Opening up and saying awesome: an oral history of Ultimate Fakebook’s This Will Be Laughing Week
Manhattan power-pop trio and major-label survivor Ultimate Fakebook broke up in 2003. But since 2008, the band has reunited for occasional holiday and benefit shows. No writing, recording or touring, but fans in Kansas City and Lawrence can generally count on seeing Fakebook once a year or so.
The latest such emergence happens this weekend, with the group adding its name to a strong-billed gig to raise money for Dagan Hanna. The 6-year-old son of Megan Hanna, the longtime local promoter, and Justin Lingenfelter was diagonosed last year with acute lymphoblastic leukemia. The Creature Comforts, Berwanger and Arthur Dodge are among the other acts raising money Saturday for the family’s medical costs.
The Fakebook album best represented at these one-offs is the second of the band’s three discs: 1999’s This Will Be Laughing Week, with its catchy “She Don’t Even Know My Name” and “Little Apple Girl.” Originally released on local label Noisome Records, it was subsequently picked up and reissued by Sony 550 in 2000. For a minute, it looked as though Ultimate Fakebook was going to hit nationally. But the tide receded, and it wasn’t Sony that put out swan song Open Up and Say Awesome (or the subsequent Before We Spark EP).
This is the story of This Will Be Laughing Week, in the words of Ultimate Fakebook’s Bill McShane and Eric Melin, along with engineer Ed Rose and Noisome Records’ Jeff Petterson.
Jeff Petterson, Noisome Records: I was a fan of the band the moment I heard them: first at KJHK and then [again] at KLZR, when I hosted our local music show. Noisome Records’ co-owner, Joe Glotzbach, was a fan of the band as well. We were actually approached by the band to help with the physical production of the CD and the release of Electric Kissing Parties, which became the second release on Noisome. They had liked the attention we had brought to the Bubble Boys, and knew that Joe and I were credible guys that were just in it for the music, so we joined forces.
Bill McShane, guitar and vocals: We had a really good run locally with Kissing Parties on Noisome. We knew we could go farther and better this second time around, and make a complete album — whereas Kissing Parties was done in a few different sessions, with two different drummers. So, when we went into the studio with Ed Rose for Laughing Week, our plan musically was to make a fully realized and complete UFB record start to finish, where every song was good — not just the singles. Our plan, recording-wise, was to make it sound as great as it could be, in the hopes of it getting licensed to a much bigger label, which would help us reach a bigger audience and be able to tour.
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Eric Melin, drums: Kissing Parties was recorded in multiple sessions, and although I was there for the second session, I only played drums on the third one. It was a real transition record, and I think the focus of the band was sharpening. The only plan I really remember about Laughing Week was that we knew it was going to be a cohesive, rocking beast. Between albums, we had been playing a whole lot and got really tight as a unit. We knew the songs we were about to record were really good and, although we had a limited time and budget, we didn’t want to skimp on anything.
We had worked out every detail of every song going in, so there were no questions about what part should be played at any given time — there was always a solid foundation. What was amazing about Ed then, is that he would push us creatively beyond that. With Ed’s help and encouragement, we ended up doing a lot of little things to some of the songs: the room sound of the piano on “A Million Hearts,” the cheesy intro of “Perfect Hair” that was made to sound like a commercial jingle, and the insertion of the drum machine and static sounds on “Real Drums.”
McShane: I had a notebook with all the extra guitar parts I wanted to add and stuff, so when we got in there with Ed, we pretty much just banged it out. Nick [Colby, bass], Eric, and I had all worked together really hard on the arrangements, so I don’t even think we changed a thing song-wise once we got into the studio. Ed was great as always and helped us get our vision to reality. For instance, for our prom-theme song, “A Million Hearts,” he found a local girl at the high school in Lawrence to play cello on the solo section.
Ed Rose, producer and engineer: Kissing Parties wasn’t really put together like a traditional record. It was a collection of sessions put together as a record so they could get their music in front of people. With Laughing Week, we knew we were making a proper record and planned accordingly. I think that comes across in the consistency of sound and performances. What you hear is how it happened. No funny business or performance correction, at all. Real humans making real music in real time.
Petterson: Ed and the UFB guys were meticulous in the studio, and the end result showcases not only the infectious songwriting but also captures what Ed always does so well in the studio. Noisome invested in both a publicist and a radio promotion company to bring it to college radio and the press. We were able to get a run of great reviews around the country and briefly landed on the CMJ Top 150 and received some minor airplay on commercial radio. But the band needed assistance to get them to the next level, and that’s when Kris Gillespie stepped in and recruited the band to a management deal and, ultimately, to a new record deal with Sony 550.
McShane: If anyone has a copy of the Epic/Sony release, they will see that we put “SIDE A” and “SIDE B” on the CD artwork. Each of us grew up with vinyl albums and cassettes, and that experience of listening to music that way with two separate sides was something we were always inspired by: how they always had a slightly different vibe. I loved the idea of a title track that sounded completely different than the rest of the songs, like a little palate cleanser.
