The
Fluid
The following article originally appeared in NFH
#17 in the fall of 1989.
I got a rude shock
when Sub Pop sent me the Fluid's awesome Clear Black Paper lp in time for last
issue. I mean, damn it, here's another great band that had managed to get up to
their third record without me ever hearing about them. Clearly something is wrong
in the world that this sort of thing can happen.
Anyway, I quickly set
about putting this right. First order of business was to track down their other two
records, Freak Magnet and Punch And Judy, both of which can be found on
Germany's Glitterhouse label. The first of these is actually a mini-lp and has the
best songs from Clear Black Paper along with a couple other tracks that don't sound
as strong. Probably not essential. Punch And Judy, while not as good as Clear
Black Paper (remember, we're comparing to an incredible record here), still
has its moments. It certainly isn't a lack of songs that holds it back; stuff like
"Madhouse" or "Mousetrap" are clear cut aces. The problem is
that the production is a little thin, which keeps it from greatness. But it's still fun
listening. And now there's a new one, Roadmouth , which you can read about
in the reviews.
Second on the list of
things to be done to correct the situation was to find out more, and where better
to go than to the horses mouth? So having managed to convince Sub Pop that NFH is a
magazine to be reckoned with (quiz question: a what and his money are soon
parted?), I found myself armed with guitarist James Clower's phone number. The rest
was easy.
NFH: When did
you guys get started?
James: In '85
we got together after having been in several other bands together. The bass player
was in both Frantics and White Trash. The bass player, the drummer and I put out an
ep...a 5 song 7" 45 in 1983, and the Frantics put out a couple singles in like
82 or 83. First there was another bass player but then later Matt, after he left
White Trash was playing in Frantics with our other guitar player, Rick. Those bands
went on until the end of 1983, and then we all kind of fucked around, and then about
1985 we all got together, the four of us, and then our singer was a guy who we knew
from high school; our drummer went to high school with him. So we knew him, and he'd just
come back from Texas, and he started singing for us.
The line up is me,
James Clower, on guitar, Matt Bischoff plays bass, Garrett Shavlik is the drummer,
John Robinson is the singer, and Rick Kulwicki is the other guitar player. He and
Matt were in Frantics, and Garrett and I were in White Trash.
NFH: Are there
any other Fluid records besides Punch And Judy, Freak Magnet and Clear
Black Paper?
James: There's
two different versions of Punch And Judy; one was remixed...that was the
first thing that Glitterhouse did...you know who they are, right? They put that
out, and that's still in press. Then we did Clear Black Paper with them, and
then Sub Pop heard about us, and they got a hold of the album, and what they did
was to put on four different songs, because we recorded 18 songs in the studio. So
they put that out, and then Freak Magnet came out, which is the rest of the
songs that weren't on the European version. All that stuff is already a couple
of years old.
The one that just
came out supposedly at the end of last week is our third album, called Roadmouth
. That's being co-released by Glitterhouse and Grown Up Wrong, or AuGoGo in
Australia.
NFH: It seems
Denver hasn't had much of a reputation for rock and roll bands, at least in the
underground sense...
James: No, not
at all. It was pretty cool about ten years ago when there were more clubs and that
kind of thing was going on, but I was too young to go to most of the clubs anyway,
so...
NFH: What kind
of places are there to play?
James: There's
a lot of top 40 stuff, a lot of that kind of thing. There's a place called the Casino
Cabaret, which is an old place that people like James Brown and even like Ella
Fitzgerald used to sing there. There's a couple other clubs around that will carry
underground bands, otherwise it's a lot of big halls. There's a couple big outdoor
places, a couple stadiums.
NFH: Is it
hard getting regular gigs there?
James: No, we
play, and there are a handful of local bands...there aren't as many as there were,
say, even like a few years ago. There are gigs that go on, but it's real
frustrating because there's not a big audience and there aren't a whole lot of
places to play. The age limit's 21, so underage kids can hardly ever come to the
shows...it's really hard to have underage shows. There's a whole lot of apathy from
most people...especially the club owners and promoters. Everybody wants to do the
really big shows and get the really big acts in. We've opened up for a couple of
big acts that have come through...we were even supposed to open for Blue Oyster
Cult once. We opened up for the Plasmatics and got 150 bucks, and then we got in a
beef with the promoter over some stupid thing, and so he hasn't let us do any of
his shows, and he's like the big promoter.
NFH: So how
did you get this European connection going? It seems like you have more popularity
overseas than here in the US.
James: Well, a
guy from Broken Jug, Jimmy, who was on Glitterhouse (they recently broke up), was
over here and he got in touch with us and he said to get in touch with Reinhart,
who runs Glitterhouse, 'cos he wanted to put our album out. That's basically all
that happened; we just called him up and he said, "Yeah". Then pretty
much right after we started he was talking about us coming over to Germany, and we
talked about that for a year and a half, so we finally went over there and we just
got back about a month ago. That was great.
NFH: Did you
have good crowds?
James: Yeah,
it was really cool, because we didn't really have any bad shows as far as audiences
go. They were generally very receptive and large...we played a couple of 400 plus
shows. It was just a whole lot of fun.
NFH: Did you
headline the whole time?
