Mager BooBoo, the solo project of Ottawa, ON expat artist Robert Bachtell Eastland, releases “Monkey See Donkey Do” out now. The track is the second single from his upcoming debut album, ‘Oops!’, and follows lead single “Dumb,” which turned everyday clumsiness into an unlikely anthem. This time, Eastland points his animal metaphors toward something much bigger: 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?”
Rather than delivering that question as a heavy-handed lecture, “Monkey See Donkey Do” wraps it 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 call-and-response energy, the track turns conformity into something listeners can dance to.
The song continues the sound Eastland has coined “Heavy Irony,” with the “heavy” coming from layered harmonic vocals, crunchy guitars and thudding, self-programmed drum tracks, while the “irony” comes through in lyrics that needle at modern life without ever losing their sense of humor.
Animal imagery has become a recurring thread throughout Eastland’s songwriting. For him, it serves as a reminder that, despite conditioning and social order, humans remain biological creatures connected to the world around them. That idea runs directly from “Dumb” into “Monkey See Donkey Do,” giving the two singles a shared perspective while showcasing the playful edge of the Mager BooBoo project.
“Dumb” has already found an enthusiastic international audience since its July 22 release, drawing comparisons to Pixies, Arctic Monkeys, Nirvana, and The Strokes from outlets across Brazil, Costa Rica, Peru, Italy, and the United States.
One of 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. Cross also personally invited Eastland to send a video and short bio for wider feature consideration, giving the still-developing project another encouraging sign as it builds its audience one listener at a time.
Behind Mager BooBoo is a musician who spent decades away from songwriting before finding his way back to it. At 64, Eastland began playing guitar and writing songs at 14 before building a career across musical theatre, radio and television. His work included writing and performing for the CBC-affiliated children’s show ‘Cowboy Who?’ in Pembroke, Ontario, as well as years fronting the band 101 alongside his brother Tom.
Eastland has 51 songs registered with SOCAN and has had his music played on Canadian radio. Still, he eventually stepped away from music for more than 20 years to pursue a career in teaching.
His return to songwriting has been a largely self-taught process. Eastland recently began writing music again, taught himself modern production from scratch, and learned to navigate Logic Pro on a Mac Studio as he built the Mager BooBoo project from the ground up. He now lives in Thailand, where he teaches English full time at a university and records whenever his schedule allows.
Eastland performs every element of Mager BooBoo himself, while the recordings feature a fictional cast of characters whose names fit the project’s tongue-in-cheek personality: General Disorder on backing vocals, Colonel O’Korn on guitars, Private Parts on bass and Count Sequence on drums.
With “Dumb” already turning heads internationally and “Monkey See Donkey Do” now out, Mager BooBoo is beginning to take shape as a genuinely funny and fully self-made project. After waiting decades to return to music, Eastland is finally making the kind of record he wants to make — one built on crunchy guitars, heavy rhythms, sharp observations and plenty of humor along the way.
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