Einstein's Riceboys - Milk Of Amnesia

A1. In Your Yard


A3. The Taung Child


A4. Water Me Down


B1. Soda Jerk


B2. Elevator Ride


Black Fag (From the Civil Rice LP)


EINSTEIN'S RICEBOYS (Milwaukee, WI)

Milk Of Amnesia
Pluto (ER 1633), 1981

Steve Wahlen grew up in Beaver Dam, WI during the golden age of the British Invasion. He got his musical start in a high school cover band that jammed Savoy Brown tunes and “Smoke On The Water” before absorbing the sounds of the Stooges, Velvet Underground, Joy Division, and Throbbing Gristle. He began school at the University of Wisconsin in Madison in 1977 when punk was first making its way to the state. He got to see the Ramones and the Jam and knew that’s what he wanted to do.

Sheldon and Todd Rusch grew up in Wauwatosa, the children of a sports coach. A neighbor turned them onto jazz at an early age. Todd would lock himself in the basement after school for hours on end practicing playing. The brothers ended up moving to Madison to attend school at UW where Todd shared a dorm with Steve Wahlen. During his second semester, Todd answered an ad placed by a funk band that was moving to Florida and needing players. He hooked up with them and relocated to the Keys where he was given a salary and housing for playing top 40 hits six nights a week.

Meanwhile, Steve introduced Sheldon to groups like the Clash and Joy Division. Before long they were writing songs of their own. They started sending tapes of the music they were creating to Todd and tried to get him to move back. After over a year of stable employment he finally returned to Wisconsin.

With Todd in the mix, Sheldon switched from guitar to keyboards and the three became known as Einstein’s Riceboys. Todd brought experience to the band and played both guitar and bass. Sheldon had a knack for lyrics and songwriting and Steve hammered the drums and sang. They spent a year endlessly rehearsing and by the time they emerged to play their first basement show they had developed their own unique sound.

The band moved to neighboring Milwaukee to join its vibrantly growing scene after Sheldon finished school. They played 6-10 gigs a month alongside bands like the Prosecutors and Oil Tasters. Todd did the legwork of designing posters and plastering them on telephone poles. They were able to save up enough money to record and self release an album, a feat that none of the other local groups had managed at that point. Even the most popular bands like the Shivvers and Haskels only released 7”s, not full length LPs.

The Riceboys spent a few hours on consecutives days in Breezeway Studios recording the nine songs that comprised Milk Of Amnesia. They were well rehearsed and able to do everything in one take, layering all the instruments and not doing too many overdubs. The 1,000 copies of the album that were pressed sold out quickly and they started seeing larger crowds at their shows.

It was decided they needed another member to help fill out their sound so they asked a high school senior named KT Rusch to join the band. KT had a wide variety of musical influences. She started playing guitar in middle school but moved over to bass to play in a punky power pop group called the Elevators with her brother. When the Riceboys gave her a copy of Milk Of Amnesia to check out, she loved what she heard and promptly joined the band.

Todd had made connections in South Florida with a couple of wealthy brothers who were looking for a band to test out a new direct-to-digital method of recording using the JVC DAS-90. The brothers expressed interest in doing the next Riceboys album so the band packed up and drove the van down to Miami to do a quick recording session with no overdubs in a practice space. They recorded three live takes of each song and then chose the best versions to assemble the Civil Rice LP. After a standard pressing was made, their record label, QL, did a special Japanese virgin vinyl pressing. They also offered it on chrome and metal cassette as well as compact disc.

The band stayed in Florida for a while to showcase their music to a new audience. Clubs wanted them to play three sets a night so they mixed a wide variety of cover material with their originals including songs by Gang Of Four, the English Beat, and Devo. They even worked up a ska version of “Get Off My Cloud” and threw in some Bowie to keep it interesting. The band made their own fanzine called Camp Six and each member had a column. They’d do reviews and advertise the band. There was a copy machine at the house they were staying at, so they stapled them together and would drop them at record stores.

Civil Rice charted on college stations in the summer of 1983, right around the time the Violent Femmes were breaking into the mainstream. Einstein's Riceboys moved back to Milwaukee to see how things were shaping up there. Soon after, Steve broke his arm in an accident and they had to get another drummer. He continued to sing but the band's progress was derailed. Soon after, the Riceboys ceased to be.

NEMB - The Middle Room

A. The Middle Room


B. Torture


NEMB (Baltimore, MD)
The Middle Room b/w Torture
Green Records, 1981

Lee Warren grew up in Daytona Beach, FL. His musical taste was highly influenced by the discovery of Alice Cooper and New York Dolls records in the early 70s. From there he got into glitter bands like David Bowie, Roxy Music, and other stuff from England he had read about in the pages of Melody Maker and Rock Scene.

