Songs that didn't make it to a"proper" album have an appeal. Called"outtakes," they provide the listener a more complete picture of a band they like. Kind of like snapshots taken when someone is unaware of a photographer ("stolen shots"), it is a more natural, unself-conscious representation of a subject. In other words, it is more honest. And sometimes more amusing, for it makes both performer and listener blush at the naivety. And laugh too!In Monotone Melo-D.I.Y.: Sleepyheads 1999-2012, Erick Encinares, the Sleepyheads' bassist and sound recorder, has unearthed previously-unreleased songs. Ranging from the band's first-ever recorded song, I'm Not Good Enough (captured on"lo-fi" equipment in Erick's bedroom sometime in 1999,complete with"new wavey" keyboards); to demos which did not make it to the band's third critically-acclaimed album Avant-Garage Wreckenroll released in 2011(Buddha Smile,9-t0-5Barely Alive, Blues Is My Beer); to live-in-the-studio performances of StuckPermanently In My Head and Homosexual Hospital (which appeared as finished takes on the band's first two"proper" albums, Tuneless Moaning and Malnutrition of Love, respectively), the"outtake collection" that is Monotone Melo-D.I.Y. is an album that most"high-profile"bands wouldn't even think of compiling.Ever! Imagine the cringe-factor of these songs: the Shaggs-like amateurishness in theplaying; the corniness of some of the lyrics; and the rinky-dink production values-- what band would want their very Hipness tarnished with a compilation album like this? None but the Sleepyheads, of course!But of course, since Day One, Erick (bass), John Jayvee del Rosario (drums/vox), Rico Entico(guitars) and various (in and out) members of the Sleepyheads have been dedicated to amateurishness, primitivism, rawness, D.I.Y. and HONESTY IN MUSIC. They wouldn't be influenced by Punk Rock, Jonathan Richman, Velvet Underground, assorted Garage Bands from All Rock Eras, and even Naive Art and Dadaism if they didn't have these"aesthetic values" at heart.And being D.I.Y. is an aesthetic that the Sleepyheads believe in. They have always wanted to uplift the simple, the ordinary, the"junk," the trashy, the underdog from undernourished to, well...THEY JUST WANT TO MAKE SOMETHING OUT OF NOTHING, WITH THEIR GUITARS BROKEN AND IT'S RAINING!What could be more PUNK than that?Spending 100,000 pesos just to record an album at a posh studio? Doing hours and hours of overdubs? And still members of Tears for Fears (who just visited the country, twice, as part of the Eighties Nostalgia Fever, yipee!) will comment on your album that IT DOESN'T SOUND AT ALL LIKE A QUALITY RECORDING! That it doesn't sound at all like Steely Dan! Or Stevie Wonder!Or China Crisis!SOD OFF, ORZABAL! WE BELIEVE IN OUR OWN"CHEAP"SOUND!!!That's the snotty wonder of D.I.Y.... Of Monotone Melo-D.I.Y.: Sleepyheads 1999-2012!Garage Punk D.I.Y. forever!