MNI2k: The Album That Never Was

Unfortunately, the task of reconstructing an album that was never recorded is one that French Philosophe and notable bettin’ man Blaise Pascal might have described as impossible (that’s “impossible” for those of you in Upper Canada). There are just too many unknowns, not least among them Don Varner.

But here is an interesting starting point: on the day before my 28th birthday – which is the traditional rock-and-roll retirement age – I drafted a list of songs under the heading “Second CD.” For each song, I included REM/Life's-Rich-Pageant-style taglines, featuring first-draft lyrics, inscrutable explanations, or other tangential quips:

Hurricane Days Girl #134 On The Road Second Time Around Two Miles Underground Big Tin Truck Friend That I Once Knew My Horizon Like You If I Don’t Come Back Sleepwalk

red underwater memories linger. the hand that slaps. beacon in the night. ice age size disaster. subterranean homespun blues. wide-load brain. thanks, Mom. release the hounds. take that. twenty-one years; it’s gone. tarnished armor.

Coincidentally, this imaginary tracklist dates one week prior to our very last concert, at LA Chiropractic College. As fate would have it, Don could not make it to the show, and the “classic” lineup was never to be reassembled.

Dommage.

That’s French for “Oh well, at least we can analyze it to death on the internet!”

Here goes:

Matt and I had recorded a bunch of these in acoustic demo form during the “Black and Blue Sessions” of July-August 1998. A couple others from this list turned up later in the one live performance by Ten Dollar Helmet, in 2002. As for the rest, Vic’s song, “Like You,” is a caustic rock-and-roll gem that has never been aired. The last track, “Sleepwalk” was my own pet project, an instrumental postlude to Matt’s anthemic ballad, “Knight in Dullard Armor.” I probably had in mind closing the album with "Dullard Armor" followed immediately by this instrumental continuation of the music.

I'll Bring Your Mom

That was one of the earliest signs that Don was going to prove to be a randy sort when it came to band interaction on stage. Those immortal words, right up there with "I play what I want" were first uttered on December 5th.

Which brings me to my point. That was A LONG time ago. A SCARY amount of time has passed since then. Not only do I not know the exact year, but I'm actually quite scared to hear it. I'm thinking it might be somewhere in the league of fifteen years ago.

Time marches on, and we get older. I just watched "Rocky Balboa" last night, and Stallone looked terrible. He looks great for a guy in his sixties, but overall, he looks like two miles of bad road. Will the Stickmen take the same path?

Hot Cheese... With Dishes!

It's probably about time that someone brought up Harbor House, the defacto eatery of choice for the Stickmen, and later My New Invention. HH is a dingy little cafe style eatery in Dana Point. It's not really that it's got good food, and it doesn't really have much ambiance to speak of. But what it does have is doors that are open 24 hours, and that's really all it took to get us interested.

It became tradition to go there after local gigs, usually to debrief, and complain about what we thought went wrong. Of course, this was mainly during the early years, when we were all sort of getting along. The last time I recall going was after Edapalooza II. Was that the one with Nicole Riley? I mean Sarah?? That's the one I'm thinking of. I recall going there after that gig. Wait, we also went after Tea Time At Eds, now that I think about it, as I remember that was one of the first times my then girlfriend Wendy hung out with the band. I seem to recall her flirting with Don. But then again, who doesn't???

But this is all just preamble to the real reason behind this posting, and that's to discuss our quasi-successful attempt to fabricate slang, and introduce it into the common language. We were driving down the 5, and were just about to take the exit to harbor house when the idea when into full swing. I saw a sign that said "Doheney", and I thought "dough-hen" would be a good, cruel sounding name to call someone. That was my first suggestion. Somehow, "Scooch Cooch" came up later that night, though I don't remember the etimology of it. I may be wrong on this, but I think this may have also been the night that the term "Hot cheese, with dishes" was introduced. Maybe it was the existence of that term that spawned the purpose of the evening. I'm not sure. I think the hot cheese thing came from one of my personal favorite dishes at Harbor House, the chili cheese fries. I'd always get them with diced onions on top, and a nice big side of ranch to help wash them down. Healty treat!!!

