Fat Day

Fat Day is a Boston-based noisecore band. Formed in Cambridge, MA in 1992, they released three LPs and several EPs on their own 100% Breakfast! label, as well as an EP co-released with Donut Friends, and EPs released on HG Fact, Wabana, and Ratfish. The Japanese-American label Devour Records released a CD of Fat Day's first two albums before 2002's IV came out on the Portland, OR Dark Beloved Cloud label and 2004's Unf! Unf! on the Providence noise label Load Records. Fat Day has toured the U.S. several times, the UK and Ireland in 1997, and Japan in 1998. They have released split EPs with the Ohio bands Thomas Jefferson Slave Apartments and Harriet The Spy and the Japanese band Melt-Banana (2007). They are most famous for originating the ironic mustache.^[1]

Projects

Fat Day's original inception as a standard guitar/bass/drums/vocals punk band has always been infused with a performance art aesthetic. They have been known to play dressed only in clear cellophane wrap or have vocalist Matt Pakulski locked inside a speaker cabinet for the entire duration of a live show. Their 1997 tour of the UK and Ireland featured a fifth member playing saxophone that drew comparisons to Captain Beefheart, and for their 1998 tour of the U.S and Japan the band built a set of oscillators that were activated by choreographed dances on four small trampolines. These homemade electronic instruments were later condensed into a more manageable helmet form that the band would wear and play songs on in the midst of their more guitar-based set.

Fat Day recorded a soundtrack for guitarist Doug DeMay's film Sexy Doings. They have also collaborated with the comic strip illustrator PShaw! on a comic strip poster and a purple vinyl 45 RPM record set called Oskarrensaga, based on their elaborate 2002 rock opera of the same name that involved inflatable pool toys (such as swans and a curly sea serpent), and featured narration by PShaw. The album Fat Day IV is a collection of twenty-one pieces of music composed and mailed in by fans, and Iguanadonaland enlists a community orchestra that performs throughout the album.

Other appearances

Fat Day's song "Little Rachcles" is sampled on the 1999 album Planetary Natural Love Gas Webbin' 199999 by DJ Pica Pica Pica, a continuous mix of music compiled by Yamatsuka Eye. The song is incorrectly listed in the liner notes of that CD as "Burrega Theme".

Members

• Arik Grier, bass guitar and electronics, now plays tuba in the Ethio-groove outfit Debo Band.
• Doug Demay, guitar and electronics, sang for a Devo cover band, now plays in Exusamwa.
• Matt Pakulski, vocals and electronics, majored in new music composition in college and originally played bagpipes in Fat Day.
• Zak Sitter, drums and electronics, was a founding member of DQE.

Discography

Albums

• My Name Is I Hate You (1995)
• Burrega! (1997)
• Burrega!/My Name Is I Hate You (1998 CD release of first two albums)
• Cats of the Wild (2000)
• IV (2002)
• Unf! Unf! (2004)
• Snarl of Pulchritude: Singles 1993-2003 (2004)
• Iguanadonaland (2008)

EPs and singles

• 1st 7" (1993)
• Live Poultry Fresh Killed (1994)
• Bound for Glory (1995)
• Smell Me Silly! (1996)
• Split 7" with Thomas Jefferson Slave Apartments (1997)
• Split 7" with Harriet the Spy (1998)
• Gun Court (1999)
• Poop E.P. (2002)
• Oskarrensaga (2006)
• Split CD with Melt-Banana (2007)

Compilation appearances

• One song on a flexidisc that came as an insert in Wingnut Magazine (Sealed Hotel Publications, 1993)
• One song on The Guide To Your Demise 7" compilation (1994)
• One song on the Stealing the Pocket compilation LP (Positively Punk, 1994)
• "All Your Winning Colours" and "Dub" appear on the Methodist Leisure Inc. freebie spazzcore compilation "Short Attention Span" (2009, Methodist Leisure Inc.)

See also

• Record Hospital
• WHRB

References

External links

• Official site
• Myspace
• Mr. Fat Day comics by PShaw!
• Article by Douglas Wolk
• Review by Charlie Wilmoth
• Review by Marc Gilman
• Review by Rick Anderson