In 1977, Lee started attending the University of South Florida in Tampa. At the time, southern rock like Lynyrd Skynyrd and Charlie Daniels Band dominated the airwaves and the live club circuit, which he wanted nothing to do with. Fundamentally, he liked the sound of distorted guitar and when he moved to Tampa and found others who shared a common interest, he immediately set out to form a band.

Lee introduced himself to a student in a dorm hallway who was wearing a Kinks t-shirt. His name was Bill Carey and he had transplanted from Naples, FL to attend school at USF. Bill collected vintage guitars and was a fan of bands like the Velvet Underground, Stooges, NY Dolls, Mott The Hoople, and the early CBGB groups.

Realizing they were into a lot of the same music, the two started frequenting Mi Backyard, a kind of a redneck bar with a picnic and BBQ area that began having punk nights in the spring of 1978. The first time they went they saw a power pop band called Just Boys playing. It was decided that they needed to form their own band.

They started writing songs together with Lee singing and Bill on guitar. Then they brought in Bill’s girlfriend Joyce who also played guitar. They posted ads on bulletin boards around campus to find other members and met a bass player named David Bowman. They completed the line-up with a 15 year old drummer named Val who was an advanced placement student in college. She had a Mo Tucker sensibility about the way she played minimalist drums without utilizing cymbals.

They named the band the Art Holes and played their first gig at a rehearsal space rented out by members of a local band called the Jackers. Lee never sang in front of people before and had a bit of stage fright, but they made it through the show and people liked them. The band started getting other gigs around town and neighboring Sarasota. Eventually Allen Esser took Val’s place on drums and gave the band a more powerful sound.

Lee graduated in 1979 and moved up to Baltimore. Bill and Dave continued playing together in a band called the Jetsons, who later became Stick Figures. Meanwhile, Lee began working on songs with a drummer named Rick Sugden, who had coincidentally had a short stint in the Jetsons. In late summer/early fall of 1980, Lee met George Poscover through an ad he'd posted in a record store. Rick sort of drifted away once George came into the picture and since they couldn’t find another drummer, Lee bought a Roland CR-78 rhythm machine.

Lee called the band Non-Erotic Male Bonding, or NEMB for short, since some club owners objected to the full version of the name. On Saturday April 4, 1981 a Gender-Fuck Party was held where attendees went into a closet where a Bolex film camera was setup with a cable release that advanced the film one frame at a time. On that night a version of NEMB that included Lee, George, and a guitar player named Charles Freeman performed.

Lee’s old band mates Bill and Dave took a hiatus from Stick Figures and came up to Baltimore in the summer of 1981. They joined Lee and George, who were working on some NEMB demos. The temporary line-up recorded two songs that would be released as NEMB’s sole output in a run of 500 copies. Their version of “The Middle Room” became the soundtrack to the Gender Fuck Party film that had previously been shown without an audio track. Lee and George can be seen in the film between :07 and :14.

Bill, Dave, and the rest of Stick Figures ended up moving to New York and tried to get something going there. Unfortunately things didn’t pan out and the band soon drifted apart. Lee wanted to move to New York as well which brought an end to NEMB. In February 1982, Lee and Bill along with Rachel Bowman from Stick Figures formed a new band called King Of Culture. They played frequently in New York for a couple years with numerous line-up changes and released a single on Green Records. Not making enough money to sustain themselves, the band eventually split apart. 

 

Stick Figures - Crayola Bowling

A1. N-Light


A2. Ellis Otivator Dub


B1. Crayola Bowling


B2. September


STICK FIGURES (Tampa, FL)
The Stick Figures EP
Green (2581), 1981

Sid Dansby moved from Jacksonville to Tampa in 1978 to double major in engineering and music at the University of South Florida. He grew up playing a wide range of percussion instruments including tympani, vibes, and xylophone as well as guitar, violin, and piano. His brother Robert, who was an art major at the same college, picked up violin at an early age and played drums. Their school introduced them to multi-track recording and synths as their musical influences gravitated towards the glam sounds of the New York Dolls, Bowie and the unique compositions of Soft Machine, King Crimson, Zappa and Beefheart.

During their first year at USF, the Dansby brothers met Dave Bowman, Bill Carey, and Lee Warren who were in a band called the Art Holes. That band ended the following year when Lee graduated and moved up to Baltimore. Sid and Dave then discussed starting a new project to make music unlike anything else they were hearing. They brought in Bill Carey as well as Dave’s sister Rachel. After trying out a few different drummers, Sid's brother Robert became the permanent choice.