I also remember someone out in the parking lot asking us what the heck a "Scooch Cooch" was. I thought that was pretty cool. They were so perplexed by our citi-speak that they had to inquire. That's when you know you're making progress.

Though some would claim that a guitar welt on the chest is a sure sign that you're making progress, I disagree.

That's a riff on an introduction to the Guitar Players Handbook, which I believe was penned by Ted Nugent. A quick google search unearthed the entire quote: "Practice, practice, practice. Practice until you get a guitar welt on your chest..if it makes you feel good, don't stop until you see the blood from your fingers. THEN you'll know you're onto something!" Ted Nugent

Amen brother. Amen.

The Irrigation Song

The other day I was thinking about the song “Probably Not,” which was the first real song I wrote with Victor.... I am sure that Victor and I were both subconciously drawing on sources we haven’t acknowledged to this day. There is an acoustic ballad by Jane’s Addiction, titled “Jane Says,” that must have been one of those subconscious guides. The other day I made the connection to another important source for “Probably Not:” the bassline in Donovan’s “Season of the Witch.”

The lyrics are another story. I don’t know how we got the idea to write “The Irrigation Song,” which was the original mission plan. Victor might remember.

The “Irrigation Song” concept probably got us as far as “all the oceans and the seas.” The rest of the song is a pure encapsulation of Victor and I springboarding off each others’ phrases. One of us starts a line, intending to finish it as a coherent thought, and the other frequently heads him off at the pass with word association and attempted mindreading. Then we laugh at the result, tweak it slightly, and use that as the starting point for the next line.

[Originally written 13 Apr 2007].

[Abridged to reduce pomposity 30 Nov 2007].

Starbucks / Scojo

Man, where to start with this one:



Not sure of the exact time frame of this one, but I'm sure a quick flip through the video archives would help nail it down. It was during my time at Unsys, which puts it somewhere around "The Millenium".

With the bright afterglow of My New Invention fading in to the background, I took it upon myself to re-invigorate my music career. I partnered with co-worker Mike Walton in an attempt to re-capture Starbucks as a focal point for musical expression. He was handling bass chores and backup vocals, while I took center stage. Duh.

We practiced a lot, put together a 3 hour set, and then performed.


Wait.


Strike that.


Strike ALL of that. I've gone and gotten myself confused.


The flyer above was for a string of SOLO gigs I did at the Starbucks on the corner of Alicia and Jeronimo in Mission Viejo. This was before I worked at Unisys, now that I think of it. I think this was during my WareNet days. I believe there were some contemporary gigs at a local Diedrich's Coffee, and a place over in Rancho Santa Margarita. Oh, I'm so confused.

Anyhow, this is a flyer for one of my shows. I'm off to take my Alzeimers medication.

Munson Thin Again

Here's a picture of the lead singer and full time heart-throb of the Stickmen, AKA My New Invention, AKA Finger Bouquet, AKA Question 81, AKA Imperial Probe Droid.



I post this here for a number of reasons. The main one is because I love to post pictures of myself, ESPECIALLY when I'm lookin' this good. But the other reason is because it's probably worth mentioning that one of the contants of the band during our 33 year run was my constantly fluctuating weight. I'd say my weight was anywhere from 158 to 225 during the course of the band, if you include Black and Blue. I know Fischer had some fluctuations also, and possibly just as extreme, though he never ended up on the doughnut side of the equation. He would catch some kind of disease, and then wither away to nothing. Often in the high sierras. Then he'd have some protien/creatine super shake immuno boost, and gain some weight back. A year or so ago, he entered what he called a "Fat Elvis" phase, where he porked up to unprecedented levels. Not quite Matt Munson highs, but pretty high for bill. I guess that's just part of getting old. And believe me, I should know, as I'm older than him. So ha!!

But anyhow, I am back in shape as of right now. I got up to 220 a few months ago. I had a string of bad luck that had me bed ridden for way longer than I should have been. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't the act of lying (laying?) in bed that made me gain weight. It was eating all the ice cream and nachos while laying in bed!! I caught a really bad flu that knocked me out for a while, then I had a back injury that had me knocked down for like a month! It was rough!!! Long story, I porked. But once I got up and running again, I dropped 40 pounds in about 90 days. Now I'm in the throes of the never ending "Buff and Bronze" quest that the Stickmen are famous for. This incarnation being "Buff & Bronze '07", or "BNB 07" for the initiated.

