Happy 40th Anniversary to Oingo Boingo’s eponymous debut EP Oingo Boingo, originally released September 17, 1980.
Sometimes all you need is four songs.
The Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo were done for; even before frontman Danny Elfman announced their split, they were only known to the midnight movie crowd as the madcap maestros behind Forbidden Zone’s take on vintage jazz recordings (Varese Sarabande reissued the soundtrack for Record Store Day’s Black Friday event in 2017; it’s worth it for Elfman’s rendition of “Squeezit the Moocher” alone).
But Elfman wanted a rock band, and a 19-piece orchestra/theatre troupe just wasn’t going to cut it. Only guitarist Steve Bartek and brass players Dale Turner, Sam “Sluggo” Phipps and Leon Schneiderman were left from the cull.
The first hints of what would become the Oingo Boingo EP was originally issued as a four-song demo in October 1979, with an alternate version of “Forbidden Zone” on the B-side. Each featured a handpainted cover by the band from a technique developed by artists Charles Unkeless and Sean P. Riley. Though only 130 were made and distributed, one copy caught the attention of I.R.S. Records, who released a slightly altered version, swapping “Forbidden Zone” for “Ain’t This The Life.”
“Only A Lad” was re-recorded for the group’s debut full-length effort Only a Lad in 1981, but the version that appears here would certainly draw a listener’s attention; Richard Gibbs’ neon-lightning keyboards against Elfman’s gutter-operatic vocal stylings. The song predates the similarly themed “Sweet and Tender Hooligan” by The Smiths by seven years and seems oddly prescient considering the current era of Violent Sad White Boys, such as Dylan Roof, Elliot Rodger and Kyle Rittenhouse.
Elfman, of course, isn’t buying any of their excuses, at least until the B-side, where “I’m So Bad” acts as a sort of variant, a panic of transgressions as though sung from the Lad’s point of view: “Join a crowd / hidden blade / buy a drink / better pray / I don’t get you!” While “Lad” is driven and flourished with Bartek’s razor-sharp guitars, “Bad” is a mess of Elfman impulses—sleazy characters and absurd chord progressions and creeping keys.
Though inspired by ska bands including Madness and The Specials, their cover of Willie Dixon’s “Violent Love” has a deranged clown-fuckery that couldn’t be any less sexy if it tried, like a love song for an X-rated version of Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure (1985). The ska influence is definitely heard in the bridge, as the horns pomp and parade behind Elfman’s deranged ringleader. This version appears on the Best O’Boingo, while the 20th Century Masters collection includes the live version from 1988’s Boingo Alive (my preferred version).
“Ain’t This The Life” is the album’s strongest track, cleaner and more indicative of the wild New Wave sound they were pursuing (and would develop on later albums) and then a song later, you’re out. Short and sweet, which, in 1980, was probably about as much Oingo Boingo as increasingly mainstream audiences were ready for. Their punk stylings and neo-noir subject matter might not be for every listener, but they brought a much more elaborate sound to a scene that was rapidly expanding outward to incorporate as many variants as possible. The inclusion of “Forbidden Zone” wouldn’t have hurt the album, but its absence doesn’t hurt.
By Only a Lad, the band’s sound would become sleeker and more sophisticated, rendering the Oingo Boingo EP more of a collector’s curiosity than a functional listen (I got mine for $5 at a record store in Seattle). But even with only four songs, it’s a taste of what the band—and Elfman as a composer—would evolve into.