The new band was coined the Jetsons and they played around the Tampa area frequently. There was a very vibrant music scene happening there with a myriad of venue options. The band developed a strong following working clubs like the Buffalo Roadhouse, Ms. Lucky’s, and Mi Backyard 2-3 times per month. They even played sets before films like Eraserhead that were being shown on campus.

Everyone in the band was proficient at multiple instruments so they often switched things around. They all came up with general ideas for songs and typically they’d work them into complete compositions together. The band primarily played original material but they’d throw in maybe one Iggy, Roxy Music, or Jonathan Richman song per performance. After a while they decided to change their name to Stick Figures.

The band earned enough money from gigging to go in a studio on Davis Island in the middle of the night and quickly lay down the tracks for a four song EP. Community radio station WMNF was a big supporter of the local music scene and one of the station’s DJs named Pam Wiener became the Stick Figures manager. She also helped them release their 7".

Each member designed their own unique sleeve and then ran off copies on a Xerox machine before getting together to stuff the records into the sleeves. They received airplay on not only local stations, but even John Peel played Stick Figures on the BBC in England. In fact, the band was picked up by UK indie label Glass Records and were supposed to put out a record with them.

In 1981 the band set out for New York in hopes of finding a broader audience. They continued to be prolific, churning out two or three new songs every week and amassing a repertoire upwards of a couple hundred original songs, but they didn't play out much. After recording most of an album, the struggle to survive in the big city proved too much and things fell apart.

Stick Figures played their finals gigs in Atlanta, back to back nights supporting the Fall and Lounge Lizards.

Boy Elroy & The Jetsons - Don't Know Why

A. Don't Know Why


B. Before I Go


BOY ELROY & THE JETSONS (Gainesville, FL)
Don't Know Why b/w Before I Go
Astro Productions (SO 17381), 1983

Mark Mann and his brother Chas grew up in a ski resort area of New Jersey before their parents moved the family to Largo, FL. The two had played music together since they were young and in 1980 both made their way to Gainesville where Chas began attending school at the University of Florida. The area provided a healthy environment for original bands because there were so many places to perform and record.

Boy Elroy and the Jetsons started with Mark (who took on the persona of Boy Elroy) on lead guitar and vocals, Chas on drums, and Rick Shafer on bass. Rick worked at a local music store where Mark and Chas would hang out. They told him about their plans to form a band and asked if he was interested in joining. The three of them began rehearsing together after that and eventually brought in a UF student named Martin Gold who added lead and rhythm guitar.

They were all into guitar-based rock like Cheap Trick and Tom Petty. The band worked up a large catalog of original songs to mix in with the requisite covers that got them gigs. Most clubs didn't want bands playing original material so when they'd send a song list out to the places they wanted to play, they'd load it with covers and only mention a few originals to secure themselves a slot. Once they took stage, they’d sneak in as many of their own songs as they could. The band utilized the fact that there were five big clubs in town along with a bunch of smaller venues to ensure they were gigging every weekend. Of course they played plenty of fraternity parties as well.

The original line-up of Boy Elroy and the Jetsons released just one self-financed 7" single designed as a promotional tool to help them get signed to a record deal and go on tour. It was recorded in a couple days by Bob McPeek who owned Mirror Image, the premier recording studio in Gainesville. The songs were mastered and pressed in Nashville in a limited run and the single disappeared quickly. Boy Elroy and the Jetsons received radio play on local Rock 104 which helped them build a great following. The band even had the opportunity to play in front of 70,000 people at the 1983 Gator Growl, which is the pep rally for the start of the football season. Still, a major record deal never came their way.

In August of 1983, Rick and Martin were replaced by Fritz Godin and Reb Field. The new incarnation recorded one more song with Bob McPeek, "Silver Sweater," which they contributed to the Sink Hole Tapes compilation album. In the end, the band was barely making enough money to sustain itself and when other opportunities to make real money came along, everyone went their separate ways.

Martin went on to become an architect and is currently the director of the School of Architecture at the University of Florida and is playing in two music projects. Rick went on to open his own music store and now has his own sound and lighting company. Chas is a big time executive working with companies like Disney, Paramount Studios, and Starbucks. Mark is still playing music full time in Florida as a solo act.

Futurisk - Army Now

A. Army Now


B. What We Have To Have


FUTURISK (Lighthouse Point, FL)
Army Now b/w What We Have To Have
Clark Humphrey (008072), 1980

Growing up in England in the 60s, some of the earliest music that stood out to Jeremy Kolosine was the later era Beatles, the Tornadoes "Telstar" single, the Dr. Who theme, and the Clockwork Orange soundtrack. Around 11 years old he started buying cassettes and getting into prog and electronic music, but it was David Bowie and Roxy Music that had the most profound impact on him. In fact, Jeremy got to see the first show of Bowie's Aladdin Sane tour shortly before his parents moved the family to South Florida.

