The Mountain Goats

The Mountain Goats' first recordings were covers of songs by Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. These recordings were made in employee housing at Metropolitan State Hospital in Norwalk, California - the same town which, perhaps not coincidentally, gave Metallica to the world. A tape of these early sessions, which used the roaring static sound of late-night TV test patterns as percussion/incidental noise but were otherwise a capella, still exists. The inscription on the spine of the tape reads THE MOUNTAIN GOATS/BLEATING WILDLY: A VERSION OF FRANKIE VALLI AND THE FOUR SEASONS. No-one will ever hear this tape in any form.