Anyway, first up, "#?*!", aka "Pillowhead".
tl;dr: A single for "Pretty Girls Swear" in everything but name. Four of the five tracks are worth listening to. Recommended for Regurgitator fans... otherwise?
What?: EP released after Regurgitator's Band In The Bubble album "Mish Mash".
Why?: Regurgitator are one of my "don't even ask" bands. I've bought everything they've released since the 90s and will continue to do so until I die.
Tell me more!: Regurgitator's Band In The Bubble experiment happened in my home town of Melbourne, so I was able to go and visit them make the Mish Mash album. I didn't have cable TV so I couldn't watch them, Big Brother style, from home, but visiting and watching through the glass was a lot of fun. I saw a number of songs being recorded, including "Sent By God To Get You Off" found on the album and this EP (although the version on the EP is much shorter as the version on the album is last on the CD and includes the traditional "hidden track").
One of the songs friends spoke a lot about at the time was "Pretty Girls Swear", because Regurgitator asked members of the Spazzys to come down to the bubble to record backing vocals for this song, and it involved a lot of swearing and screaming. Imagine the disappointment when it wasn't on the album.
This EP rectifies that problem, and also includes one of my favourite Regurgitator b-sides, "The Rock", a rockin' little slice of drum beat, echo Ben vocals and guitar feedback.
Regurgitator b-sides have a special place in my heart and I'm absolutely devastated that the single format is gone, meaning rarely will I hear a non-album Regurgitator track again. In fact, the Pillowhead EP is the last Regurgitator release we've seen that could be described as a single with b-sides.
"Pillowhead Orchestra" is thirty plus minutes of someone messing about with a keyboard and some loops. It's pleasantly-background and ambient but hardly worth mentioning. It does feed nicely into the Dub mix of "Send By God" which is beautifully understated with some lovely bass, and the vocals mixed backwards, much like the original drums. I love it.
6/10: Pretty Girls Swear isn't my favourite song in the world, but it's OK. I absolutely love Sent By God, but it's found on the album. The Dub mix is definitely worth owning, and it's hard to ignore almost my favourite Regurgitator track. 6 out of 10 is probably overly generous but I admit to significant fanboy bias.