Oingo Boingo - Reseda Country Club, Los Angeles, CA, 5-21-1984

The other day, I wanted to listen to Oingo Boingo, but I wanted to hear something different. I thought I had all the really excellent sounding live recordings from the band's early years, which is my favorite time period for them. There are only a few worthy bootlegs, and I've posted most of them. But I was pleasantly surprised to discover one more.

This took place almost a year after the release of the 1983 album "Good for Your Soul." But they still hadn't released anything new since then, so the songs generally come from that album, plus the two previous ones.

This comes from a soundboard bootleg. The sound quality is excellent, and there were no problems to fix. But there is one unfortunate thing, and that's that it's not complete. I looked it up at setlist.com, and around this time, the band usually ended the show with an encore of "Violent Love" and "Only a Lad." Those are missing. Plus, they played one or more songs before the first song here. For instance, they almost certainly played "Wake Up (It's 1984)," since it was very relevant in the year of 1984. But hey, at least we have the vast majority of the concert, with maybe ten to 20 minutes missing. 

I looked around for versions of "Violent Love" and "Only a Lad" to add as bonus tracks, but I couldn't find any with worthy sound quality from 1983, 1984, or 1985. So I decided to just stick with this.

This album is an hour and seven minutes long.

01 Dead or Alive (Oingo Boingo)
02 Who Do You Want to Be (Oingo Boingo)
03 No Spill Blood (Oingo Boingo)
04 Private Life (Oingo Boingo)
05 Insects (Oingo Boingo)
06 talk (Oingo Boingo)
07 Grey Matter (Oingo Boingo)
08 Little Guns (Oingo Boingo)
09 Nothing to Fear [But Fear Itself] (Oingo Boingo)
10 talk (Oingo Boingo)
11 Wild Sex [In the Working Class] (Oingo Boingo)
12 Nothing Bad Ever Happens (Oingo Boingo)
13 talk (Oingo Boingo)
14 Sweat (Oingo Boingo)
15 talk (Oingo Boingo)
16 Capitalism (Oingo Boingo)
17 Little Girls (Oingo Boingo)
18 Ain't This the Life (Oingo Boingo)
19 What You See (Oingo Boingo)
20 On the Outside (Oingo Boingo)
21 Goodbye, Goodbye (Oingo Boingo)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/8216AZTu

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/RLXQkxwnP7741UF/file

The cover photo of lead singer Danny Elfman is from 1985.

US Festival '82, Glen Helen Regional Park, San Bernardino, CA, 9-3-1982 - Day 1, Part 3: Oingo Boingo

The third set presented here from Day One of the 1982 US Festival is performed by the new wave band Oingo Boingo.

If you've listened to my albums from the 1983 US Festival, you may have noticed they performed in that one as well. They were one of just a few musical acts to perform both festivals. I think the English Beat was the only other one, although Stevie Nicks played as part of Fleetwood Mac in the 1982 festival than as a solo act in the 1983 one.

Unfortunately, the 1983 Oingo Boingo set is a soundboard bootleg, while this one comes from an audience boot. So the sound quality here is worse. I did what I could to improve it, boosting the lead vocals relative to the instruments and removing most of the crowd noise throughout the songs while keeping the cheering at the ends of songs. But still, there was only so much I could do, so this sounds listenable, but a bit rough. However, there aren't that many live recordings of the band from this time period, when I would argue they were at their best, making this one of the better sounding ones.

A few months prior to this concert, Oingo Boingo released their second studio album, "Nothing to Fear." They would release a third album before the 1983 US Festival, so the set lists between the two sets are somewhat different.

This album is 51 minutes long.

