TACOMA, Wash. — Local father Colm Tyson is reportedly embarrassed after accidentally booking 1980s new wave band Oingo Boingo for his six-year-old daughter’s birthday, thinking they were a bounce house company, confirm sources close to the family.
“I guess I just got confused. I mean, you hear the words ‘Oingo Boingo’ and you instantly picture one of those big rubber castles out on a front lawn with kids giggling. When Danny Elfman showed up with seven other elderly kooks and no bounce house, I knew I had screwed up Denise’s party big time,” said a blushing Tyson. “Plus, full disclosure, I only really recognized Elfman from a ‘Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure’ DVD featurette. In the ‘80s I was much more of a Soft Cell guy.”
Oingo Boingo members report being just as confused as the party-goers regarding their involvement in the festivities.
“You could tell fairly quickly this elementary schooler didn’t actually want a cult experimental rock band playing her ‘unicorn princess’ themed birthday party,” said Boingo guitarist Steve Bartek. “It maybe wasn’t a good idea to strictly announce our big reunion in the Yellow Pages, rather than standard music press outlets, that one’s our bad. We tried to give the little gals a good show nevertheless, but a lot of them didn’t even stick around through Wall of Voodoo’s opening set. On the upside, though, the cake brought out while we were playing ‘Ain’t This The Life’ was pretty damn good.”
Professional birthday clown Jimmy “Goof-Around” Graham was even less enthusiastic about the band’s performance.
“Tell me how I’m supposed to go on after those guys when they’re doing three-quarters of my schtick arsenal? I had all these bits with xylophones and barnyard animal sound effects in my act,” said Graham. “But I had to ditch everything and ad lib since Boingo had the whole party mallet percussion-and-cow-moo’d out! I mean, c’mon fellas, I don’t come create intricately arranged vaguely ska-based melodies in the parking lot before your shows, do I?!”
“We can’t all just go back to LA and score whatever martian movie comes out next…” Graham added, bitterly. “This is my livelihood here!”
At press time, further confusion was unveiled when the bounce house company accidentally dispatched the original bounce house to the band The Birthday Party, completely confounding Nick Cave.