16 Life Before The Flaming Lips

That was the 80s. Because they came into our world in 1989.

Crazy
We had crazy friends in the 80s. There was Waz who had a singular ability to make everyone hate him upon meeting him. But who got away with things no other human could, all the time. And got thrown out of school several times so maybe he didn’t. There was Butch Audacity who admired G. G. Allin and regaled us with stories of Sugar Grove, PA and The Grimm Brothers, which were grim. And Rob Nejman who ran for Pope of Fredonia. And Mark who had Batman shaved into his head. So we called him Batman at first.

Wayne showed up in 1989. And he had on a very large Batman button. Noone commented. So he wore 2 very large Batman buttons. Noone commented.

Special
In the 80s in Fredonia, I felt part of something special. There was the 10000 Maniacs from Jamestown as the local breakout band. John Lombardo and later, John and Mary, often played around town. There was The People’s Front, a punk band, which Sean Mackowiak of Mercury Rev, and Dave were both in. The singer for the People’s Front, Micky and his brother were both in The Magic Skyboat which was one of Dave’s first recordings. This was one of my favorite bands and I wish they had done more music. Scott Reynolds played with Micky from the early days and was in local bands, Art Tantrum and Local Trauma. He went on to sing for the punk band, All. My best friend from highschool, Rik, moved to Fredonia. And he was this wiz kid on synths. And Chris Trapper, who is in Push Stars right now. There was Psycho Fux, a bad punk band with guys from my highschool and a virtuoso guitarist, our friend Tomi. They had the Soccer Head Rap where the soccer people would come up and make jackasses of themselves. And another guy, Jason Roberts also from my highschool who has gone on to record Cypress Hill, Buena Vista Social Club(?) and etc. And Dave has done a few things. Many of the people we went to college with went on to work in live sound, touring with everybody and/or making records. I am just mentioning a few of the people I know. It is funny to me that one of the writers of That 70s Show is from Dunkirk. They named the hangout on the show after the teen hangout that was in Fredonia, The Hub where our friend Micky, played his first gig. There was the Pluto Gang from Buffalo who were so weird when I first saw them play here. Their drummer was a 22 year old girl who looked like an 11 year old boy. Her drums were a tamborine that was set up like cymbal, and a tom that she stood at. One of the guys from this band, Scott Klossner, went on to be part of the Blues Clues startup team doing animation. We used to be computer friends with him when we got our first computer. Our friend, Diana, was the singer for Jefferson Starship for quite a while. She was on the new Donny and Marie show. Hopefully she never sees this. She grew up here. I was in a girl band, Fear of Yellow. Everyone screamed when we played. I claim we got into Spin before The Lips or Rev but it was in a back door way, through Worst Band in America contest. Thankfully we didn’t win. And the first band to be in Spin that I knew of was Hypnolovewheel, I think a spin off of a local band,The Snackmates..My point being and I am not being thorough here, that we had a lot of good bands for a very small town. Or maybe just a lot of energy. There were artist friends and comedian friends. Something was going on that doesn’t always happen here or in every town.

In 1989, my friend Katie and I, went with The Flaming Lips all the way to NYC and back in a van. She was Dave’s then-girlfriend and Nathan Roberts, The Lips’ then-drummer, invited us to go to a show. Noone else from the band spoke to us for the whole ride.

Scott Reynolds
Dave’s been working with Scott Reynolds lately on a new project. It’s been great for me having him around town because he is so smart, so quick, so fun, has all the townie background, and he is still alive at our ages. By alive I mean not burned out and old. I am excited about the new project because it has the potential of things from the old days, weird jazzy punk.

John and Mary
Another thing that happened this year was that a friend of mine died of cancer at 34. And for some reason the memorial was a John and Mary show. It was so wonderful to see them play because they still are what we all were. It was so sad for this seemingly strong healthy woman to die and it was so sad to miss those times before the Flaming Lips came ‘round. John and Mary were so symbolic of everything that seems past that I had to cry for my friend and cry for us all.

But as we grow up, relationships with the Flaming Lips are becoming as meaningful as family. They have become our family. If it weren’t for them what would we be doing now? Would there have been Mercury Rev? Would there have been Tarbox Road Studios? Would I have survived Mercury Rev? I don’t know. I just know that there was Life Before The Flaming Lips...

11/7/04