050 talk (Oingo Boingo) (Oingo Boingo)
051 Ain't This the Life (Oingo Boingo)
052 What You See [Is What You Get] (Oingo Boingo)
053 Private Life (Oingo Boingo)
054 Little Girls (Oingo Boingo)
055 talk (Oingo Boingo)
056 Grey Matter (Oingo Boingo)
057 You Really Got Me (Oingo Boingo)
058 Wild Sex [In the Working Class] (Oingo Boingo)
059 Take the Whole Day Off (Oingo Boingo)
060 talk (Oingo Boingo)
061 Insects (Oingo Boingo)
062 talk (Oingo Boingo)
063 Capitalism (Oingo Boingo)
064 Nothing to Fear [But Fear Itself] (Oingo Boingo)
065 talk (Oingo Boingo)
066 On the Outside (Oingo Boingo)
067 Goodbye Goodbye (Oingo Boingo) 

https://www.upload.ee/files/17467868/VA-1982USFstvlDay0103OngoBngo_atse.zip.html

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/gvjCrLJg

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/CMtl1MnQOV2wzGP/file

The cover photo of the band's lead singer Danny Elfman comes from this exact concert.

US Festival '83, Glen Helen Regional Park, San Bernardino, CA, 5-28-1983 - Day 1, Part 4: Oingo Boingo

The fourth act from the first day of the 1983 US Festival was a set by the band Oingo Boingo.

This is the only album from the 1983 US Festival that I already posted at this blog. In December 2022, I converted a video of this set into mp3 files because I couldn't find many concerts by this band with excellent sound quality. This album is exactly the same as the version I previously posted, except with a different album cover and the tracks renumbered. (I'll be deleting the previous version I'd posted here in favor of this one.)

I've written a bunch about Oingo Boingo already with other albums I've posted by them, so I won't do that again here. But I just want to say that I think they peaked around 1983 in terms of creativity and energy, so this is a really excellent performance, and the sound quality is great too. By the way, all the music here remains unreleased.

This album is 57 minutes long.

037 talk (Oingo Boingo)
038 Cry of the Vatos [Instrumental] (Oingo Boingo)
039 Dead or Alive (Oingo Boingo)
040 Ain't This the Life (Oingo Boingo)
041 Who Do You Want to Be (Oingo Boingo)
042 talk (Oingo Boingo)
043 No Spill Blood (Oingo Boingo)
044 Private Life (Oingo Boingo)
045 talk (Oingo Boingo)
046 Grey Matter (Oingo Boingo)
047 Insects (Oingo Boingo)
048 Wild Sex [In the Working Class] (Oingo Boingo)
049 Nothing to Fear [But Fear Itself] (Oingo Boingo)
050 talk (Oingo Boingo)
051 Violent Love (Oingo Boingo)
052 talk (Oingo Boingo)
053 Sweat (Oingo Boingo)
054 talk (Oingo Boingo)
055 Capitalism (Oingo Boingo)
056 On the Outside (Oingo Boingo)
057 talk (Oingo Boingo)
058 Goodbye Goodbye (Oingo Boingo)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17012983/VA-1983USFstvlDay0104OngoBngo_atse.zip.html

alternate link:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/mXNYnh1R

Oingo Boingo - Whisky A Go-Go, Los Angeles, CA, 10-3-1980

I recently posted a bootleg concert of Oingo Boingo from the Whisky A Go-Go that took place in August 1980. I mentioned I would post another one from the same venue, but later that year. Here it is.

As I mentioned with that post, there aren't many bootlegs from this band with really great sound quality. Weirdly, two of the best in terms of sound come from these Whisky shows in 1980, before the band's first album came out. With that show I already posted, it was professionally recorded so excerpts could be used in a movie. With this show, it was professionally recorded so it could be broadcast live on a local radio station. (You can hear lead singer Danny Elfman give shout outs to the station at a couple of points between songs.)

What I like about both shows is that they were from so early in their career that they performed some songs that they ultimately never put on any of their studio albums. In this case, those are: "I Was a Teenage Monster," "California Girls" (the Beach Boys hit), "Nature Zone" (an instrumental often called "Woke Up Clipped" on bootlegs), "Forbidden Zone," and "Louise." But this show is also longer than the other one I shared, at an hour and one minute, with a bunch of songs not played on that one, so if you're a fan of the band I recommend listening to both.

UPDATE: On October 24, 2022, I updated the mp3 download file. I didn't add or remove any songs. But I found a better sounding version of the entire concert, so I replaced the entire thing. The sound quality was excellent already, but now it's top notch. I would guess it's the best sounding bootleg by the band out there.

