Bananas, The

THE BANANAS
Back in the old days, when Sam and I were starting plan-it-x. We would send OPERATION: CLIFF CLAVIN CDs to any record label or band that we read about in M.R.R. that sounded cool. on of these bands was the BANANAS. we mailed an OPCC 7" in hoped that Scott (the runner of the punk label, SECRET CENTER) wold be nice enough to trade us a copy of "the peel sessions" 7" and it worked. Sam and I were living in the same room back then in a very fucked up punk house (by fucked up i mean, nothing worked, our landlord was a coke dealer and lived right next store, the shower leaked into the kitchen, etc...). We put the record on and loved it right away. We listened to it over and over. We were also really impressed by the fact that scott sold his 7"s for $2 postage paid. they were CHEAPER than plan-it-x. Along with the 7" he sent a note asking us if we wanted to be on a comp CD. he said he was making a comp of bands with funny names and he thought we had a funny name. this was a big deal for us. we were so excited to be on a real comp!

Later that same year OPCC was on tour for the first time and we had an off day. We have many off days on that tour. We decided to spend the day in Albuquerque NM. We had a show there the next day with SCARED OF CHAKA so we called their guitar player Dave and ask him if we could stay at his house that night. He said sure and he said it was his drummers birthday and they were having a party and some band on tour from california were gonna play. it turned out to be the BANANAS and THE FOUR EYES. the show was awesome. my favorite part was when Mike couldn't get his guitar to work and kept saying it was broken. then scott leaned over and turned the volume knob up. it was funny. after the show we asked them if they had anymore recordings and they said no. OPCC had just self released our first CD (freedom of choice) and we figured out how cheap CDs are to make and we thought it would be cool to release their CD. We asked them. They said yes. Plan-it-x records became a real record label.

(it took them about 2 years to send us their master recording but alas, we eventually released the greatest pop punk album of the decade, FORBIDDEN FRUIT).

THE BANANAS STARTED AS A JOKE
it was 1991. they wanted to play a show with TIGER TRAP (search: GO SAILOR, THE SOFTIES, ROSE MELBERG) and NAR (another one of scott's awesome pop-punk bands) so they started a band. the plan was to play one show and one show only. They fucked up and played a pre-show at a comic book shop and made a few die hard, life long fans. they should have been done a few days later after the TIGER TRAP show but some people say they were just too lazy to break up.

WHO ARE THEY?
Scott Miller plays the drums and sings
Mike play guitar and sings
Lisa played bass for the first 9-10 years.
Marie replaced Lisa.
They come from Sacramento CA.

Scott said something once that really stuck with me. he said,
"the revolution will have a catchy chorus".

I really liked (and still like) that. That was my plan with my own band back then. we would write pop songs but they would be political so that people would sing along and have fun. at the time i was learning a lot about punk and just getting into stuff and i couldn't understand why all the cool bands that had awesome lyrics and great politics would usually scream and be un-understandable. I think we all need to have fun when we go to shows. having fun and dancing and singing with your friends is a political action these days.

the BANANAS make fun music. fun but not silly. it's fast, it's catchy but with dark and sometimes funny lyrics. i can't explain the magic of the bananas. just listen and sing along.