2014 set me off in a weird direction.
I got a email from a girl in Sweden. Robux was her name. She wanted to interview me about my band Stupor. Of course, I had no band, only my zine, but I told her sure. So she sent me about 70 questions. I paired them down to maybe 20. My answers were all lies, fiction really. They explained my band, and the terrible sexy and tragic death of the lead man. The end result was a Stupor titled Part Plant Part Animal Part Insect. It contains the whole interview, and set in motion the idea of a screwed up band called Stupor.
So a couple months go by. It’s fall and we’re having a show at Public Pool—the gallery I’m part of—that is all about record album art. We put out an open call for artists to design record jackets from fictional bands. I liked the idea so much that I put together the art for the fabled Stupor LP Gallus Gallus, which according to the interview, was completely destroyed by the emotional spiritual mess who led the band. Here’s the resulting art:
The following is an excerpt from the interview with Robex regarding Gallus Gallus:
Robex: Have you made any albums?
Stupor: We made one album, but after listening to it, Tim seriously slipped a cog. He tore through Stuporhouse smashing his fist into the walls. Then one by one raised the boxes of our record over his head and smashed them on the floor. Something had gone wrong in him. When he was done, he sat in the middle of the wreckage, a stunned look on his face. I couldn’t understand. Only he kept saying that this physical representation of the music was antithetical to our mission in the world. “It has to remain spiritual if we are going to be effective,” he said. All I can say is that I had a deep intellectual respect for him, so I helped carry the boxes into the empty lot across the street, the one grown thick with weed trees and the high swaying grass. Late that night he emptied a bottle of lighter fluid over the heap and tossed in a match. The blaze was a bright pillar climbing into the sky. It made an awful smell. Incidentally the album was called, “Gallus Gallus” which is the scientific name for chicken. It was an amazing record. I deeply regret not keeping more than one copy.
Soon it’s 2015. This guy Chris buys the Stupor album from the gallery. He’s quite a fan of Stupor, and it ends up that he’s a pretty good musician too. So one thing leads to another and pretty soon I’ve gathered all my broken instruments and I’m banging the crap out of them, I’m reciting stories, and pounding the hell out of the drums. None of it is quite as soaring and beautiful as I described it in Part Plant Part Animal Part Insect, but it’s great. It’s cathartic. It’s a new thing. It’s still happening. As of Fall 2016, we’ve played only 4 shows.
We call ourselves the Stupor Sound Experience. It’s noise. It’s word. It’s broken. It’s Stupor. In April 2016 we released our debut cassette tape. You can check it out on Bandcamp. It’s free to download too.
Here we are playing at the release party for the cassette titled HAPPINESS
Christ Peter on the left is Led Zeppelin
Steve Stupor is guitar dropper and drum blister
Nicky Balls is knobs and pedals