01 I Was a Teenage Monster (Oingo Boingo)
02 What You See (Oingo Boingo)
03 Controller (Oingo Boingo)
04 You Really Got Me (Oingo Boingo)
05 talk (Oingo Boingo)
06 On the Outside (Oingo Boingo)
07 talk (Oingo Boingo)
08 Imposter (Oingo Boingo)
09 California Girls (Oingo Boingo)
10 Nature Zone [Woke Up Clipped] [Instrumental] (Oingo Boingo)
11 I'm So Bad (Oingo Boingo)
12 Violent Love (Oingo Boingo)
13 talk (Oingo Boingo)
14 Forbidden Zone (Oingo Boingo)
15 Ain't This the Life (Oingo Boingo)
16 Only a Lad (Oingo Boingo)
17 Louise (Oingo Boingo)
18 talk (Oingo Boingo)
19 Nasty Habits (Oingo Boingo)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15264704/OingBo_1980_WhiskyAGoGoLsAngelesCA__10-3-1980_atse.zip.html

I found the photo for the cover art from a bootleg of this exact concert. I don't know if it's really from this show or not, and it's low-res. But I used it anyway, because I think it's a really cool photo. 

Oingo Boingo - Whisky A Go-Go, Los Angeles, CA, 8-17-1980

I'm a particularly big fan of early Oingo Boingo. I was reading an interview of the band's lead singer and songwriter Danny Elfman recently, which he was doing to promote his 2021 solo album "Big Mess." He commented that he has a short attention span, including musically. He gets tired of entire music genres, and wants to switch to something else entirely. This clearly happened with Oingo Boingo after a handful of years, with Elfman getting increasingly experimental before disbanding the group entirely in 1994. 

That said, Elman was all in with the band at the time of this concert, and they were firing on all cylinders. The band was so fresh that they hadn't even released their first album yet. 

One snag with Oingo Boingo bootlegs, in my opinion, is that many of them have okay to good sound quality, but very few have fantastic sound quality. However, this one has fantastic sound quality. It sounds so good that at times it sounds as good as a studio session, in my opinion.

Note that there's another bootleg of the band at this same venue, the Whisky A Go-Go, also from 1980. That one is also excellent, with more songs, but slightly lower sound quality. I believe this one was professionally recorded and filmed for material for the concert movie "Urgh! A Music War." Only the performance of "Ain't This the Life" was included in that, since it featured many artists. The other Whisky A Go-Go concert was recorded for a local radio station broadcast. I plan on posting that one here soon as well.

The one quibble I have with this boot is that it's rather short, at only 30 minutes. They played one more song, "Nasty Habits," but that wasn't recorded or included on the boot for whatever reason. So instead, I replaced it with "Goodbye, Goodbye," taken from another concert of unknown date and location, but also from 1980. With that song added in, the total length is 37 minutes long.

At this time, the band played a lot of quality songs that were never officially released on any of their studio albums. Even though this is a relatively short show, it includes three such songs, "Forbidden Zone," "I Was a Teenage Monster," and "California Girls" (a cover of the Beach Boys hit). Also, "Ain't This the Life" only appeared on an EP.

Oh, one more thing: at the same time I posted this, I redid the links to all the other Oingo Boingo albums I already posted, fixing the volume balance between songs and redoing the mp3 tags.

01 Forbidden Zone (Oingo Boingo)
02 Controller (Oingo Boingo)
03 Ain't This the Life (Oingo Boingo)
04 Only a Lad (Oingo Boingo)
05 talk (Oingo Boingo)
06 Imposter (Oingo Boingo)
07 You Really Got Me (Oingo Boingo)
08 I Was a Teenage Monster (Oingo Boingo)
09 California Girls (Oingo Boingo)
10 talk (Oingo Boingo)
11 Goodbye, Goodbye (Oingo Boingo)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15264512/OingBo_1980_WhiskyAGoGoLsAngelesCA__8-17-1980_atse.zip.html

As I mentioned above, one song from this exact concert, "Ain't This the Life," was featured in the concert film "Urgh! A Music War." So I took a screenshot from the video footage of that and used it for the album cover.

Oingo Boingo - Remember My Name - Non-Album Tracks (1987-1995)

I've posted quite a few Oingo Boingo stray tracks albums, which is rather surprising in my opinion considering that the band wasn't active that long. But for whatever reason, they had a habit of leaving lots of good songs off their albums. Here's the fifth and last. It's the last because the band folded in 1995.

