The Chop - Stay Puft Audio CD Review

On September 5, 2025, San Francisco-based band The Chop release their Ghostbusters-inspired musical concept album titled Stay Puft. I recently purchased the CD version from the band's website. Read on to find out more about it...

Before I get into this, I would like to send a HUGE THANK YOU to all of the Spook Central VIPs for providing the funds that allowed me to buy this item and review it for all of you. This item was NOT provided by the manufacturer.

The 14 tracks, listed below, riff on the characters, quotes, and vibes of the original 1984 film.

01.  2:52  Ready to Believe
02.  3:00  Men of Science
03.  3:08  It's Looking Right at Me
04.  2:53  Louis Tully, Central Park West
05.  2:26  The Tools, The Talent
06.  2:09  Walter
07.  0:31  I've Got a Dick
08.  2:55  Only Zuul
09.  2:13  Keymaster
10.  3:40  Janine
11.  3:14  The Traveler
12.  4:49  I Ain't No God
13.  1:40  The Tools, The Talent (Reprise)
(total time - 35:36)

In short, if Ghostbusters were a Broadway musical, this would be its soundtrack. My brief description of each track, and a small sample, are below. Each song can be sampled in full on the band's website.

01. Ready to Believe - The Ghostbusters advertise their services.


02. Men of Science - The guys are confident of their scientific abilities.


03. It's Looking Right at Me - Peter and Ray talk to each other as the former sees the hotel ghost. Includes an extra ethereal musical motif at the end as sort of a "bonus track".


04. Louis Tully, Central Park West - Louis introduces himself to Dana and asks her if he "has a ghost of a chance" with her.


05. The Tools, The Talent - Winston's laments about his financial troubles that give him reason to answer the Ghostbusters' classified ad.


06. Walter - Peter tells off Walter Peck. CONTAINS EXPLICIT LANGUAGE.


07. I've Got a Dick - In this extremely short track, Walter Peck re-assures himself that he has a dick.


08. Only Zuul - Possessed Dana tells her life story in a doo-wop style. This track would have been a bit better had it been sung by a female.


09. Keymaster - Gozer needs the Gatekeeper and the Keymaster to get together so it can "re-emerge in style".


10. Janine - Egon tells Janine that he might not be coming back. No mention is made if he gave her his lucky coin.


11. The Traveler - Gozer the Traveler has returned.


12. I Ain't No God - The Ghostbusters battle Gozer and win.


13. The Tools, The Talent (Reprise) - After saving the world, Winston has found his place in the world by being a part of the Ghostbusters.


The quality of the music, in and of itself, sounds great. It's quite rich and clear, and makes excellent use of the stereo space between my headphones.

Moving on, let's take a quick look at the CD release. I received my copy on March 16th, taking just one week to go from California to New York. It came with a hand-written "thank you" note from the band. Cool. As seen in the photo below, the CD comes in a 5" x 5" thin paperboard picture sleeve that is sealed in a small plastic bag. It is, literally, the vinyl record artwork shrunk down. (FYI: All images from here on can be enlarged. The front, back, and disc images point to my 300dpi scans suitable for printing... more on that at the end of this review.)


The front cover features a drawing of Mr. Stay Puft peeking out from the edge, drawn by Anderson Mets.


The back cover of the picture sleeve shows a street scene with the Ecto-1 parked on the side and the Ghostbusters in the middle of the street, with a few Easter eggs to be found on the periphery. As I previously stated, this is, literally, the vinyl record artwork shrunk down. The mention of "Side A" and "Side B", and the lack of CD track numbers, proves this. I kinda had the feeling that the CD release is an afterthought, given that it is listed dead last on the band's website, and doesn't even come bundled with a t-shirt (like the vinyl record does). This lazy back cover proves it.


The face of the disc features an illustration of Slimer across the entire face.


Flip the disc over and we, sadly, find out that it's a RECORDED CD-R DISC! Nowhere on the band's website is it ever stated that the CD is NOT a factory-pressed disc; like the vinyl record. This is an important detail to leave out. A lot of physical media collectors do not like recorded discs. Furthermore, most of us could just as easily bought the digital version of the album and made our own CD-R disc. (More on that at the end of this review.)


A bigger problem is that NOWHERE on the front, back, or disc face is the band's name or album title given; much less any credits. (The sleeve is too thin to have a spine, where band name and album title could appear.) There is NO IDENTIFIABLE INFORMATION at all! If you found this CD (or the vinyl record, presumably) by itself in a thrift store, you would have no clue who sung the songs or what the album was called. (Yes, "Stay Puft" appears on his headband on the front cover, but if I didn't tell you that was the album title, would you have known?) You would think that The Chop would want people to know who they are. If someone found this album out "in the wild", and it had proper identification on it, someone could look them up online and maybe buy more of their work. Anyway... For the sake of preservation, in case the band's website gets taken down at some point in the future, below is the credits that appears on the site, with a minor addition and correction by me.

