STATIC PARTY

And TYVEK and LITTLE CLAW

jacques
 

Fells yeah! I love every 7" of theirs that I own. They made buying stuff on vinyl when I didn't even have a working turntable worth it.
 

Hey awesome. I did a post on the Fells a few months ago, but I didn't know about the Knockout Pills association. Coulda guessed though.
 

hay I just read that 90's Scumpit pt2 in MRR, I enjoyed it big time thanks,
 

Also Heath is in the Detroit bands Tyvek and Mountains & Rainbows...and Little Claw
 

I love the Space Girls seven inch -- make a MP3 of that please!
 

there's no connection between the fells and the knockout pills other than the fact that they're both from tucson. matt from the knockout pills and heath from the fells were in the vultures together, in seattle, and that's about as close as it gets.

AA
 

Fells from Knockout PIlls: Well kinda yes, kinda no. Gerard (Knockout PIlls) was the first Fells drummer & he'll be happy to never let you forget it.
 

Umm, I dunno much about the knockout pills but they aren[t Fells nearly as much as weird lovemakers. There are some kids who actually lived thru them and the turmoil left behind them. Not even cool rock and roll turmoil, but itty-bitty scene back-biting.

There was a band in the early-to-mid 90's called the Fells, made up of Saylor Breckenridge, Bob Fanning, Heath Heemsbergen, and Jeff Glave. There were cursed to be in Tucson, they put out really great records like the _Space Girls_ ep, or the split single w/ Rancid Hellspawn. The latter was done because Heath worked at the Tucson branch of Toxic Ranch. So that scary guy who put out the Peace Corpse single when he lived in Pomona put that out. Oh yeah Bill Sassenberger aka "Sassy".

Main thing that there was this band the Fells who were, kinda lame on record but were fucking amazing live. They had exceptional verions of "Space Girls" live that were not too far off of a Sun Belt version of "Sister Ray". But apparently at one show Saylor wore shorts and they were pussies who thought maybe he was gay (and maybe he was.. So...). They kicked him out, and this was after Heath Kicking Bob fanning for i dunno, fucking a girl Heath rather fancied.

There was a band who recorded a demo, which unfortunately I never picked up, but I saw live a couple times at house parties, The Bob Fanning Trio (aka the Heath-beaters), and they were better than the Fells that only were recorded on an Estrus lp who were trying too hard to be the Boys (UK).

Wich is unfair to the legacy of Rob Yazzie, but totally fair regading Rob Alpert. But still they dumbed down to get on Estrus. In fact I remember Vic Mostly coming down to Tucson w/ the Makers and teling Heath that he should write hard-boiled fiction and that his band now sounded almost "Birdman-like" (Uh, no, they didn't)

And even if they did, the MK.1 Fells were BETTER. They Just ended up thinking that covers of "Soda Pressing" were ummm clever.

But Rob Yazzie is totally innocent of all of this. It's basically Little Claw's fault period.

I'd love to bring up the Frustrations ad the the non-Heemsberger version that came up w/ the classic song "Take a hint (wash yr ass)".

FUCK THE LOST DUTCHMAN. He earned his lot.

Peace out to Saylor Breckenridge & Bob Fanning.

tony aguirre
 

Bob Fanning was not kicked out of the Fells. He left to go back to graduate school. He was also Heath's roommate, and tensions had increased between the two of them over that period of time. After an eruption between the two, Fanning decided to make a clean break of it all and move on with his life. He fulfilled his committment to tour with the band in the Summer of '94, but after that, he left.

He declined every invitation to re-join the band. However, he did sit in for some key shows (e.g., JSBX at the DPC in the Fall of '94) at the behest of the remaining members.

The band went through many drummers afterwards, including Greg Petix and Peter Catalonette. Eventually, they settled on Rob Alpert.

Months after Fanning's departure, Saylor Breckenridge was kicked out of the Fells because, even after being in the band for so many years, he was not on the same punk-rock page as Heath and Jeff. For example, there was a rehearsal where Heath suggested they cover Commando, and Saylor wasn't familiar with it. Commando. It had nothing to do with shorts -- he wore them all the time, as many of you might recall. He was just listening to Sonic Youth and Shellac when he should have been listening to Radio Birdman and The Saints.

Well, maybe it was the shorts, too.

Fanning *was* kicked out of a band called Irving, which was an early incarnation of the Weird Lovemakers. The reason: Lack of enthusiasm. For example, he didn't attend mixing sessions in the studio because he, admittedly, had no interest in them. He also put the Fells first for any live shows. Playing bass in Irving was simply a lark for Bob, and this became frustrating for Gerard Schumacher, Irving's drummer and self-appointed leader. Gerard wanted more committment. When Bob was not able to attend an Irving show, Gerard promptly replaced Bob with Hector Jaime. That was the end.

"The Bob Fanning Trio" was never called the "Heath Beaters" or anything else that you might read. "TBFT" was a working name until a better one came around, which never did. Being such a horrible name, fans often offered up their own ideas what the band should be called, including "The Heath Beaters" (referring to a sucker-punch Heath received from "TBFT" guitarist in '95. Yes, over a girl).

Eventually, Fanning dropped out of TBFT as well due to grad-school obligations, and he moved to Texas in the Summer of '96. No one has seen or heard from him since.

Catalonette replaced Fanning in this band as well until its eventual demise.

Peace out.
 

how come no ones mentioned The Napkins, Joanie Loves Chaci, or the Zero Kings?

and the best bands from Tucson were seldom documented for the rest of the nation...Fells were great when Splat was playing drums (and pretty good in the initial version which I thought had some huge injun in it -but that could have been the acid talking- when they were like some shambling spacejam band) but on record tthey pretty much blow

MB
 

Hey Scott, thanks for the kind words. It's awesome that the comments section turned into a "Please Kill Me" of the '90s Tucson scene. Somebody should write this stuff down!