Personally, my favorite period for the band is the first half of the 1980s. It was led by Danny Elfman, who was the lead vocalist and main songwriter. In 1985, he scored the music to a major motion picture, and from that point on he stayed very busy writing scores to dozens of movies. With each passing year, it seemed his interest in Oingo Boingo lessened until he disbanded the band altogether in 1995, after a farewell tour. 

This album deals with the years the band was slowing fading due to Elfman's changing interests. The band's musical style was changing too, growing more serious as Elfman aged and developed. But although I prefer the earlier style, in my opinion pretty much everything the band did was good. In fact, I would argue that many of the rare or unreleased songs here are as good or better than the songs on the band's albums.

Six of the songs here are unreleased. Most of those are studio outtakes and the sound quality is very good. "Minne the Moocher," a cover of the classic 1930s song, is the only one from a concert bootleg, and the sound quality of that one is a bit lower. Also, note that a different version of "Cindarella Undercover" did appear on the band's live in the studio album "Boingo Alive." Plus, the song was actually written in the late 1970s, and I posted a 1981 version on the stray tracks album "I Was a Teenage Monster."

By the way, "This Time" isn't an Oingo Boingo track at all, but a Danny Elfman solo one. It was actually done as a bonus track for the soundtrack to "Nightmare Before Christmas" in 1994. I included it because it has Elfman on lead vocals, something he almost never did for any of his soundtrack scores, and it was done while Oingo Boingo was still together.

This album is 59 minutes long.

01 Cinderella Undercover (Oingo Boingo)
02 Happy (Oingo Boingo)
03 Mama (Oingo Boingo)
04 Find You (Oingo Boingo)
05 Inside (Oingo Boingo)
06 Remember My Name (Oingo Boingo)
07 Try to Believe [Soundtrack Version] (Oingo Boingo)
08 Minnie the Moocher (Oingo Boingo)
09 Helpless (Oingo Boingo)
10 Water (Oingo Boingo)
11 This Time (Danny Elfman)
12 Piggies (Oingo Boingo)
13 Change (Oingo Boingo)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15264849/OingBo_1987-1995_RemembrMyNme_atse.zip.html

For the cover art, I found a nice graphic with the band's name in it on the Internet. I don't know where or when it's from, but I thought it looked cool. All I did was add the black background and the album title at the bottom.

Oingo Boingo - Freak Show - Non-Album Tracks (1982-1983)

I just posted an Oingo Boingo stray tracks album that deals with the years 1980 and 1981. This one takes care of the years 1982 and 1983. The band was busy at that time, releasing the albums "Nothing to Fear" and "Good for Your Soul." But it turns out they had lots of other original songs, and could have released another album at the time. All the songs here are originals and this even includes one of their best songs, "Goodbye Goodbye." So if you're a fan of the band, please give this a listen.

The first song and the last two are the only ones that have been officially released. All three come from movie soundtracks. Although the rest are unreleased, they sound pretty good in my opinion. It helps they're all demos and outtakes instead of coming from concert recordings.

Once again, I'm really impressed at the sheer number of unreleased or obscure originals from this band. They're still very underrated, in my opinion.

This album is 38 minutes long, not including the bonus track.

One song, "Lap of Luxury," is included only a bonus track for two reasons. One is that its sound quality isn't that great. The second is that I included a different version of this song on the stray tracks album that precedes this one, "I Was a Teenage Monster." But this live version has a significantly different arrangement, so I figure it at least deserves bonus track status.

01 Better Luck Next Time (Oingo Boingo)
02 Elementary Physics (Oingo Boingo)
03 Freak Show (Oingo Boingo)
04 All the Pieces (Oingo Boingo)
05 I Can't Pretend (Oingo Boingo)
06 Lightning (Oingo Boingo)
07 Waiting for You (Oingo Boingo)
08 Head in the Clouds (Oingo Boingo)
09 Kiss My Ass (Oingo Boingo)
10 Hold Me Back (Oingo Boingo)
11 Goodbye, Goodbye (Oingo Boingo)

Lap of Luxury [Alternate Live Version] (Oingo Boingo)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15264652/OingBo_1982-1983_FreakShw_atse.zip.html

The cover art uses a publicity photo of the band from around this time period. However, there was a problem: one of the band members was way off to the side, which upset the overall composition of the photo. If I had included him, lead singer Danny Elfman wouldn't have been right in the center. So I took just the head of that band member and added it behind some of the others. Now at least his head is included.

