Roger Moore Double-Oh Forty-Oh

by Los Platanos Machos Quattros

Recorded 02/02


L-R : Scot Hacker, Mike Knapp, Roberto Osmondo, Matthew Sperry

Roger Moore (yes, it's his real name) turned 40 in 2002. His wife Paula threw a honkin' surprise party to celebrate, and four of his dude friends got together and formed a one-trick-pony of a band to write and sing a tribute song. They dubbed themselves "Los Platanos Machos Quattros" i.e. "The Four Macho Bananas," i.e. "Four Big Dicks."

Matthew is a highly accomplished bassist and composer; he wrote the music/chord structure. Roberto Osmondo is a "reformed" band manager, and picked up a truck-load of guitar licks along the way. Mike Knapp, aka "No Ear" has been playing far-out stuff since he was about five. Scot Hacker spent years busking on the streets of San Luis Obispo and San Francisco. Scot wrote the lyrics for the tribute, except for the chorus, which is by Matthew, except for the line "he wields them like a peppermint," which emerged from the fertile imagination of Matthew's wife Stacia Biltekoff.

Roger is an environmental defense lawyer and a huge music fan. Most of the lyrics in the song are inside jokes, references to conversations long-ago, snippets from music for which we've shared an affinity, allusions to his world travels and love of fine Hispanic cuisine, or your basic absurdism.

After a brief arco bass introduction, the band gets off the figurative couch and kicks out the jams. Whether Los Platanos Machos Quattros will ever see the light of day again after this ignomininious introduction remains to be seen. The critics are hoping they'll crawl back into the hole they came from.

Roger's sister Allyson (a radio announcer by trade) read the following introduction written by Scot:

And now, mujeres y hombres, I have the very special pleasure of introducing one of the most confoundingly obscure musical discoveries of the 21st century.: A band that does its laundry in concert. A band that gets its shoes shined one leg at a time, just like everybody else. A band with whom you most definitely do NOT want to get stuck on a desert isle. A band so wrapped up in yesterday's fish-n-chip paper that they make Tristan Tzara and Hugo Ball at the Cabaret Voltaire look like Eddie Money and Neil Diamond double-timing it at The Luxor. A band utterly saturated with delusions of adequacy. A band which defies description and should require no introduction, but unfortunately does. Mujeres y hombres, I am pleased to present :

Los ... Platanos ... Machos ... Quattros!


Intro:
B-    | B-    | B-    | B-    |

Verse:
B-    | B-    | A     | A7    |

B-    | B-    | E-    | A7    |

E-    | E-    | A     | A7    |

B- E- | A7    |

Chorus:
D     | DMaj7 | D7    | G-#7/D|

G     | A     | Bb    | C  A  |

D     | DMaj7 | D7    | G-#7/D|

G     | A     | Bb    | C  A  |

(Back to verse 3 more times.)
Last time (transition to funpak):
B-    | B-    | A     | A7    |

B-    | B-    | A     | A7    |

FunPak™ (Roger Moore Double Oh Forty Oh!):
|: G     | A     | Bb    | C  A  :|
(repeat ad nauseum except fourth time BOFUS break)

====================

(Intro)

In far western worlds and the mountains of the moon
He's wandered with nomads eating crab meat rangoon
He's downed a bowl of chili 'neath the hot hispanic sun
And rummaged through the Berkeley Bowl for the perfect onion

-------------------
[chorus]:
Roger-o-double-o-forty-oh
How can you be for real?

The laws of the environment are 
Roger's weapons armament
he wields them like a peppermint

Roger-Moore-double-o-forty-oh
How can you be for real?

The statutes deep in his blood stream
Make corporate evildoers scream
He wields them like a LASER BEAM.

Roger-Moore-double-o-forty-oh
How can you be for real?
-------------------

He named a fish Django and a cat for a Scottish isle
It must have been  the Belgian ale that made his lady smile
As time goes on you  know that it's  the best batch in a while
If irony's dead we'll all convert to sarcasm and guile

[chorus]

Mekons Pixies Braxton Coltrane Portugese Fado
Hirsch and Beck and Buckley and Cibo Matto 
My favorite is beef jerky and B-jork on the radio
Baba Maal Fugazi and John Lurie's soprano

[chorus]

{We cut this final  verse  at  the last  minute, but used the 
"cosmo love geek" in the play-out groove.}

92 hours in a typical work week, his
superlative taste makes the chickadees' knees weak
His wife dresses him like a cosmo love geek
Everlasting peace is the answer that woj seeks

[chorus]

[ G, A, B-flat, C fun-pak ]

{ Fourth time through the fun-pak, halt on A : "Bofus?" }

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