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This
section of the site deals with common enguiries about Ben Mitchell's work
as STRUWWELPETER. Who are the people in the photographs featured on the 'You're All So Precious' packaging? These were found by collaborator Jim Ford who emailed them on to Ben. "I just find it interesting the way people looked decades ago, not what they wore so much but the bizarre alignment of their facial features really stands out. Also this batch of photos had the picture of the two girls that became the cover, and the photo was already damaged in this eerily selective way, so as just to conceal one of their faces. I just loved the photo and knew it'd be great as the cover. If anyone knows where the hell it's from please get in touch." What are the acknowledged David Lynch references on 'You're All So Precious'? The whole idea of 'noise pieces' as outlined by Pete Philips (my good self) and John Harris was inspired by various sound designers, chief among them Alan Splet and David Lynch. Numerous track titles such as 'Without Chemicals' are references to lines from Lynch films. Portions of the lyrics to 'Cold Turkey' precis the events of the final episode of Lynch's 'Twin Peaks' show. 'I was trying to write some deep, personal lyrics about drug abuse and a certain person I know who was destroyed by it, but I just can't translate those types of feelings to song lyrics. They end up sounding like, well, self-indulgent and twatty. So I'm going nuts trying to make it work, and in the background on the TV I've got all these freaks yelling at me in this sort of backwards drawl while that suave little guy is dancing around and I figure "Screw it, this shit is much better than anything from my life" so I just wrote what I saw. Ripoff or homage, you choose". How come there aren't any 'noise pieces' on the other Struwwelpeter albums? They were pretty much all created for 'You're All So Precious', mainly because the songs on that record were much more 'ordinary' sounding and we wanted some weirder stuff to balance things out. From 'Rapeseed' on, business is pretty much as it was before. But still quite weird in places. The version of 'Vowel Movement' sounds different to a version I downloaded before 'Rapeseed' came out - what gives? As 'Vowel Movement' wasn't finished until late into production of the album, the preview track sent out was actually a live version of the song recorded in August. The sample at the beginning of the live track is from 'The Ren & Stimpy Show', and the one at the end is from 'Twin Peaks'. What is 'Smile Town'? Ben Mitchell's own word on the subject: "Well, I do a graphics course and there isn't a lot of writing required, so I'm keeping my skills - such as they are - honed by writing a sitcom. It's about a crackhouse, and the people who occupy it. It began as an exercise in bad taste, like see if I can produce something that nobody will ever see but might keep me occupied. Except it's actually turned out quite warm at heart, there's some touching stuff in there. I'd like to at least record the dialogue, and then at some point do an animatic. I have character designs and sketches and stuff. It'd only work as an animated series." What the hell is 'Highland Grift Lament' about? In Ben's words: "That whole thing is completely stolen from an episode of South Park. In fact, if I remember right, the main storyline wasn't that great, but the subplot was basically this old couple bemoaning their persecution at the hands of the Loch Ness monster, who was always bugging them for money. That always seemed much funnier. I really didn't think anybody would even acknowledge that track though, it's so retarded. But it turns out lots of people said it was their favorite on the record, so I'm gonna have to give credit where it's due, y'know? So everybody go out and buy the South Park DVD right now." How come the version of 'End Of An Era' on the sampler for 'Rapeseed' is different from the album version? For each song that appears on an album several mixes are made. Sometimes the final one is chosen from the selection, other times the eventual track is a composite of the alternate mixes. In this case Ben ended up with two separate mixes that he liked equally, so he wanted to find a way to make both of them available. Where are the samples featured in 'Smack You Witless' from? The smattering of street samples and gospel-type vox snippets are all from a CD of royalty free samples that came with the software Ben uses. To our knowledge they were created purely for the CD and aren't from any existing songs in particular. What is 'FCT'? This was a collection of home video footage friends of Ben Mitchell's had put together, in the style of 'Jackass' - basically it consisted of people hurting themselves and doing bizarre stunts. Although Ben himself doesn't feature, he has talked of putting the footage together professionally and releasing a DVD through PhatBoy some day. As he would be scoring it, the song that features on 'Rapeseed' would presumably become the theme song. What are the backwards lyrics at the beginning and end of 'Severed'? Actually these are the only lyrics printed in the CD booklet. They are part of the dedication to Rachel Winter. And who is she? That's also mentioned in the booklet. What is the name of the hidden track at the end of 'Rapeseed'? It is just known as 'Kay Parker'. This was a very rough recording made during the 'You're All So Precious' sessions while Ben was just getting to grips with using the new software. Kay Parker was a porn star in the seventies and eighties.
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