Pink Barbie Phone + Red Freaker (1994)

Once upon a time … in 1994 … I had this pink plastic Barbie phone. When you pressed its buttons, it would say things like:

“Let’s have a party!”

and

“I like the beach!”

I was in the incredibly strange band “Krusters Kronomid” at the time. I would plug the phone, and various other electronic devices, into my electric guitar – the K1. It was quite theatrical.

Rafe Wadleigh, the other guitarist/bass player in Krusters, picked up the ingenious whammy pedal and we used it quite a bit back then. Mike Seilo, our singer, called it the “red freaker”.

I ended up sending Barbie through the whammy pedal and “scratching” the sound effects and phrases that it spit out. I would trigger the sounds from its keypad while dropping the pitch with the whammy pedal.

Alas, the Barbie phone is nowhere to be found. Maybe she is in a trailer somewhere gorging herself on AA batteries and having triplets with a G.I. Joe talking backpack.

We did record it in the song “Moth on Bass” at Avast Studios in Seattle. It broke while setting up to do the take and Stuart Hallerman (the owner of Avast) threw it on the repair bench and fixed it for me.

We ended up recording the Barbie phone, bass and drums all at once, so the performance you hear isn’t an overdub … pre protools … 2″ 24 track … recorded and mixed by Kevin Suggs.

Talking Barbie Phone solo in the song “Moth on Bass”: