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Once upon a time in a big ugly building
famous for bad living and rock, there lived a
band. They acted like crazy people
(because the world is a crazy place), but
they were growing tired of bad living and
rock. They were burning with something or
other, but they had nothing to say. So they went downtown.
On the way they met a small man who asked where they were
going, and they answered, "The sky is falling and we must go and
tell the king."
"Silly band," said the man, "Surely you mean the thing is stalling
and you must go and kill the sty."
"Huh?", said the band, being young and not as clever as some.
"Nevermind. Let's go downtown," replied the man, and he
proceeded to tell them the good news about the John Kane Society
and their efforts to destroy rock music.
"Is that best?" they asked. "Yes," he said, "and our weapon must
also be rock: Rock Against Rock!" "That sounds pretty cool," they
agreed. "Yes...hmn......you can be called Idiot Flesh now."
"Oh......uh...", they replied uncertainly, but after some coffee they
agreed that all was for the best. "OK. Let's go." And there was
kindled within them a glorious fire of hatred for rock and it filled their
mouths with words and their eyes leaked something or other.
They left downtown making songs and pamphlets and signs and
giant heads and inflating suits and puppets and doing all manner of
things such that nothing might be left undone. Their stage show
swelled to often alarming proportions as the Rock Against Rock
Coalition expanded to include a revolving circurs of performers
such as the now legendary Baby Fatty, Bunny Man, and the
vaudville troupe Ruckus. Their splatter-puppet show brough
unprecedented violence to the miniature stage, bringing at least
one youngster to tears but amusing the mature.
Their 1990 vinyl release "Tales of Instant Knowledge and Sure
Death" represents the eclecticism of their pre-John Kane Society
contact. That contact gave a focus and purity of vision which
resulted in the painstaking marriage of intricacy and idiocy that is
"The Nothing Show" CD of '94. The album's thinly veiled communist
views have made it a natural hit on liberal college stations and the
three-dimensional Wondrasound? production of Oakland's
Polymorph studios makes the music oddly attractive to young
America's hordes of drug-addled texture fanatics.
"You must go somewhere else now," said the small man.
"OK...uh...sir. We will," said the Idiots. And so, having moved from
the East Bay underground to SF's corporate nightclubs, they
aquired the Stealth Bus necessary to sneak their travelling parade
of light into the darkest corners of the nation, which they've done
almost ceaselessly since mid-'94. They took a month off to produce
a single featuring their first two tunes ever to sit over a continuous
pulse, guaranteeing success with dance-crazed teens everywhere.
They also recorded a song for a tribute album featuring some of
weird music's greatest suprestars, including Giant Ant Farm,
Primus, Snakefinger and The Residents themselves.
Their Oakland bred appreciation for Mormon architecture has taken
Idiot Flesh to Portland and San Diego, and '95 will not close without
their seeing the glory that is Salt Lake City. Lest you think that their
taste in buildings is limited, they've also enjoyed skylines as
disparate as El Paso and Seattle, so fear not if your town lacks a
good temple. They will come anyway. Nothing will stop them.
Surely now the sky is falling and we must go and tell the king.
"Okay, let's go."
ran dumb mode
