Flipper (band)

Flipper

Flipper is an influential punk rock band from San Francisco, California, formed in 1979, continuing in often erratic fashion until the mid-1990s, then reuniting in 2005.

History

Initial impact

Flipper was founded by former members of the Sleepers and Negative Trend. Founding member and original vocalist Ricky Williams was fired from the band before any recordings were made because he was deemed too messed up to remain in the band. The name is often seen to be a reference to thalidomide babies, such as the one featured on the cover of their early "Love Canal" single . In fact, the band was named Flipper after Ricky Williams' curious habit of naming all of his pets "Flipper", regardless of their species.

Flipper made their first recordings available in late 1979 via the SF Underground 7" compilation series released through Steve Tupper's newly-formed Subterranean Records. In 1981, a 7" comprising "Love Canal/Ha Ha Ha" followed, and the original lineup made two full-length studio albums on Subterranean, 1982's Generic and a 1984 follow up Gone Fishin'.

Flipper's music was very shambolic and noisy, and often considered "slow" for a punk band of the time. In many early shows, the band had half the audience on stage with them singing backup vocals, and encouraged horn players to join them for their anthem, "Sex Bomb"; the crowding on stage usually knocked the stringed instruments out of tune. Guitarist Ted Falconi installed spikes in the head of his guitar to help prevent this, but blaring, out-of-tune dissonance became part of the band's signature sound.

Flipper was often as strongly in league with conceptual art and atonal music as with rock or punk. Years after the band's demise, its spray-painted dead fish logos were still visible in San Francisco (although signs on the city's Clipper Street have since been reverted from "Flipper Street").

Some say that Flipper's charm as a band lies in their ability to upset audiences, while attracting their undivided attention and curiosity at the same time. Their first single, "Love Canal"/"Ha Ha Ha", was widely derided, not only for its offensive cover art, but its bizarre sound, and yet sold many copies in the underground. This, in brief, was the band's concept: to be bad in ways that no band had ever been bad before. However, in true Flipper fashion, they even failed to fail, and their audience continued to grow as their outlandish approach appealed to those seeking something different.

Two more singles on Subterranean followed, "Brainwash"/"Sex Bomb" and "Old Lady That Swallowed The Fly"/"Get Away" before Album (also known as Generic Flipper). Their debut LP sees the drone and blare molded into startlingly effective songs, with a lyrically bleak outlook, but humane vulnerability in the vocals, and flashes of genuine musicianship. It is widely considered a classic album of this era. The mayhem contained on the disc is infectious as Will Shatter repeats "Life! Life! Life is the only thing worth living for!" Similarly, "Sex Bomb" is a seven minute track with only one lyric, "She's a sex bomb, my baby, yeah.", intertwined with a raucous yet melodic musical interplay. The original release of the "Sex Bomb" single featured individually hand-made covers.

The follow-up studio album in 1984, Gone Fishin, was even darker and artier than the first LP. It featured the disorientating opening track "The Lights, The Sound, The Rhythm, The Noise", the haunting "Survivors of the Plague" and the decrying of the war machine in the song "Sacrifice". The multi-colored delivery step van pictured on the cover was also where Ted Falconi lived when the group was not on the road. The van, along with figures representing the band and their equipment could be cut out and folded with Subterranean offering extra covers through a small mail order fee.

In 1984, the ROIR cassette label released a live Flipper document of a CBGB's performance entitled "Blow'n Chunks" that became available on CD in 1990, and goes in and out of print. A 2001 reissue includes four outtakes from the live sessions. The performance included material from all phases of the band's existence thus far.

John Lydon's Public Image Ltd was widely accused in the U.S. of stealing the cover art and concept of Flipper's album, Album. Consequently, Flipper entitled their 1986 double live album, Public Flipper Ltd. The album unfolded into a board game complete with a cutout spinner and game cards with Subterranean once again providing extra covers through mail order.

The original lineup began splintering after a long debauched period of touring, and singer and core member Will Shatter eventually died on December 9th, 1987 of a drug overdose after forming A3I (Any Three Initials, a punk outfit whose title mocked the prevalence of acronymic band names). Subterranean packaged the band's most popular recordings in a greatest hits collection titled "Sex Bomb Baby" released in 1987. The cassette edition and later CD rerelease featured three bonus tracks.

After Will Shatter

By the early 1990s, the band resurfaced with a new single on Subterranean called "Someday"/"Distant Illusion" and began performing again, releasing an all-new studio album in 1993, American Grafishy. Bruce Loose had become a heroin addict by this point. After Loose allegedly stole the band's master tapes from Subterranean's warehouse, he and DePace brokered a deal with powerful Los Angeles-based music industry figure Rick Rubin. Rubin used his attorneys to quash Subterranean's claim to the music and soon re-released Album Generic Flipper and the singles compilation Sex Bomb Baby on his Infinite Zero label. Even with Henry Rollins onboard as the latter label's A&R, the label soon went defunct. By 1997, Flipper's groundbreaking music went largely out of print, with Rubin still holding onto the rights, though tentative plans had been made for the band's catalogue to be re-released on Rubin's American Recordings in 2007.

As part of the legal settlement Subterranean Records was awarded the right to reissue its Flipper records on vinyl in the United States.

The band continued playing from 1990 to 1995, pursuing a more straightforward rock sound and attempt to cash in on their notoriety. In 1992, the new lineup released "American Grafishy" on Rick Rubin's Def American imprint; this is their only recording that is still consistently (legally) available. Their demise was again forthcoming due to another death by heroin overdose, this time that of replacement bass player John Dougherty.