Oingo Boingo - I Was a Teenage Monster - Non-Album Tracks (1980-1981)

In 1981, Oingo Boingo released their first album, "Only a Lad." But I think they easily could have released a second album around that time. Just consider all the unreleased or obscurely released songs here. Plus, they had even more unreleased songs from their many years before fame, such as the ones on the "Ain't This the Life" compilation. I hope someday many of these will be officially released in pristine sound quality.

Only three of the songs here have been officially released: "Violent Love," "Squeezit the Moocher (Minnie the Moocher)," and "Cruisin'." They're from an EP, a movie soundtrack, and a B-side, respectively. As you can guess from the title, "Squeezit the Moocher" is a cover of the classic 1930s song "Minnie the Moocher" but with some changed lyrics.

Speaking of covers, "Rawhide" and "Violent Love" are also covers. And "Open Eyes" is based on "Auld Lang Syne."

This album is 43 minutes long, not including the bonus tracks.

UPDATE: On January 2, 2022, I updated the mp3 download file. Previously, the song "Gimme a Break" was a bonus track due to poor sound quality. I used the audio editing program X-Minus to boost the lead vocals, which was the main problem. So I deemed it good enough to be included with the regular album. I also used that same X-Minus trick to improve the sound quality of an existing bonus track, "I Always Talk to Pictures," and a new bonus track, "Animals." Although that helped they still sound worse than the rest, thus the bonus track status.

Also, I previously called an instrumental here "Woke Up Clipped" because this was the name on virtually all bootlegs. But it recently emerged from a source close to the band that it was actually called "Nature Zone." So I've renamed it, but I've kept the old name as a subtitle, since it has been referred to by that name so much.

01 Violent Love (Oingo Boingo)
02 Squeezit the Moocher [Minnie the Moocher] (Oingo Boingo)
03 Lap of Luxury (Oingo Boingo)
04 Nature Zone [Woke Up Clipped] [Instrumental] (Oingo Boingo)
05 Rawhide (Oingo Boingo)
06 Gimme a Break [Edit] (Oingo Boingo)
07 Cruisin' (Oingo Boingo)
08 I Was a Teenage Monster (Oingo Boingo)
09 Louise (Oingo Boingo)
10 I've Got to Be Entertained (Oingo Boingo)
11 Two Twisted Trees (Oingo Boingo)
12 Always There (Oingo Boingo)
13 Cinderella Undercover (Oingo Boingo)
14 Open Eyes [Auld Lang Syne] (Oingo Boingo)

Animals [Edit] (Oingo Boingo)
I Always Talk to Pictures [Edit] (Oingo Boingo)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16067755/OingBo_1980-1981_IWsTeenageMnster_atse.zip.html

Given that early Oingo Boingo especially cultivated a sinister image, the song "I Was a Teenage Monster" stuck out to me as an album title. For the cover art, I searched for and found the most sinister photo of lead singer Danny Elfman I could find. I'm not sure where it's from exactly, but it looks to be roughly the right era. I designed the album cover while imagining it as the poster for a 1960s low budget horror film.

Oingo Boingo - Graham Central Station, Phoenix, AZ, 9-14-1983

I continue to feel that Oingo Boingo are a very underrated band, and all too forgotten these days. One reason for this is because their best work was their first three albums, when they were very popular in Southern California but mostly unknown outside of it. They started to get more popular elsewhere after that, but they went into a slow decline as the band's singer and songwriter Danny Elfman refocused his attention on movie soundtracks (which he started doing in 1985).

I have long wanted to find an excellent concert bootleg to listen to from their early 1980s heyday. But the problem with Oingo Boingo is sound quality. Because they were a big band, they needed to be mixed properly with a very clear recording to make a concert listen worthwhile. I didn't find any worthy recording until a few days ago, when I stumbled on this one.

