THE AQUABATS - REVENGE OF THE MIDGET PUNCHERS (1995)
The most rare and expensive Aquabats release
This tape was the first release ever put out by The Aquabats, put out sometime in 1995 it was limited to about 50 copies, the tapes were issued with a full color photocopied insert and an unlabeled clear tape with four songs on the Psychic Side and 1 and a half on the Mystery Side.
Mostly everyone that played on this tape went onto play on Return of the Aquabats aside from Matt Vangumby on guitar and current GOGO13 Trombonist Jeffrey McFerson.
Every track from this tape would end up being rerecorded in a proper manner for their debut album, aside from the Midget Punchers origin story on the mystery side, officially given the name "25 Years Ago" by Gumby.
This demo from the start was notoriously very difficult to obtain, with only 50 total copies pressed they were only sold at some of the bands earliest shows, leading some promoters to have to resort to obtaining bootleg copies to hear The Aquabats.
(picture above is taken from personal collection of Tazy Phyllpz)
In present times only a few known copies are known to exist and are owned by fans.
Pictured above is an early mockup of the cover art, featuring six tracks as opposed to the five the final product was to be delivered, the mockups tracklist went as follows:
In place of the Midget Punchers origin story instead was Aquabania, also known as Aquabanian Skank, or Translyvania Skank. The Aquabanian Skank was a famously lost track, being referred to as almost a ghost story and being due to it never being performed or recorded after the band released Midget Punchers, disappeared to time. The full track was found by youtuber Carmine234 on Dec 9th, 2020 as part of the one of the earliest recorded live performance of The Aquabats. On Jun 21st, 2021 footage of this song being performed live at a birthday party was posted by the bands original guitarist Gumby.
(AQUABATS LIVE ON KUCI 1994: https://youtu.be/1M99zuxLF5I?si=6wT2TSIn1ntaM6Uz)
(AQUABATS LIVE 10/23/94: https://youtu.be/fWJaJiSZ-Ns?si=acWiVb5JfgMxvRwZ)
This early mockup also lists "Play-Doh" on side B instead of "Pinch & Roll", whether these two versions exist and remain unreleased or were only in place for the mock up is unknown, however both tracks can be found on the previously mentioned Ska Parade performance so it would be fair to assume they would be played in a similar manner.
A pretty obvious fact that sticks out immediately is that all members sound like chipmunks, the reason behind this is blamed on the duplication of this tape, leading all copies of this cassette to play at the incorrect speed. A repaired version was provided by Gumby and uploaded to YouTube.
(HEAR IT HERE: https://youtu.be/8SYLBoZXnYc?si=mUFtkmj19MYBf38S)
Very little was actually known about Midget Punchers since its release, to this date it's only sold once at auction in 2012 for a staggering $500 and would remain unheard until atleast 2018, where another copy would surface from Ben The Brain's personal collection. This copy would then be saved and sent to other super fans, however due to reservations held by the band the tape would not be publicly shared or posted.
From the time it was first ripped it would be shared around privately within the community, personally I didn't hear the demo until 2021 however in the meantime tracks from this tape would surface from other sources and uploaded to YouTube. on Jan 23rd, 2023 the full tape was uploaded by MarikoRawralton, they were unfamiliar with the Aquabats having found the cassette at a flea market and upon finding the tapes almost legend status on the internet would upload the entire thing, this is the first time the full tape was able to heard in full by the public (however by then it'd been heard by most superfans).
HEAR THE FULL THING HERE:
thanks for taking the time to read this post if you did!
feel free to let me know if you feel I made any mistakes or if my timeline was off, everything I wrote about was off the dome mostly :o)
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