Loose once commented to SF Weekly on the band's history as "like Spinal Tap, except the bass player keeps dying".

In 2002 Bruce Loose, father of a teenager, using a cane to get around (following a horrific car accident), resurfaced with a one off gig at Berkeley's 924 Gilman Street space as "Not Flipper". Falconi is somewhat reclusive. DePace is reportedly shopping Flipper stories to potential publishers. He lives in the L.A. area and works in the animation industry.

The original members of Flipper, barring the late Will Shatter (with Bruno DeSmartass replacing Shatter once again as he had done for a 1982 tour), reunited to support CBGB on August 22 and August 28, 2005. Singer Bruce Loose appeared on stage with a cane. This line-up of Flipper then continued to play live again beginning in 2006, with plans for a new album to be released and recorded in 2007.

In December 2006, DeSmartas was replaced by Krist Novoselic on bass for a tour of the UK and Ireland, as well as several US shows. The song "Scentless Apprentice", which the band recorded (without Novoselic) for a 2000 Nirvana tribute album, was added to the band's setlist.

Novoselic is recording a new album with the band. The album is produced by Jack Endino, the sound engineer who recorded Nirvana's debut album Bleach. As of January 2008 the album is "99% there". As of March 2008 the new album is officially done, however the band is apparently still searching for a label to release it.

Influence on other musicians

Kurt Cobain was a great fan of Flipper and often wore self-made Flipper t-shirts, e.g. in the booklet pictures of Nirvana's In Utero and on the band's first performance on Saturday Night Live in 1992.

In the documentary American Hardcore, Moby stated that he fronted for Flipper for two days while singer Will Shatter was in jail because he "knew all of their songs".

Think you should check mobys claim with members of flipper, who have denied them in no uncertain, and entertainingly scathing terms.

Eric Avery of Jane's Addiction has said that Flipper's rolling rhythms and repetitive riffs were an influence on Jane's early sound.

Members

Current members

• Bruce Loose - vocals, bass (1979-present, born Bruce Calderwood, 6 June 1959, Fresno, California)
• Ted Falconi - guitar (1979-present, born Lawrence Falconi, 2 September 1947, Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania)
• Krist Novoselic - bass (2006-present, born 10 May 1965, Compton, California)
• Steve DePace - drums (1979-present, born 29 January 1957, San Francisco, California)

Former members

• Ricky Williams - vocals (1979, born c.1955, Palo Alto, California, died 21 November 1992, San Francisco)
• Will Shatter - bass, vocals (1979-1987, born Russell Wilkinson, 1956, San Francisco, died 9 December 1987, San Francisco)
• John Dougherty- bass (1992-1997, born 20 April 1961, Oakland, California, died 31 October 1997, USA)
• Bruno DeSmartas- bass (2005-2006)

Discography

Studio albums

Title	Year	Label
Album - Generic Flipper	1982	Subterranean Records
Gone Fishin'	1984	Subterranean Records
American Grafishy	January 12, 1993	Def American

Live albums

Title	Year	Label
Blow'n Chunks	1984	ROIR
Public Flipper Limited Live 1980-1985	1986	Subterranean Records
Nürnberg Fish Trials	1991	Musical orgys
Live At CBGB's 1983	1997	Overground

Singles

Title	Year	Label
Love Canal/Ha Ha Ha	1980	Subterranean Records
Sex Bomb/Brainwash	1981	Subterranean Records
Get Away/The Old Lady Who Swallowed A Fly	1982	Subterranean Records
Someday/Distant Illusion	1990	Subterranean Records
Flipper Twist/Fucked Up Once Again	1992	Matador Records
Sex Bomb (remix)/Falconi's Horn Concerto In D-Fault (live)	1993	Teen Sensation Records/Def American

Compilations

Title	Year	Label
Sex Bomb Baby	1988	Subterranean Records, reissued on Infinite Zero Archive/American Recordings in late '90s
Rat Music for Rat People, Vol. 1	1982	CD Presents

DVDs

Title	Year	Label
Flipper Live: Target Video 1980-81	February 19, 2008	Music Video Distributors

Other appearances

• "Earthworm" on SF Underground (1979)
• "Falling", "Lowrider" and "End of the Game" on Live At Target (1981)
• "Ha Ha Ha" on Let Them Eat Jellybeans (1981)
• "Sacrifice" on Not So Quiet On The Western Front (1982)
• "Life" on Rat Music for Rat People (1982)
• "Ever" on Eastern Front (1983)
• "Ever" and "Sex Bomb" on The Wanna-Be-An-Indie-But-Got-Too-Much-$ Sampler (1992)
• "Some Day" on SXSW (1993)
• "Love Canal" and "Get Away" on Infinite Zero Promotional CD #2 (1994)
• "Ha Ha Ha" (live) on Old School Punk (1998)
• "Scentless Apprentice" (Nirvana cover) on Smells Like Bleach: A Punk Tribute to Nirvana (2000)
• "Sad But True" on "A Punk tribute to Metallica" (2001)
• "Ha Ha Ha" on "American Hardcore's Official Movie Soundtrack" (2006)

External links

• Finsite
• Myspace page
• Flipper (Yahoo category)
• Blow'N Chunks

Video

• PUNKCAST#1023 live @ North Six NYC, Aug 24 2006. (RealPlayer,mp4)