In short, the sound quality of this album is fantastic, as good as an official live album. After an Internet search, I concluded this is the only really excellent sounding (and soundboard) live bootleg from the band's first few years. The only downside is that it's incomplete. It's only 48 minutes long, and almost certainly isn't the full show, since it's missing some key songs the band played back then. But still, if you ever wanted to listen to Oingo Boingo live, give this a try.

By the way, the name of the concert venue needs a little explanation. Yes, it turns out the band played at a club in Phoenix called "Graham Central Station." This is confusing, because there was a popular funk band starting in the 1970s also using that name. I don't know if there's any connection, but I Googled it, and such a club did exist at the time, though it has closed since.

I found another concert from 1983 that has decent sound, though not as stellar as this Phoenix boot. It only had three full songs on it, however. I've included the two songs that weren't from the main show as bonus tracks.

01 Who Do You Want to Be (Oingo Boingo)
02 Private Life (Oingo Boingo)
03 Dead or Alive (Oingo Boingo)
04 Grey Matter (Oingo Boingo)
05 Insects (Oingo Boingo)
06 Wild Sex [In the Working Class] (Oingo Boingo)
07 Little Guns (Oingo Boingo)
08 What You See (Oingo Boingo)
09 Whole Day Off (Oingo Boingo)
10 Little Girls (Oingo Boingo)
11 On the Outside (Oingo Boingo)
12 Ain't This the Life (Oingo Boingo)
13 Only a Lad (Oingo Boingo)

Nothing Bad Ever Happens (Oingo Boingo)
Wake Up [It's 1984] (Oingo Boingo)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15264852/OingBo_1983_GrhamCentrlStationPhoenixAZ__9-14-1983_atse.zip.html

I wish I had a better photo for the cover art. This is from a 1983 concert, which is good. But it only shows three band members at a time when there were eight members in the band. It's really hard to get close to that many people in a single photo when they're spread all over the stage.

Oingo Boingo - Gratitude - Non-Album Tracks (1984-1985)

In 1984, Danny Elfman released his first solo album "So-Lo." He would later go on to great fame and fortune as a movie soundtrack composer. But at the time, he was the main singer and songwriter for Oingo Boingo. But it turns out it wasn't really a solo album at all. The other musicians were the rest of Oingo Boingo, and it was mainly billed a solo album due to some kind of problem with the record company.

But the problem was that some if it just wasn't up to the standard Oingo Boingo had set with their previous albums. In my opinion, about half of the songs were excellent, and the other half were forgettable. So what I've done is taken other stray Oingo Boingo songs from 1984 or 1985 and replaced the weaker songs to make a really solid album. Luckily, there's just enough material to do this.

By the way, since the thin fiction of this album being an Elfman solo album no longer holds, I figured it was no longer fitting to call it "So-Lo." So I picked the title of the hit song from the album instead.

The first five songs are from the "So-Lo" album. The next three were officially released as well, from soundtrack and complication albums. The song "I Stand Defeated" is an unreleased outtake. Finally, I've included the single version of their biggest hit song, "Weird Science." I've included it because it's significantly different from the album version, which has become the most commonly known version. The biggest difference is length: the album version is over six minutes long, whereas this version is less than four minutes long. I prefer this version.

This album is 40 minutes long, not including the bonus track.

The bonus track is a cover of "Sunshine of Your Love." This comes from a rehearsal session, but the sound quality isn't that good. I used the audio editing program X-Minus to boost the vocals, which helped some, but only some.

01 Gratitude (Oingo Boingo)
02 Cool City (Oingo Boingo)
03 It Only Makes Me Laugh (Oingo Boingo)
04 Tough as Nails (Oingo Boingo)
05 Everybody Needs (Oingo Boingo)
06 Something Isn't Right (Oingo Boingo)
07 Bachelor Party (Oingo Boingo)
08 Take Your Medicine (Oingo Boingo)
09 I Stand Defeated (Oingo Boingo)
10 Weird Science [Single Version] (Oingo Boingo)

Sunshine of Your Love [Edit] (Oingo Boingo)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15264847/OingBo_1984-1985_Gratitde_atse.zip.html

The cover art is kind of curious, in that it's extremely similar to the cover art of "So-Lo," and yet totally different. That's because the back cover of that album displayed an alternate version of the same exact scene. So I used that. Of course, I changed the text too.

