Shut Up Little Man features the belligerent rants, hateful harangues, drunken soliloquies, and audible fistfights of
Raymond and Peter-- two booze-swilling homicidal roommates in a low-rent area of San Francisco. These real-life recordings were made by their frustrated and much-bereaved next door neighbors,
Eddie Lee Sausage and Mitchell D.
Warning: The CD contains nothing but profane language-- as do the downloaded tracks.
Yes, that's right. For the first time you can legally download Shut Up Little Man; as of today it's digitally available exclusively at
iTunes.
The Shut Up Little Man recordings were initially made surreptitiously as proof of the booze-laden threats and murderous exploits of Peter and Raymond. The recordings then circulated in a subterranean manner for several years before being officially released in 1992 as a series of tapes issued by Seymour Glass and Tedium House. Subsequently, Shut Up Little Man was officially released by a subsidiary of Matador Records in 1993.
Due to the outlandish vitriol and darkly humorous exchanges between Raymond and Peter, the recordings quickly became regarded as a classic of the audio verite phenomenon (along with the Tube Bar tapes and the Jerky Boy prank calls). Shut Up Little Man has been featured in
The Wire, Vanity Fair, Spin, Los Angeles Times, Rolling Stone, Playboy, Washington Post and many underground zines. Shut Up Little Man has also been the subject of an episode of “This American Life” by Ira Glass, and the inspiration for several theatrical plays, short films, a song by Devo, and graphic depictions by several great comic book artists, including Dan Clowes, Ivan Brunetti, Dame Darcy, and M. Flinn.
For further information, please visit
The Official Shut Up Little Man website.
(watch this space for a relaunch-- with new URL-- in late March!)
The Complete Recordings of Shut Up Little Man-- in seven volumes-- will be issued one by one in March and April of 2008. Yes, they'll be available for download and yes, we will warn you (and link you) here first.
Track listing for the original Shut Up Little Man CD/download:
1. Introducing Peter: the crucifixion of dinner
2. Introducing Ray: I am ready now!
3. You wanna stick me with that fork?
4. Go to bed: Fist fight #1
5. Someday I will kill you
6. Sorry Darling
7. I despise all queers
8. What did you do during the war?
9. Don’t call me Goodnight!
10. Introducing Tony: I seen them potheads
11. On the floor again: Fist fight #2
12. You always giggle falsely
13. Ray, you are just fucking up!
14. I was a mean motherfucker in my time
15. Ray’s soliloquy: I am the human race!
16. Toenails
17. I know how to use any weapon
18. Vodka
19. This time I attack!
20. I don’t wanna watch queer shit: Fist fight #3
21. Tony stripped her down!
22. Nova Express Times survey on alcoholism
23. Queers giggle
24. Where are the police?
25. A night in the Stony Lonesome
26. I am a killin’ motherfucker
27. You don’t have friends
28. Go live south of Market
29. The killing of 14 people
30. Ray mewls at the cops
31. We’ll set your hair on fire
32. Cheap little bitch
33. A liar, a cheat, and a thief
34. I am a man
35. I tried to make this a home
36. If you wanna talk to me, then shut your fuckin’ mouth
The CD/LP won't be shipping until February 7th, but you can buy Sonic Youth's latest installment in the SYR series for $7.99 at iTunes right this very second.
Sharon Van Etten's "Save Yourself" (from her album epic) has been selected by iTunes as its free Discovery Download this week.
You probably know about Twitter. How did we exist all these years without the ability to text our friends to inform them we just got out of the shower and are blowing off work to watch Shimmy on FitTV?