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Melin: I can’t remember if we had the track order figured out either before or while we were recording, but that song [“This Will Be Laughing Week”] was strategically slotted to be the beginning of Side 2. It’s too bad there’s no more plans to release it on vinyl.
They [KLZR 105.9, the Lazer] were playing local music — and I can’t stress how strange and awesome and amazing this is — in regular rotation. Imagine being a kid and hearing Foo Fighters or whatever, and then an Ultimate Fakebook song right afterward. It legitimizes your band, because if you can hold your own mixed in with the other songs on the station, that’s huge. On top of that, the song (“Tell Me What You Want”) did really well and became kind of a local hit, if I remember correctly. So, yeah: We got more shows, better local opening slots, and people were singing along in the front rows!
Petterson: Sony had refused to even negotiate with us due to their attorneys finding a loophole in our business contract with the band. We never wanted to own the rights to the songs: We just owned the right to the album and the right to put out the third album from the band. UFB always maintained control of the songs and all publishing rights. Sony 550 encouraged UFB to simply walk away from us and re-record the songs and put them out as a different album. This way, they could get out of the deal with Noisome Records.
The band refused because the album was that great, and they also didn’t want to leave Noisome in the hole after spending thousands of dollars supporting the releases. Instead, UFB worked out a private deal between the band and Noisome Records out of their own advance.
McShane: Basically, soon after Noisome put it out, we started playing shows farther and farther away from home, and going to places like Chicago and — most important — New York. We weren’t doing full tours at that point. We were just playing anything we could get, even if it was just a few scattered shows on our way out to a showcase at CMJ in New York or something. We didn’t have any fans at that point outside of the Lawrence–KC area, but we were super hungry to tour and play for anyone in the room, and almost always at that point, it was to only a handful of people. But you never know who’s in the crowd if you’re playing in a big place like New York, and so that’s exactly what happened. The dudes who become our managers and even some label people were coming out to these shows and checking us out.
Melin: If I remember right, this was the order things happened in: We convinced a wonderful, independent, Boston-based booking agent named Trish Bauer to book us mini-tours after we played with the Sheila Divine [which she booked] at the Grand Emporium. We did a showcase thing in Chicago. We got an invite to play CMJ in New York. We met Kris and Ben there, who became our managers, and while we were on tour with the Get Up Kids and At the Drive-In, Ben Goldman from Epic 550 came to see us. It happened fast. That tour was a lightning rod of amazing things for us. Thank you, Get Up Kids!
Rose: I thought it was a great record and would certainly help them get to the next level. Plus, Sony flew us to New York for the mastering session and made us feel like rock stars.
In the studio for Sony, the band re-recorded Kissing Parties’ “Far Far Away” and “Downstairs/Arena Rock.”
McShane: That was Sony’s idea. Our A&R guy really loved those songs on Kissing Parties, and so his thinking was, “Why not stack the deck with all these great songs?” But since my voice had changed — Kissing Parties was literally the first time I’d ever sung lead vocals — and also since we had a different drummer on “Downstairs,” we knew we had to re-record them.
Melin: Those songs were staples of the live show, so why not? I actually liked being able to play drums on “Downstairs,” and think there’s some cool extra stuff we added in there to make it fun, but going back and re-recording them always felt weird.
McShane: It was awesome being on the label: We got all new equipment, a brand-new van, tour support. A big-name producer mixed our single for radio. We drove around in a limo for an entire day in L.A. doing radio interviews. Pretty much all the crazy stuff you dream about when you’re in a band.
Melin: We got a small budget to buy some new gear. I got a sweet, custom C&C drum kit and some durable road cases that I still use to this day. We got these sweet cassette samplers to give out on the road to get people excited for the album release. One of those ended up in Tom [Wisniewski] from MxPx’s hands after a show in Seattle. He said he went out and bought our record the day it was released, and that’s why we got invited to go on that tour — an organic example of how it’s supposed to work, I guess.
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After Sony put out Laughing Week, the band issued its final recordings on other labels.
McShane: It was great getting to be one of the slightly bigger bands on a smaller label, but it didn’t click as much as we had hoped. We really started to realize that a ton of the kids that had heard of us while we were on Sony had literally no idea we even had a new album on Initial. It’s pretty impossible, matching the kind of marketing, radio promotion and store distribution that a major label offers. This was before the internet was as big as it is now, and things like radio play and label marketing were a lot more critical in people knowing about a record or a band.
But it’s not like we felt any kind of lack of success was the label’s fault. I think we all agree now, when we look back, that we should have taken a breather after the Sony thing ran its course before jumping right in to making the next one. I think some time would have let some more interesting shit come to the surface. I feel like the songs we chose to be on Open Up and Say Awesome were almost like a reaction to what happened with Sony — “Hey, we really are radio-friendly and accessible! Boy, did you guys make a mistake in dropping us!” — instead of us writing like we did on Laughing Week.
Rose: They wrote really catchy songs that reached a wide audience and put on a great live show. Simple as that. The other day, while going through a box of old DATs, I ran across the original mix of “Far, Far Away.” Still sounds totally legit to this day.
Ultimate Fakebook with the Creature Comforts, Berwanger and Arthur Dodge
Saturday, February 25, at the Bottleneck
