The Little Engine

    In the same manner that the Raw Mommies were only tangentially Snufmeg, Johnny B Dub's outside "project" (with Flip, who made an appearance with the Cheese Mites on "I Can Read About Any Book That Someone Gives Me") The Little Engine earned a place in the Snufmeg pantheon with this eponymously titled album from the late 1990's.

   Following the rise and fall of the Raw Mommies, Johnny B Dub continued with a more conventional musical approach, leading the Little Engine's songwriting credits with Snufmeg classics like "Far Away", "Pros Jam with Pros", "Smile, Baby, Smile", "Andalusian Holiday" and "Clarinet". Flip's contributions ("The Elixir" and "You've Given Up on Love") comfortably rounded out the collection. Guitar and voice were provided by the songwriters accordingly, confidently backed up on drums by the mysterious Z!

   Alas, the Little Engine enjoyed a brief career (under two years) with few performances captured. Sadder, still, whereas the Raw Mommies enjoyed a 2013 reunion, certain legal impediments have precluded Flip from enjoying a similar experience.

Video Collaboration with Fruzsi Nemes

Below is video art, "Metrometro," created by artist/film-maker Fruzsi Nemes, which includes The Cheese Mites' "Funk You" from "I Can Read About Any Book That Someone Gives Me".

https://vimeo.com/fruzsinemes

I Can Read About Any Book That Someone Gives Me

   The eight song collection, probably from 1984, entitled "I Can Read About Any Book That Someone Gives Me", finds the Cheese Mites in two configurations. The first of these, Johnny B Dub & DJ Williwill, provides the four songs "The Rock Slide Rap," "Row Your Book," "Mega Funk," and "Jungle Fiasco." Building upon the frantic primitivism of "Experiment in Stupidity," the Cheese Mites recede from overt song craft, and regroup around improvisational oriented compositions. "The Rock Slide Rap" pays lyrical homage to the song "Rock Slide," originally recored by Sin, but also recorded by other forms of the 'Mites. The relentless tape looped drum beat both hypnotizes and drills into the psyche, providing an unsettling and pulsating figure over which echoes, vocals and a proto-funk bass line collude in twelve minutes of irritation, a trademark of much of the 'Mites recorded output. "Row Your Book" continues twelve more minutes of the motifs established by "The Rock Slide Rap." At this stage in their career, they were hellbent on daring the listener to stay.
   The mercy of songs half the length in time as the previous two is little detected in "Mega Funk" and "Jungle Fiasco." A study of the production technique indicates the possibility of these two songs stemming from a separate session from the former two. Feedback washes, echoes, loops and unforgiving repetition, however, the hallmark of early Cheese Mites recordings, is not discarded with these recordings.
   The second configuration in this collection is manifest in the four songs closing the tracklist. Joined by Flip (later to be in the Snufmeg related project, The Little Engine), the Cheese Mites sound more like a live band, than other, more recordings of a layered quality. For "Amen," "Are We Their Yet?" and "Ja Only Knows," Flip guests as drummer, competently providing a rhythmic foundation which Williwill tonally completes on bass. Unchecked by concern for melody or structure, Johnny's feedback and echo laden guitar provide harsh counter-balance. For "Funk You" Johnny and Flip switch roles, the result of which is the most traditional and tuneful piece in the entire collection.