SLAGKICK

This is might be a few weeks late, but this is the official information for the song that is officially titled "Slagkick."

CREDIT

The song is called “Slagkick.” It is also alternately known as "Everything's Ungodly," "Dark-Sided Stuff," "Gargoyles," and a host of other names that have the word “Remix” in them. These names happened because people thought them up by themselves and posted it on their site like that. Also, the song is by Goes Cube. The song is NOT by the God Warriors. We jokingly mentioned, within the first few hours, that the song was by a doom-punk band called The God Warriors. It was a joke. It was said once. But it is by Goes Cube. More troubling than people calling it “The God Warriors,” is when people just don't bother to credit an artist at all. If you have the ability to create your own site and upload songs to it, you undoubtedly have the ability to do a Google search. Sometimes people don't even upload the song to their site, they simply link it to ours. And yet even though it's a link to a file on our site, they still don't credit the artist.

But you know what? Blogs are blogs, and people post things hastily. What we've been learning is that this thing is being played on the radio all over the country, again, without them crediting the artist.

We've never asked for money for it, we continue to keep the file up on our site (www.lsadproco.com/Slagkick.mp3), all we ask is that you credit Goes Cube. So let it be known, official title: “Slagkick” and the original artist: Goes Cube.

THE STORY

We saw the commercials for “Trading Spouses” weeks before the actual episode aired. We agreed we should definitely get a 12-pack of Budweiser (or was it Sparks?), practice that night, and make sure rehearsal was over by the time the show was on. The end of the episode featured Mrs. Perrin's meltdown, and it was an awesome payoff. We made some comments about her meltdown, and then we probably watched “Law and Order.” The next day, we had a couple free hours (slow work day) and we put the song together for the purpose of making no more than 4 of our closest friends laugh. We never planned to. It was in response to sheer boredom.

But before we forwarded it to friends via e-mail, we decided to post it on the official “Trading Spouses” message board. The next day our bandwidth was overtaxed. The day after, a friend told us to send it to Stereogum.com. They picked it up, and it spread. Three days after it was made, it was being played on the radio and it was all over the Internet, listed under a range of different names.

“Slagkick” is not a nonsense word. It is a phonetic spelling of the word that Mrs. Perrin shouts when she attempts to say “psychic.” Please note, also, that she says “gargyles” instead of “gargoyles.”

HOW THE SONG WAS MADE

Because the song was made out of boredom and because it was never really intended to be heard by more than five people, we didn't exactly put too much emphasis on the production.

For the samples: We used a program called Audio Record Wizard. We set that to the record mode called “Aux. Stereo” (which apparently means, “Record any fucking sound that is coming in our out of your computer”). While ARW was recording, we played the official trailer from the show. ARW recorded the audio as it played. Then, we took a program called Audacity (a free multi-track program with somewhat limited and clumsy capabilities, though for shareware, it's pretty awesome) and chopped her rants up into various bits.

For the music: We selected a beat (maybe Rock-1?) on the Casio SK-1 (which is a tiny little combination keyboard-calculator that David purchased at a garage sale over 5 years ago), plugged it into the computer and recorded it with ARW.

The funny thing with the SK-1 is that, in order to record, you have to take a line out from the headphone jack. When you do that, it defeats the speakers (obviously). So when it's recording, you can't hear it. This wasn't a problem for when we recorded the beat because we just let it play for 3 or so minutes or so, and then trimmed it at the end.

But, in the middle of the song, you might notice there's a little keyboard break. That's the SK-1 again, and it was the last thing we recorded. The song seemed too dry with just guitar, so we decided to add that in. While listening to the song we played the little riff along, and it sounded good enough. But, when we plugged the SK-1 in, we couldn't hear the keyboard. So, we had to trust that it was being played perfectly on beat and there were no wrong notes hit. That's why if you listen carefully, the keyboard falls out of beat at times.

The guitar was a Gretsch Sparklejet solid body. It is strung with two of the same three strings (the 3 lowest) and down-tuned to a B. It is plugged straight into the laptop, with no amplification or effects, which is why it sounds so bad.

Arrangement: The beat was laid down, then the initial intro “God warrior, God warrior, God warrior, wuh-wuh-wuh-wuh-warrior / In Jesus' name I pray / Dark-sided stuff.” After that, we had no idea. But the fact that she says “dark-sided stuff” gave us the notion that we should play something dark sounding. And that's how the song was built: in 10 second increments, re-listening and asking, “What should come next?”

OUR CAVEAT

This song is a joke. It always has been a joke. It always will be a joke. There is no doubt that there is a shred of resemblance to actual Goes Cube songs because it is in the same weird tuning, and we tend to have a certain style, but the song is a joke. That's not to say that we don't want people completely enjoying it and listening to it and spreading it around. But, why not check out the real Goes Cube stuff, too?