The Chop presents "Stay Puft"
A Ghostbusters musical experience

Released on September 5, 2025
Total Runtime - 35:36

CREDITS

Stay Puft was made by:
Phil Matarese: Guitars, Lead Vox (1,3,4,7), Piano, Mellotron, Wurlitzer, & Drone
Rob Kassees: Guitars, Lead Vox (1-4, 8-11), Piano, Organ
Tom Monaghan: Bass (1,2,8,10,12), Lead Vox (1,5,6,12,13)
Adam Laskowski: Organ, Vox
Allan McKinley: Bass (3-6,11), Vox
Marty Walsh: Drums (1,5,10,11)
Steve Politowski: Drums (2-4,6,8,12)

Produced and Released in 2025 by The Chop Unlimited

Recorded at Louder Studios, Kawari Sound, El Studio, and Surprise Rock HQ
Mixed by Phil Becker at El Studio in San Francisco
Mastered by Tim Green at Louder Studios in Grass Valley
Packaging Design by Anderson Mets

All lyrics © 2025 Infinite Turbo and Boosh Industries (ASCAP)

Special thanks to: Regina, Kexin, Tina, Rana, Mallory, Courtney, Phil Becker, Tim Green, The Dana Barrett Blues Explosion, and Brandt

All rights reserved.

There isn't anything more to this. It's a CD-R with beautiful disc and sleeve artwork, and no identifying information at all. It cost me a total of $17.38 ($10.00 + $6.00 shipping + $1.38 NY tax), which given that I just made a better CD version (see below), makes me feel a bit ripped off. At least the print quality of the sleeve and disc is top-notch and I'm supporting a home-grown band (for lack of a better term).

The Chop's "Stay Puft" album can be purchased at BandCamp on CD-R ($10 + $6 shipping + tax), vinyl record ($25 + $7 shipping + tax), vinyl record + Stay Puft t-shirt ($35 + $8 shipping + tax), two vinyl records bundle ($40 + $7 shipping + tax), and digital download [many formats] ($1+). All physical purchases include a digital copy that is instantly downloadable after checkout. The digital download is available in these formats: MP3 V0 (75MB), MP3 320 (91.5MB), FLAC (215MB), AAC (50MB), Ogg Vorbis (52.1MB), ALAC (237.6MB), WAV (367.8MB), and AIFF (369.3MB).


As a physical media collector and supporter, it hurts me to say this, but I would have to recommend the digital download over the CD. You can download the lossless .flac or .wav files and burn your own CD. You will still have a CD-R disc, but at least you can write the band's name and album title on the disc, and you'd have it instantly (though my CD only took a week to come from California to New York).

Should you wish to do that, I have created printable jewel case artwork that improves upon this CD release in every possible way. First, I altered the back cover to remove all mention of "Sides", add in the missing track numbers, and add in the band name and album title. The latter also helps to fill in some of the empty space at the top. I used the P22Nudgewink font, which is close enough to match the font used for the track names.


I brought the new back cover image, and the original front cover image, into JewlLiner, an old jewel case creation program. That allowed me to have it properly sized for the printed page, while adding left and right spines to the back cover. Furthermore, I was able to add an interior fold-over flap to the front cover on which I added the band credits. So, now there finally is complete credits and identification for the CD.

I exported the liner to a PDF, which you can download by clicking on the image below. It is meant to be printed out at 100% on a standard piece of 8.5" x 11" paper in full color.


I suggest putting it on a USB stick and printing it out at Staples' self-serve copying & printing machines. For a cost of $0.88 (with tax), I got the nice color print-out seen in the image below.


I cut that out and put it in an appropriately-colored white jewel case. The front looks great.


The back looks even better. Look at that... TRACK NUMBERS! If I wanted to jump instantly to a song, it's nice to know which one it is without having to count it out.


The interior has the credits flap on the left and the disc on the right. Since the credits flap doesn't go all the way to the left, so it can catch behind the left clips, I put two small pieces of double-stick tape behind the flap's left edges on top and bottom. That holds it flush against the front cover.


Now I have a much better CD copy, and with my jewel case liner PDF, you can, too.

Finally, band member Rob Kassees recently appeared on the Hudson Valley Ghostbusters' Slime Time Podcast, where he broke down how the record came together, why it took so long, and why Ghostbusters was the perfect creative box to write inside. That interview is embedded below.