Opening up the first “canonical” Gizzard release is “Danger $$$” (pronounced Danger Money): a short and chaotic punk track with a few heavy time changes, a bunch of feedback, distorted harmonica, and simple lyrics that the band join together to sing. Sitting at a minute and forty-five seconds, it’s one of the shortest songs on Willoughby’s Beach, while also being one of its most explosive.
A demo for the song was released on Demos Vol. 2: Music To Eat Bananas To. Consisting of drum machine, guitar, and vocals, this version is missing the scratchy guitar intro, and the harmonica solo (which is instead a guitar solo). This rendition is ten seconds shorter than the studio version. “Danger $$$” was released on October 21st, 2011.
The song received a music video on November 20th, 2011. It shows King Gizzard performing at The Tote Hotel in Naarm (Melbourne), footage from Careful Stranger(s) Productions. While it shows the band playing live, the audio is the studio version. In 2018, the song was used in promotional material for the reissue of Willoughby’s Beach.
“Danger $$$”s first known performance was on 2011-10-17 at PBS Studios in Naarm (Melbourne) during a full performance of Willoughby’s Beach. The song would be played at least a few other times that year, with only one known performance in 2012 on 2012-11-25. While many Willoughby’s songs would be left off setlists at this point, “Danger $$$” continued to be played all the way into 2016. After a performance on 2016-05-14 at Baby’s All Right in Brooklyn, the song was played considerably less, with only a few rare performances such as for “Garage Rock Night” on 2021-12-22 or at Festival Estéreo Picnic on 2024-03-21.