CHAPTER FOUR: ALL THE PEOPLE SAY


"Yes, they were a high school band," explicates Jetcho Featherparts, famed existentialist newscaster. "But the thing is, they weren't like any high-school band I ever heard before, or since. They didn't emulate popular music. They didn't emulate the music they listened to. They didn't hang around trying to make people think they were cool because they were in a band. They did music.

"And did they do love songs to girls they grooved? No, they sang love songs to their butts. They wrote love songs to the butts of the girls they liked. Or to other parts of their anatomy. Or they wrote songs like Kevin's 'Ode to Stacey', where he played the piano for 10 seconds and then began screaming repeatedly. Or even 'Kelly, Kelly in a New York Deli', which was about a cheerleader at their school. What does the New York Deli, like Grape Jelly concept have to do with anything? Or what about 'Skylab'? What kind of song is that?

"Most highschool bands, you hear a song and you say: that's a high-school band song. They can be done to varying degrees of production quality, but you still say: That's a high school band song. That's what kind of song that is. With Al Phlipp, you didn't do that. In fact, most of the time, all you could do is ask: What kind of song is that? Is that a song? What is that? That's not normal, what's wrong with these people?

"And you know, when you think of it, that's kind of cool."



Arwen, considered weird and wonderful, was therefore the victim of numerous composistions about her butt- which, all things considered from a more mature perspective, was still a really, really great butt. Here, Arwen is shown concealing vital cinammon roll recipes from Communist Spies. Wotta Babe!
As the popularity of Al Phlipp grew, the band members weren't quite sure how to deal with it. Kevin, a uniquely gifted musician and creative god was, at that time, still a social retard. Thus, as certain wonderful people, such as Arwen, began to open up and speak with him, he would often run shreiking from the room like a damaged mongoose.

Kevin now confesses that perhaps the best part of being in Al Phlipp & the Woo Team was the people, the fans, and the early supporters that rallied around them.
While his cohort, Jon, was wise enough to realize this early on, and thus attain an enlightened state of Phlippness, it took Kevin until the band had been mostly dismembered to realize the mistake he had made. He had, he reufully admitted to himself one night in a drunken stupor, made the music more important than the people. An error, he now says, that he plans not to repeat. He swears he will never admit anything to himself in a drunken stupor again.

Kevin now says that he believes Arwen was directed towards him by the benevolent alien forces that guide all activities to some extent on our planet, and that his social retardation prevented him from attaining an enlightened state of Phlippness for many years. Much, he is afraid, to the benevolent aliens' chagrin.

Although both Kevin and Jon do apologize now for writing songs about her butt (to the degree that perhaps she found the numerous Al Phlipp songs [more than 10] about her butt a little distressing), but still . . . she had a really great butt. Which also has something to do with the benevolent alien presence that sends down creative ideas to enlightened individuals (with metal fillings in their teeth).

Because of his enlightenened state of Phlipness, Jon's head often appeared mysteriously, causing awe and wonder throughought the halls of Overton High School.

Many people contributed to the band, to the experience that was Al Phlipp. Those who didn't participate directly were often still a tremendous inspiration to the band. And some, such as Elisse H., both participated and inspired. Elisse, whose many hums, growls, breaths, screams, commentary, and noises made it into and all around so much Al Phlipp stuff, also inspired the band members with her support, appreciation, and general incomprehensible weirdness.

Everyone in the band loved her, and even today band members will wax poetic about Elisse's bizarre and sometimes frighteningly incoherent ramblings, all captured on tape for posterity. One can only hope that one day, another frightening incoherent rambling tape of weirdness, black comedy, noises, and veiled sexual innuedo gets made again. "She was actually kind of scary, she could be so weird," says Jon Taylor. "That's what made her so perfect."


Elisse, mysterious, exotic and inexplicably sensuous, frequently taunted the two hapless scum with fascinating and yet incomprehensible monologues that both Jon and Kev knew just had to mean something.

Later, after she had returned from the Far East, she had progressed so far into spiritual deepness that she was no longer namable. Thus, she became known simply as the E woman.

Which was probably no more or less stupid a decision than the two extra-shmank gobstoppers had made before.

End Chapter Four
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