizza
the pizza 
song!

I'm on the phone
got a small pizza
deliver it in the truck
it was hot 
and it was warm
it was hot 
and it was warm
it was hot 
and it was warm

got free four Pepsis
got four free Pepsis

the pizza song
for all pizza lovers everywhere
just call them on the phone
get a pizza anywhere
anywhere
anywhere, anywhere

pizza song
the pizza song

(beep-boop-boop-boop-boop-boop-boop)
(ring-ring)
"hello?"
"hello, this is Domino's pizza. I'm afraid your pizza will be a little bit late."
"oh, that's ok. alright, thank you. bye."
"hey Fred, it's going to be late"
"why?!?!"

pizza song 
pizza song
pizza, pizza, pizza...


lyrics improvised by Tim Odell on 20 March 1982
music improvised by Andy Wyatt and Tim Odell on 20 March 1982
©1982 by The Tim & Andy Band