The next step of Simon's plan was to make sure that Alvin wouldn't undermine it. "Simon and I had a little meeting up in the treehouse," Alvin remembers. "He told me that it was almost time for our contracts to get renewed, and he wanted to make some changes. He didn't go into specifics, which was smart of him - I've never had a head for business." Instead of appealing to Alvin's sense of loyalty, Simon decided to play on a more base emotion: greed. "Simon had some numbers written down - how much money we'd made over the past year, and what he thought we could get if he managed to renegotiate the contract. He said he was pretty sure he could get those terms, but I'd have to stick by you two. He had this feeling that once negotiations started, Liberty would probably try to get me to break ranks with you. I thought that was silly - 'come on, they know we're a team'. But Simon was pretty sure that they'd try something." So, did they? Alvin smiles. "Oh, hell, yes."

"I scheduled a meeting with Mr. Seville and Mr. Waronker, which eventually encompassed the better part of a week. That was not a pleasant time," adds Simon with a great deal of understatement. "During the negotiations, Dave suggested that Liberty had the option of simply completing their current contract with us, and then utilizing an alternate trio of rodents as the vocalists for The Chipmunks recordings. I then reminded them that all recordings up until that point had been emblazoned with our legal names. Liberty would either have to switch to different names on subsequent recordings - a step which they were obviously loathe to take - or else continue using our names even when other rodents were providing the voices, which would most likely become a legal issue."

"I got a call from Dave the day after Simon started meeting with them," Alvin said. "He said, 'Your brother Simon is going to wreck everything with these outlandish demands of his.' He sort of suggested that I could come down and sign a contract of my own, and that they'd 'take good care of me'. I guess their idea was that they'd keep 'Alvin', and bring in two other sidekick rodents for the records and cartoon. But I just said 'Sorry - Simon's in charge of the contracts. You'll have to talk to him' and hung up on him."

Simon came home after the third day, looking like hell, and said they had finally worked out a deal. The new contracts included several clauses that Simon called "right of refusal". It basically meant that if there was any song that we didn't want to sing, we could skip it. However, any song released under the Chipmunks name without our involvement would still earn us a percentage of what we would have had we actually sung on it. He made a similar deal with the upcoming television show. If we didn't want anything to do with it, we'd still get paid a modest sum just for having our name and likeness involved. "This was my stratagem for enabling us to opt out of any project we had no interest in, while still maintaining a financial stake in them."

The new contract also included a "right of refusal" for Liberty Records. It stated that if we approached them with something that we three had created, they had first dibs on it. If they chose to pass on it, we could shop it to another record label, as long as it wasn't released under the Chipmunks name. Simon remembered, "After the massive haggling over the royalty rates, neither Dave nor Liberty gave too much thought to that particular clause. This proved highly advantageous to us."

We all put our signatures down the next week, but that doesn't mean everybody was happy. Things were tense and awkward during the next few recording sessions. Dave would hand us the sheet music and say, "Here's what we're going to do today" adding "if that's OK with you" in a heavily sarcastic voice. Strangely enough, none of us turned anything down during the first several months after the negotiations. Not because we were scared to, but because we actually didn't have any problem with the material they were giving us. It may not have been all first-rate stuff, but there was nothing as dumb as, say, "Alvin's Harmonica".

The ink can't have been too dry on the new contracts before Simon presented them with our completed recording of "Uh-Oh!", and suggested it be made the next Chipmunks single. Liberty turned it down, saying that the jazzy feel of the song ran counter to their plan for the Chipmunks. And, to be fair, it actually did. The Chipmunks at the time were recording children's songs with a bit of a country bent. We had already recorded "I've Been Working on the Railroad" and "Home on the Range", and I can understand why they felt "Uh-Oh!" wasn't going to fit in with that.

There was one particular song we recorded around that time which we all really liked. In "I Wish I Had a Horse", we three were staring out the window, mooning for a horse of our very own. We originally cut the song as a ballad, with just a quiet guitar and bass backing us up. Dave only appeared at the very beginning of the song, asking why we all looked so sad. And I really thought we nailed the thing. We sounded wistful, like we all knew we weren't ever going to have this wish come true. Alvin puts it best - "That first version was like hearing a kid ask Santa for his missing father to come home again. It kind of broke my heart when I was singing it."

That version never saw the light of day. I don't know if it was Dave or Mr. Waronker, but somebody decided it was too depressing. So they had us re-cut it at a faster tempo. On that second version, Dave asks why we're rubbing rabbit's feet for luck, and our singing is punctuated by a tooting saxophone. That version isn't that bad as far as album filler goes. But if you compare it to the touching song we recorded first, it's hard not to view it as a real missed opportunity. When they reissued the album on CD in 1999, I was hoping to see the original take as a bonus track, but no such luck.

Looking back, actually, it's a bit surprising that there weren't more Chipmunks releases in 1959. Yeah, we put out an album and two singles. But this was the late fifties, when most popular recording artists were getting a new single out every two months, and a new album every four. You'd think Liberty would be flooding the market with Chipmunks records. Instead, they seemed content to let us slowly build up enough material for the next album release. Another strange thing - our biggest hit was a Christmas song, and I don't even think it occurred to anybody at Liberty to have us record another one. Not that year, anyhow.

But if Liberty was dragging their feet, Simon was picking up the slack. Mr. Burland and Mr. Elliott put Simon in touch with some people at Hanover Records. "Steve Allen was a partner for that mid-sized label," explains Simon. "I was drawn to them because they had some jazz credibility, which I felt would be advantageous for a rodent-based combo such as ours. I met with them for an hour or two, and the conversation was very pleasurable. Music was the sole topic of conversation - not once was a deal mentioned. The next day, I returned for a lunch meeting, and only at the end of that meal was the subject of a record deal finally broached."