Oingo Boingo - Ain't This the Life - Non-Album Tracks (1976-1979)

Oingo Boingo is a very underrated band, in my opinion. Their first three albums in particular are solid all the way through. They were extremely popular in Southern California in the 1980s, but on the rare occasions they got nationwide recognition, it was for some of their lesser efforts, like the song "Weird Science."

They also are a band that has been more or less ignored since they broke up. Their main singer and songwriter Danny Elfman has gone off to great fame and fortune composing movie soundtracks, and it seems he's put the entire Oingo Boingo experience behind him. There have been no rereleases with bonus tracks, or deluxe editions, or box sets, or rarities compilations, or the like. And that's a shame, because it turns out the band recorded all sorts of good songs that never got on any of their albums, and many of them never even got officially released at all.

It took a long time for the band to hit it big. The group was actually formed in 1972, and for a long time it was a surrealist performance art theatrical troupe led by Danny's brother, Richard Elfman. This album covers the tail end of the early years, mostly after they morphed into a new wave band led by Danny. (Up until 1979, they went by the name "The Mystic Knights of Oingo Boingo," but for simplicity's sake I'm just using "Oingo Boingo" for everything here.) The band put out two EPs and had lots of good songs that never even got released at all before their first album "Only a Lad" came out in 1981.

I think this album is as good or better than most of their other albums. It's a shame that the group's recordings have been so neglected by their record company.

The second and third songs, "You Got Your Baby Back" and "Ballad of the Caveman," are from an obscure 1976 single. "You Got Your Baby Back" is a 1950s parody song that comments on the strange kidnapping saga of Patty Hearst (look it up if you don't know her story). Three more songs towards the end of the album, "Forbidden Zone," "I'm So Bad," and "I'm Afraid," also have been officially released, but on very obscure releases. The rest of the songs are officially unreleased. But all but one of them are studio demos and sound very good.

The one song demoted to a bonus track, "Only a Lad," sounds great. It was the band's first hit. However, this is an earlier EP version. I've only included it as a bonus track since it's the same song as the hit. But I figure some people might want to hear the alternate version. 

This album is 52 minutes, not including the bonus tracks.

The bonus tracks are "Goodbye, Goodbye," "Only a Lad [EP Version]," and "Wolverine." The band would later release "Goodbye, Goodbye" on a movie soundtrack in 1982, but this is a fairly different demo version. It sounds fine and is only a bonus track because I put other versions on other albums. That's the same situation with "Only a Lad," this version sounds fine, but it's just an alternate to the more famous version. "Wolverine" is a nice original. The sound quality was a bit rough, which is why it's a bonus track. But I used the audio editing program X-Minus to boost the vocals and hopefully improve the sound somewhat.

01 Acapella Ditty (Oingo Boingo)
02 You Got Your Baby Back (Oingo Boingo)
03 Ballad of the Caveman (Oingo Boingo)
04 Don't Go in the Basement (Oingo Boingo)
05 St. James Infirmary (Oingo Boingo)
06 Nuclear Babies (Oingo Boingo)
07 California Girls (Oingo Boingo)
08 Make It Right (Oingo Boingo)
09 I Must Be Dreaming (Oingo Boingo)
10 Marching in Time (Oingo Boingo)
11 Because of You (Oingo Boingo)
12 Ain't This the Life (Oingo Boingo)
13 Forbidden Zone (Oingo Boingo)
14 I'm So Bad (Oingo Boingo)
15 I'm Afraid (Oingo Boingo)
16 Gotta Get Out (Oingo Boingo)

Goodbye, Goodbye [Demo Version] (Oingo Boingo)
Only a Lad [EP Version] (Oingo Boingo)
Wolverine [Edit] (Oingo Boingo)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16088606/OINGBO1976-1979_AintThsLfe_atse.zip.html

The cover art is based on the cover of their 1979 EP. Apparently, that EP had a number of different covers, mostly with different coloring. I picked one I liked, and also changed the text.