“Casual (Live)” (1982) – The Marina Swingers * Written by the Marina Swingers * Produced by Phil Culp * CD: Sunken Treasures
Their era spawned a number of new wave comedy groups, like Blotto in New York and the Judy’s in Houston, but the Marina Swingers gave their shtick a consistent SoCal yuppie angle. They appeared a number of times on LA’s New Wave Theatre, which found a national cable audience as part of the USA network’s Night Flight. A 1999 compilation called Sunken Treasures gathers up all their recordings, including songs that had only existed as live TV segments, such as “Casual” (“going all the way to Casualfornia/ in my Volkswagen bus”).
From keyboard player Esteban Elka’s liner notes: “We weren’t sure if we wanted to be an artsy-intellectual new-wave act, a bloodthirsty dance-band, a multi-media comedy round-up, a surf/swing/big-band/punk ensemble or just an experiment in soul-splitting personality exploration (therapy that doesn’t work). So we did all of the above, often at the same time….We got to open for some zesty acts… Not one of them put in a good word for us with their management…We don’t expect you to just listen to this CD. We think you’ll wish you had been there. We want you to be sorry that you weren’t. Where were you when we needed you? Come to think of it, where are we now?… One of us had a stroke, one of us has leukemia, one of us had a brain tumor, two of us used drugs way too hard, one of us is wearing a crooked toupee, but two us are bald. One of us still gigs, most of us still record and we all walk, talk, pass wind and lie, except maybe the dead guy. Someday, you will be dead too. Special thanks to: A lot of you tried but it’s results that count. We didn’t make it, so the bulk of you shouldn’t expect a major pat on the fanny…”