This is the second installment in our Battle of the Bands: a collection of essays about our favorite fictional bands to tie in with our latest Zine.
Weirdness, wackiness, and death plagued Sunnydale, California, before it mysteriously sank into a hole in 2003. To counteract the badness that the town endured, its music scene was always top-notch. At the hip downtown hangout the Bronze, many incredible artists provided the tunes that Sunnydale’s residents jammed to: Michelle Branch, Aimee Mann, and Cibo Matto, to name a few.
Amongst those high-profile names, there was a local band that graced the Bronze’s stage. That band was Dingoes Ate My Baby. Lead vocalist Devon MacLeish (Jason Hall) raspily crooned through the tunes of heartache and angst. Lead guitarist Oz (Seth Green) provided perfect riffs while adding a cool stoic presence to the band’s stage.
Strangely — perhaps not so strangely, considering Sunnydale’s reputation — every time Dingoes performed, there seemed to be death and carnage throughout the town. Their 1997 performance during the student cultural exchange program culminated in a few disappearances. If you ask some locals, they’d say something about an ancient Incan mummy girl sucking the life from others.
Then there was the time at Buffy Summers’ (Sarah Michelle Gellar) “coming home from having run away” party where their performance was cut short by an embarrassing fight between Buffy and her mom. Family strife wasn’t the worst moment that cut their set short, though. A mob of crazed people dressed as the undead — or maybe they actually were undead — came crashing through windows and doors at Buffy’s house, resulting in the loss of a few Sunnydale teens. Later the same year, the older generation showed their appreciation for the band. Many of the town’s over-40 population showed up for a set at the Bronze, feeling the music and feeling their younger years. While not as traumatic as previous events that Dingoes performed at, one would agree that the elderly men who took over the stage — shirtless — to perform their own musical number would equate.
Yet, throughout loss and weird things, Dingoes Ate My Baby provided many a tune for the locals of Sunnydale that kept them rocking and bopping. They also seemed to avoid any of the unexplained deaths that plagued the town. Sadly, Dingoes seemed to disperse once the turn of the century came around. The sudden disappearance of Oz kickstarted the band’s lack of appearances. Oz just…poof…disappeared. Although they hit up spots in LA and such before Oz’s disappearance, Dingoes never graced the stage of The Bronze again.
Bands of local stature never get the Behind the Music treatment. That’s reserved for the bigger names and award-winning acts. Dingoes never reached that caliber of pop culture. Luckily for us, we don’t live in Sunnydale. We were graced to watch the events of Sunnydale in the comfort of our own homes via the forever classic television show Buffy the Vampire Slayer. This gives us the pleasure of hearing the music of Dingoes Eat My Baby via the band who provided the music for them, Four Star Mary.
Hailing from Southern California, Four Star Mary was just getting their start in 1997. Buffy’s music editor, John King, heard them at a party. The rest is Buffy history, as Four Star Mary was found as the perfect fit for the sound of Dingoes. Their music was also played on various other late ‘90s and early ‘00s tv shows like Party of Five, Charmed, Road Rules, and The Real World.
Having their music on Buffy led to a huge demand for the band’s first EP. In 1999, their debut album, Thrown to the Wolves (ha, because Oz is a werewolf?), was released. Since that debut album, the band has gone on to release two more albums: 2002’s Welcome Home and 2006’s Hello It’s Me. Multiple EPs sprinkle throughout the years up until 2016, when they released their last EP, Pieces Pt. 1.
Don’t fear for Four Star Mary. They didn’t disappear like Dingoes Ate My Baby did on Buffy. They’re still performing. Most recently, in December, they did a live acoustic performance for a Wales Comic Con virtual event. Four Star Mary continues to give us the glorious tunes that they provided on Buffy the Vampire Slayer as well as new material that should be listened to.
One should differentiate between Dingoes and Four Star Mary, as the talent belongs to the latter. I think it would be okay to imagine that Dingoes Ate My Baby is still creating new music alongside Four Star Mary’s new releases. As we Buffy fans abide, Buffy never dies. Neither do the aspects of Buffy die; therefore, Dingoes Ate My Baby is forever.