Once the contracts were signed, we prepared to have "Uh-Oh!" released on Hanover, under the band name The Offbeatniks. The art director at Hanover drew two beatnik chipmunks to use for the sleeve and print advertising. They made the bespectacled one the fat one, which I guess was their way of differentiating them from "the Chipmunks". That, and there was only two of us, I guess.

Unfortunately, Hanover also made a last-minute decision to change the group name, and decided to play up the rodent angle. So we were no longer The Offbeatniks - we were The Nutty Squirrels. They altered the beatnik chipmunk drawing to make them look more like squirrels, and they modeled a pair of clay squirrel figurines to use in the promotional materials, as well.

When we found out, Simon and I were livid...and no, not because of any anti-squirrel prejudice on our part. We just thought that The Offbeatniks was a great band name that perfectly summed up what we were all about. The name the Nutty Squirrels was just stupid. Yeah, the song was a bit silly, but it was far more musical than anything with The Chipmunks name on it. And now we were stuck with this name that suggested we were either deliberately goofy or clinically insane.

But despite our issues with the name, we were really pleased with Hanover's promotional efforts. The recording of "Uh-Oh!" was a little on the long side, so Hanover decided to split it, and put half on each side of a single. Mr. Burland and Mr. Elliott wrote up a fun fake bio for "The Nutty Squirrels". Hanover paired that up with the single, and shipped it out to radio and record stores. And pretty quickly, the song started taking off. In fact, both sides made the chart - Part One only got to number forty-four, but Part Two went all the way to number fourteen. This made it a bigger hit than all the Chipmunk singles other than "Christmas" and "Alvin's Harmonica". Hanover even made a strange little music video featuring a bunch of beachgoers dancing to "Uh-Oh! (Part Two)", and it aired as part of the "Welcome Home Elvis" TV special. I wonder if Elvis got to see it, and if he was a fan.

Perhaps the best thing about "Uh-Oh!" was the effect it had on the other students at our high school. Once the Chipmunk songs started coming out, nobody seemed to treat me any differently, probably since the songs were pretty juvenile. But word got out that that was me singing and playing drums on "Uh-Oh!", and a few students told me that they liked the song. It's not like everybody suddenly loved me or anything, but there seemed to be a little more acceptance. I remember one fellow student named Ralph suggesting that I join the school marching band. (I pointed out that my stubby legs meant I would've had to run rather than march just to keep up.) Once in a while, someone would razz me about it - one guy sang "uh ah uh ah uh-oh" when I messed up a problem in geometry class - but it was mainly a positive reaction.

In the case of one particular student, it was a very positive reaction.

Elaine and I had shared a few classes, although we hadn't exchanged much more than an occasional hello. She might have gotten a bit more chatty once the Chipmunks songs started coming out, but it was "Uh-Oh!" that she apparently went, well, nutty for. One day, just after my last class of the day, Elaine came up to me and told me how much she loved the song. I awkwardly thanked her, and she started asking me more questions about the group - if Simon and I were going to record more, if we performed concerts, stuff like that. I still wasn't used to carrying on a long conversation with a fellow classmate, but I tried to keep things going. Then she asked if I minded if she walked home with me. Heck, no, I didn't mind.

Once we got to my place, I showed her around to the backyard.

"Oo, you guys have a tree house!" Elaine said, pointing.

"Yeah," I said, a bit embarrassedly. "I guess it figures, being chipmunks and all."

"Can I see inside?" Elaine looked really excited, which I thought was strange. I mean, it was a treehouse. And we were teenagers - a bit past the age when one usually gets excited about treehouses.

I frowned. "I don't know." It wasn't like we had a "No Girls Allowed" sign on it or anything, but we never took any of our friends up there. It had always been just us three. "It's awfully small."

"Oh, I'll fit. I'm not that big."

She started climbing the tree with no further word, and I figured I'd best follow. I crawled up, and sat beside her. I figured I'd try pushing the musician angle. "We kind of use this for meetings now, when we want to discuss recordings or contracts or something."

Elaine laughed. "It's kind of a funny place for a meeting."

"Yeah. But it's better than the kitchen table." I frowned again. "Sorry - it's not very interesting up here."

She smiled and said, "That's OK. I think you're interesting." Then she leaned down and sort of snuggled against me.

I had two thoughts when she started kissing me. One was "OH MY GOD, I'M HUGGING A GIRL". The other was "OH MY GOD, I'M HUGGING A GIRL". Did I say I had two thoughts? Sorry - I meant one. Just the one. You see, as a chipmunk in a human world, I sort of assumed I wasn't going to be dating much...or ever. Sure, I had daydreams about having a girlfriend. But even those fantasies were more of the 1950s sitcom type - maybe a girl chipmunk to share a milkshake with at Henderson's, or take to a sock hop. I hadn't really fantasized about what might have come afterwards. But as surprising as this turn of events was, I sure as hell wasn't complaining. I don't know how good I was at hugging her back, but considering how long we were at it, I'd say I can't have been that bad.

We finally climbed back down from the treehouse, then talked a bit more as we tried to brush the leaves and dirt off of our clothes the best we could. We were pretty sure how the kids at school would react to Elaine having a chipmunk boyfriend. So we decided to just be friends at school, and boyfriend-girlfriend after school, in private. Sounds corny, I know, but that's what we said we were going to be. And as I waved goodbye to her from the front yard, I decided the life of a musician might not be such a bad one.

But if "Uh-Oh!" gained me a girlfriend-not-girlfriend, it caused some major strife in another relationship...a lot closer to home.