This is the best song from one of those records that in its released form is a sprawling, slapdash, overlong mess, but I know from personal experience that if you try to edit this two-disc set down to a sleek 45 minutes or so, it all falls apart. However, it also all makes a lot more sense if you know the backstory.

The Leslie Spit Treeo (the Leslie Spit is a topographical feature of their native Toronto, and no incarnation of the band actually had three people in it) were given the Best New Artist award at the Junos in 1990, and apparently, that screws you up just like winning the Best New Artist Grammy: in the states, they were signed to I.R.S. Records, a label that all but ceased to exist in terms of visibility and promotion around the time R.E.M. bolted in 1988. After a difficult second and all-but-unnoticed third album and a long period of lawsuits and the usual crap, the band's two main members, singer Laura Hubert and guitarist Pat Langer (now is as good a time as any to mention that the couple's dog, Tag, was always considered a full-time member of the band, and was also officially their manager and the president of their new label) holed themselves up to record the scattershot and occasionally deeply odd Chocolate Chip Cookies. A sort of rock opera, with narration by Canadian cult actor/writer Don McKellar, whom the Spits knew from their ongoing association with the maverick director Bruce McDonald (they appeared in two of his movies, Roadkill and Dance Me Outside), Chocolate Chip Cookies is a barely veiled satire of their time with EMI Canada, packaged in a white paper bag that was deliberately reminiscent of the logo of Christies, the Canadian subunit of Nabisco. A lawsuit was duly filed, and remaining stock of this version was burned in a ceremonial bonfire on Yonge Street, in front of Sam the Record Man, where as you can see is where I bought this copy during the few weeks it was available.

So, after all this, what's the music like? The ongoing problem with the Leslie Spit Treeo is that they were so completely schizoid that you can't really say what kind of band they were. "Nebulous" is and has always been my favorite song of theirs, three minutes of Hubert's hoarse, scratchy voice, Langer's tense, percussive acoustic guitar and a few stray bits of noise that float in and out of the mix, including a vocal cameo by the aforementioned Tag at one point. Mostly, it's always sort of reminded me of the Mekons. Regardless, lovely song. The album as a whole overreaches by a mile, but in a really charming way. If you ever see a copy (and be prepared to pay a mint if it's the original cookie-bag issue), pick it up. The couple and the band split up not long after this album, incidentally. No word on what became of Tag, although I'm afraid he's most likely in Doggie Heaven by now.