Thailand-Based Canadian Rocker MAGER BOOBOO Tackles Herd Mentality On New Single "Monkey See Donkey Do"

Mager BooBoo, the solo project of Ottawa, ON expat artist Robert Bachtell Eastland, releases "Monkey See Donkey Do" out now, the second single from his upcoming debut album, 'Oops!.'

Where lead single "Dumb" turned everyday clumsiness into an anthem, "Monkey See Donkey Do" aims its animal metaphors at something bigger, the question of how much of who we are is actually our own. "Who are we really," Eastland asks, "slaves to the system, or little sparks of being following what we've always been taught?"

The song wraps that question in a barnyard chant built for shouting along. "I've got a body, you've got a body, we all got a body, and a beating heart," Eastland sings before the hook takes over: "Hey monkey be a donkey, just like your momma taught you, just like your daddy did." Between the "hee haws" and the call and response energy, "Monkey See Donkey Do" turns conformity into something you can dance to rather than lecture about.

The song continues the sound Eastland has coined "Heavy Irony," heavy for its layered harmonic vocals, crunchy guitars and thudding, self programmed drum tracks, irony for lyrics that needle at modern life without ever losing their sense of humour. Eastland leans on animal imagery throughout his songwriting as a reminder that, conditioning and social order aside, humans remain biological creatures tied to the world around them, a thread that runs directly from "Dumb" into this new single.

"Dumb" has already found an enthusiastic international audience since its July 22 release, drawing comparisons to the Pixies, Arctic Monkeys, Nirvana, and The Strokes from outlets across Brazil, Costa Rica, Peru, Italy and the United States. Among the strongest reactions came from Alan Cross of Corus Radio's A Journal of Musical Things, who said the song's chorus would run through his head all day and personally invited Eastland to send a video and short bio for wider feature consideration, a strong signal for a project still building its audience one listener at a time.

Behind Mager BooBoo is a musician who spent decades away from songwriting before coming back to it. Eastland, 64, began playing guitar and writing songs at 14, built a career in musical theatre, radio and television, including writing and performing for the CBC affiliated children's show 'Cowboy Who?' in Pembroke, Ontario, and years fronting the band 101 alongside his brother Tom. He has 51 songs registered with SOCAN and has had music played on Canadian radio.

However, he set music aside for over 20 years to pursue a career in teaching. Only recently, he took up writing music again, taught himself modern production from scratch, and learned how to navigate Logic Pro on a Mac Studio to build Mager BooBoo. He now lives in Thailand, where he teaches English full time at a university and records in whatever time is left over.

Eastland performs every element of Mager BooBoo himself, crediting a cast of characters on the recordings, General Disorder on backing vocals, Colonel O'Korn on guitars, Private Parts on bass and Count Sequence on drums, all fittingly tongue in cheek names for a project built entirely around one person's sense of humour.

With "Dumb" already turning heads internationally and "Monkey See Donkey Do" out now, Mager BooBoo's debut album, 'Oops!,' is shaping up as a genuinely funny, fully self-made introduction to an artist who waited decades to make exactly the record he wanted to make.