First, of all just some new shows confirmed: Saturday, July 30 back at the Black Swan, and Friday, August 12 at Relish again. More updates as we receive confirmation of pending gigs.

In the interim, we will be keeping our heads down a bit more from a performance stand point due to the pressures of the DAY JOB, but also to take the time to finally properly record the songs we have been playing live. For that, I have enrolled in a course in audio recording and will be seeking out a good and reasonable studio. Something good should hopefully come of it.

While there are few Félix and the Cats recording out there in the wild, every song ever played has a corresponding home demo, using Garageband on a Mac computer. On those demos, all the instruments are live except the drums which are built-in loops. The idea was to use these recordings as musical notebooks to share with the rest of the bad and guest sidemen.

Unusually, I will share one of these with you: Mr. Juicy Fruit. When the “proper” recording is done, it may be interesting to compare the two. We’ll see.

Mr. Juicy Fruit was first recorded over 10 years ago on GB, and written even before that. It was a reaction to an individual at a bar on Danforth and Donlands when NeMo and I played for Jeanine Mackie. While the band was playing, this odd and likely very drunk man would dance wildly on his own, do somersaults, then leap onstage and hand out sticks of gum to the band mid-song. He deserved a back-story, so I made one up.

Here it is. Warts and all.

Mister Juicy Fruit © 2005 Félix and the Cats/R. Pelletier.
All rights reserved. [SOCAN/ASCAP]

verse 1
Mister Juicy Fruit likes to leer and cuss
Mister Juicy Fruit ran off to the circus
Mister Juicy Fruit loves his exercise
Mister Juicy Fruit drinks too much to be wise

chorus
Say hello, say hello, hello
Say hello, what do you know?
Say hello, say hello, hello
Say hello, what do you know?
Say hello, say hello, hello
Say hello, what do you know?
Say hello, say hello, hello
Say hello, what do you know?

verse 2
Mister Juicy Fruit is a desperate dancer
Mister Juicy Fruit knows he has the answer
Mister Juicy Fruit rumbles and he tumbles
Mister Juicy Fruit shouts even when he mumbles

chorus

bridge
Mister Juicy Fruit’s soul is full of bile
Mister Juicy Fruit will go out in style
Mister Juicy Fruit, he won’t want your help
Mister Juicy Fruit, he’ll see you in hell

solo over chorus

verse 2
Mister Juicy Fruit ,behind the rough façade
Mister Juicy Fruit, is he truly bad?
Mister Juicy Fruit, behind his liquid eyes
Mister Juicy Fruit, is there a kind surprise?

chorus