But enough rambling. Oh wait, that's what blogs are for. Good thing none of us are teens any more, or we could sit around and write about teen angst.

I'd really like to see a post about Bill's long term plans to repopulated the band with the next generation of Fischers.

Backyard Circuit: Cousins Held Captive

Here's a classic "please listen to our music" scene from the Fischers' backyard, March 10, 1996, shortly after recording the "Borders Acoustic Demo" in the den. Note my close relatives gamely waiting us out.

SDSU

Here's a classic from the vaults:



This is a flyer from a gig we played down at San Diego State University. It was in an off campus house. Totally fun gig, though for a number of reasons, it almost didn't happen. I seem to recall Bill's parents station wagon having some kind of tet-nickle difficulties on the way down.

But it all worked out great, and we were shut down by the cops after just a few songs. Still, there exists some great video from that show, some of which may be on youtube at this very moment. But I forget.

I think one of my favorite memories about this show was not the show itself, nor the fact that it was our first official closure by the local constabulary. What was fun was all the pictures and video we took AFTER the show. I still consider some of those pictures some of my all time favorites. It was a big "audience interaction" play, where we basically had a half a dozen (or was it a dozen) "fans" posing in photos with us. That was cool. The video of the gig is good also, but the part where Victor says the memorable phrase "this is over... this is over" is gold. There's also a trip into "the Dungeon" in the video, which doesn't last long.

I also recall that Bill and Don had a VERY brief exchange explaining to the camera what I am doing with the audience at that moment. Turns out, I was talking to a girl, while Bill and Don were making predictions about the outcome of said talking. What is most amusing, and is probably unknown to all band members save myself, is that this very video ended up biting me in the botox years later when Janet Fischer saw the tape, and was traumatically upset by this exchange.

Just goes to show you that Stickmen videos are like nuclear waste. It doesnt' matter how deep in the desert you bury it: it's gonna hurt someone eventually.

This was also the first gig that I can think of where someone other than a band member handled the promotion of the event.

P-Pearl It Squirtbird

Next month it will be TEN YEARS since Operation Mexicali, a pile of Gin Fizz (?), and all the still-languishing songs originally slated for The Obscene Album.

Don Varner recently found this rebus graphic, from the Lucky Lager bottlecap that inspired one of the best-remembered Operation Mexicali singalongs.

I guess he was still conscious at that point.

StickMemories

Excellent idea Bill Fischer. I had no idea that you could open up a blog to more than one user! And it comes at a good time for you, as I was JUST about to open a competing stickmen themed blog, tentatively entitled stickmenmemories. So good work.

For my first post, I'd like to share something I stumbled upon last night. Now that I've got a scanner, it's pretty much open season on archival elements.



This was to be my opening salvo on my stickmen blog, but I think it's much better here. Serves a wider audience and all.

This is something I must have picked up along the way when we were playing "The Sports Page" bar in Lake Forest. Ah, the good old days. The bar has changed hands half a dozen times since that gig, maybe more. I'm sure it's just as awesome inside. Then again, maybe not. My favorite memory about playing the Sports Page was the guy who was the bouncer. I don't even know if he was the bouncer, but he was the huge dude who took your money. Which might explain in a number of ways why so few people showed up for our shows. Not only did it cost money to get in, but there was always this really intimidating dude standing at the door asking for four bucks.

The bouncer always reminds me of this dude, though we lovingly referred to him as "Solomon".

The Tit Drum

Okay, so now that the shopping season is underway, here's a blast from the Ghost of Christmases Past. I'm pretty sure this dates from 1995-6, but it might as well go with the December 1993 Allen Studios version of Fire Hazard Christmas - the one with the same personnel shown here and a rare guitar solo from Don.

Classic.

The band-authored side of the Classic Stickmen archive is now open for business. Let's hope it gets new postings more often than the band used to get gigs.