Rhythms from the Crypt - The Best of Sudden Death

• 2 CD set featuring the best of the songs Devo Spice produced with his group Sudden Death
• Includes two songs which were the #1 most requested songs of the year on The Dr. Demento Show, "Inner Voice" (2005) and "Cellular Degeneration" (2007)
• Includes additional hits from The Dr. Demento Show such as "Dead Rappers," "Getting Old Sucks," "Pillagers," "Spam," and more
• Also includes "I'm Bored," the first song of Devo's that Dr. Demento ever played on his show
• Contains newly re-recorded versions of "Ozzman" and "My Doctor's a Quack," plus an updated version of "South Park Junie"

Track List - Disc 1

Origin Story

On April 23, 1986 13-year-old Tom Rockwell (Devo Spice) and his friends Dave Floeting (MC Squared) and Scott Usilton (Baksai Nok) were taking the bus home from school. Tom turned to the other two and said "we should form a rap group!"  The other two said "OK!" and Sudden Death was born. The group existed as a trio and recorded dozens of funny and terrible songs over the next few years.  Then in April of 1990 they got their first exposure to the world when Dr. Demento played "I'm Bored" on his nationally syndicated radio show. Shortly thereafter the group restructured with Devo Spice taking the lead and the other guys moving to the background.  Scott took the opportunity to step down from the group, and Devo added several other friends to the fray, including Thom Uliasz (Tha Perfessor), Steve Fernino (Piles), and Jeff Cots (Bozhead). The group existed like this with Devo Spice doing mostly solo work and the other guys helping out here and there until 2008 when Devo decided to finally drop the group name.

Hitting #1 on Dr. Demento

Devo Spice's first taste of having the #1 most requested song of the year came in 2002 when he appeared as a guest vocalist on a song by the great Luke Ski.  Luke had written a parody of "Peter Piper" by Run-DMC called "Peter Parker" and asked Devo to take the other vocals. This song was a hit throughout the year and ended up the most requested song of 2002.

In 2005 Devo teamed up with Shoebox of Worm Quartet for an original song about a little voice in his head that gives him advice and makes his life awesome.  "Inner Voice" by Sudden Death went on to become the #1 song of 2005.

Then in 2007 Devo Spice produced a string of hits on The Dr. Demento Show.  The first song Devo posted to The FuMP under the name Sudden Death—"Cellular Degeneration"—went on to become the #1 most requested song of the year.  Additionally Sudden Death had the #2 and #4 songs with "Getting Old Sucks" and "Pillagers," respectively, and Devo Spice was a guest vocalist on song #5, "Anorexiac" by Seamonkey.

Disc 1 - The 21st Century

The songs on Disc 1 are taken from the Sudden Death albums Fatal Accident Zone (2002), Die Laughing (2005), and Fatal Error (2008).  The songs from Fatal Accident Zone have been remastered to make them sound as good as possible.  

Disc 2 - The 20th Century

The songs on Disc 2 represent Devo's earlier work.  They are a little rougher around the edges, having been recorded in a basement on a 4-track recorder by a teenager with no audio engineering training.  Wherever possible these songs have been remixed and remastered from the original 4-track tapes. These songs were taken from the Sudden Death albums Dead Things Can Rap Too (1992), Noise Pollution (1993), Brain Dead (1995), A Decade of Decay (1996), and Unplugged (1998). 

Updates and New Versions

"Ozzman (2013)" is a completely new recording of this song which was originally a hit on The Dr. Demento Show in 2003.  New music has been created by Steve Goodie and Devo recorded new vocals for this version of the song.  The only thing remaining from the original version is the great Luke Ski's Beavis and Butthead impressions.  While doing this project Devo found the original tape Luke had sent him, so that recording was digitized and used rather than having Luke re-record his parts. 

"South Park Junkie (2012)" has been updated with a new verse and newly recorded vocals.  When this song was first recorded there were only six episodes of South Park in existence.  Since then they have done a few more so Devo thought it might be a good idea to add an additional verse to the song.  The original music is still being used, although it has been edited and adjusted to sound better. New vocals have been recorded, and new samples from the show have been put in place.  This was Devo's first hit on The Dr. Demento Show.  It was the first Sudden Death song to make the weekly Funny Five countdown, spending two weeks at #1, and ended up the 4th most requested song of 1998.

"My Doctor's a Quack (2013)" has also been completely re-recorded.  This song was never a huge hit or anything, but Devo never had a good recording of it due to some technical glitches.  So he took this opportunity to completely redo it. This song has new music, newly recorded vocals, and a newly recorded valley girl intro by Devo's friend Marnie.