Jeremy was 13 when he came to the United States and he was already pretty much only interested in music, but his new locale had little to offer him besides Southern Rock. At 14 Jeremy got his first cheapy acoustic guitar and taught himself by playing along to Cat Stevens, Leonard Cohen and Bowie. When he discovered punk and new wave around ‘77, it was bands like Devo, Pere Ubu, Contortions, PiL, Ultravox, Wire & XTC that he gravitated to. He soon got his 1st kit-built synth and started learning keyboards and patching.

Late in 1978, after picking up a copy of local punk zine, Mouth Of The Rat, Jeremy discovered that there actually was a punk scene happening in South Florida. He went to see the Eat, Cichlids and other new bands that were playing in the area. Jeremy and high school friend Frank Lardino started their own band called Art Decadence that played covers of the stuff they liked such as Devo, Roxy Music, Sex Pistols, Hawkwind & the Rolling Stones, but doing them all in a way that sounded like the Stooges.

Then in ‘79 Jeremy started playing solo experimental performances with guitar, synth and drum-machine using the name Clark Humphrey & Futurisk. Clark Humphrey was the human, and Futurisk the machine. Later that year Jeremy won recording time at Audio Image Studio in Pompano from a competition in an artzine out of Wilton Manors called Florida Arts Gazette. With six hours to record and mix, Jeremy did the vocals, guitar, synth and electric mandolin. He also brought in Frank Lardino to play synth and a drummer named Jack Howard that they found from a bulletin board at the local music store.

They decided on simply "Futurisk" for the band name and with the prize money Jeremy received from the Arts Gazette competition, he was able to release the two songs “Army Now” and “What We Have To Have” as a limited run 7” in 1980 on his own Clark Humphrey imprint. The record came with an oversized picture sleeve and double-sided lyric insert. The new three-piece band continued rehearsing together after the recording session and even brought in a bass player named Jeff Marcus. They worked up a great live show and started playing out which enabled them to sell out of the single within a few short months.

A couple more line-up changes ensued until 1981 when Jeremy finally decided to go all synth with real drums. For the first couple of years Jeremy had written all the songs on guitar, but after he got a Sequencial Circuits Pro-One with a sequencer, most of the songs would be based on synth parts first. He kept Jack on drums and recruited synth prodigy Richard Hess to replace Frank, who then went on to play in Radio Berlin.

Besides their original music, Futurisk also interspersed covers from bands like Depeche Mode, early Ultravox, OMD, Our Daughters Wedding and DAF into their set. They deliberately tried to set themselves apart from the local punk scene that still bristled at the sound of a synth or drum-machine.Their following mostly consisted of a disjointed art crowd and because there were always different clubs opening and then closing a month later, they had to set up their own shows, sometimes playing on roof tops.

In 1982 the band did a batch of recordings on Richard's Porta-Studio-1 4-track cassette recorder, also known as the "Futurisk Mobile Unit." They wanted their next record to sound like Moroder's production on Spark's "Number One In Heaven," but weren't entirely sure how to make it happen. Richard figured out how they could use sync-pulse on tape along with a trigger click-track so they could sync up sequencers and drum machines on tape. They placed Jack's oversized Tama drums in the bathroom to try and get a natural distortion and gated echo like they heard on Bowie's "Low."

From the money they received from the sales of the "Army Now" single, Futurisk was able to release their next record, the Player Piano EP in a larger run than the prior release. This one was a five song 7" that played at 33 1/3 RPM. It sold out in about 18 months after having received acclaim in the Sun-Sentinel and other local media. They got interviews and play on most of the college and some mainstream rock stations and even got a couple of videos out of appearances on local TV shows.

The band did one more recording session at Ocean Sound in 1982 but never released the material. In late '83 Jack ended up moving. Jeremy and Richard did a couple of shows with drum-machine but since the rest of the local scene appeared to be dissolving and they’d already accomplished what they set out to do, they simply stopped.

Drummer Jack Howard went on to become a well-known Elvis impersonator and is featured in the book "I Elvis" and in the movie "The Burger and the King". Richard works on refurbishment of synths as well as musical projects. Jeremy kept doing music in various projects, most recently Receptors and 8-Bit Operators, which he also produces.

In 2010, Minimal Wave Records released the Player Piano LP which was a collection of all the songs form the band’s two 7” releases as well as songs from the unheard Ocean Sound sessions.