James: We
traded off and on with Loveslug, who we were touring with. They're from Amsterdam, and
they're on Glitterhouse. So it was a Glitterhouse thing. Next time we go over we're
going to just do it ourselves. There are a lot of American bands over
there...Miracle Workers, and Blind Idiot God, and a lot of other bands that are on
our level were over there. And I guess if you play by yourself you can make more
money. But we did all right, because we each got 500 bucks at the end of the tour after
having everything paid for and sleeping in hotels and getting fed and all that. So
you can't beat it.
NFH: There are
so many bands that started 4 or 5 years ago when nobody was listening to this
Detroit sound, and it's all come to a peak now...what made you guys decide to go
for the sound that you've got...what's your concept of what a band ought to sound
like?
James: Well, a
band ought to sound like how they do it. We just play and that's what comes out.
We're all pretty much different as far as musicians go...well, not radically
different, because obviously we have a main groove that we all seem to find when we
play, but we just do it and that's what happens. We never thought about Iggy and
the Stooges or MC5 or anything else that we get compared to, like Husker Du and the
Who...we've had some really wild references. We didn't really think of that or try
to get that kind of sound...it's just what happened.
NFH: I guess
the Who comparison has gotta be because of the drummer.
James: Yeah,
that has a lot to do with it. He's a wild drummer...he's really funny to watch.
NFH: Clear
Black Paper has some amazing drumming on it.
James: Well I
think this album that's just coming out is definitely our best, and I think it
sounds a lot more true to how we really sound than the last two. I mean, I though Clear
Black Paper was a lot better than Punch And Judy, and I think this one
is a lot better than both of them. Punch And Judy was done on 8 tracks in a studio
that was in this warehouse, and we had really wild amp arrangements.
NFH: Was it
pretty much live?
James: Yeah,
but Clear Black Paper was more live. And Roadmouth is more live than
that even. But that's what we are, we're a live band. Playing shows is what it's
all about. It was a lot of fun being in Europe, and being able to play every night
and have things going fairly well.
NFH: Are you
going to be touring in the US at all?
James: Yeah, I
think we're coming out to the west coast in the first week of August; I'm not sure
exactly where...I know we're playing in California and all that, but we might go
through the southwest and then go up to Seattle and come back, and do that in like
a week or ten days. And then we're going to the east coast and the south and the
midwest, I'm not sure in which order, in September for four to six weeks. We might
be touring with Mudhoney. We played with them one show in Germany...that was a
lot of fun.
NFH: How did
you guys get connected with Sub Pop?
James: Just
like with Glitterhouse; they called. They called our drummer, so he and I talked to
them for a while, and we did it. And then we went up there for the first time last
July. Went up there again in November and got all our equipment stolen. Came back,
got more equipment, and went up there at the end of February and recorded for about
a week. It was a real short recording session. So that was all done at the
beginning of March and just came out last week.
NFH: It must
be pretty tough waiting for all that time for the record to come out...
James: Yeah,
it is. It's just the way Sub Pop does things...they're just slow. They're good guys
and they have good ideas, and they're a good label, and I think they have a lot of
good things in store for them because everybody's talking about them and they're
putting out a lot of good stuff, but their business practices aren't exactly up to
par.
NFH: They're
probably doing too many things at once.
James: Yeah, I
think that's part of it. But I think if you knew these guys too, you'd take one
look at them and go, "yeah, I understand". But they're all right...they
do what they do. I just wish they'd do it a little faster sometimes.
NFH: So where
else have you played in the US?
James: We went
on a tour for three weeks in 86; went to the midwest as far east as Detroit and as
far south as Nashville, and we played Minneapolis and a few other places. And then
we went to Texas a couple times; to Austin once for a music festival. Like I said,
we've been to Seattle three times, and LA and San Francisco twice. We did it last
summer and then after we recorded the album. And then last summer we also went to
the east coast after we went to the west coast, went there for four or five weeks.
NFH: It seems
like Denver is a tough place to be based, with all the travel you need to do for
shows.
James: Yeah,
but at the same time, having grown up here and having to do that it's not so bad
anymore. And we're fairly equal distances from most places, like the west coast and
the mid west.
NFH: Do you
ever think about moving to LA or the east coast?
James: We were
thinking about moving; we'd all kind of like to move to Seattle, although the rain
might drive me crazy after a while. But I really don't think we are going to move,
as much as we all want to and talk about it because it would take so long to do and
cost a lot of money and be a big hassle, so we'll probably just end up staying
here. As long as we can tour all the time we really don't care. 'Cos Colorado is
really not a bad place to live if you don't want to do anything. It's really not
that bad, but we're going to have to tour a lot anyway, so I think that really does
help the band a whole lot.
NFH: So once
the record comes out you plan to pick things up quite a bit and do a lot more
touring?
James: Yeah,
well hopefully it will do pretty well, because we got really good chartings in
Rockpool and CMJ, and we got good writeups, and it did fairly well for at least a
month or so. I think Sub Pop has sold maybe between 5000 and 7500, and the same for
Glitterhouse...maybe a little more for Glitterhouse. It seems to have done a lot
better over there. And we've already got 4000 orders for Roadmouth .
NFH: Why do
you think this kind of music does so much better outside the US?
James: I
really don't know what it is. I know that definitely that situation exists because
we had so much better a tour in Europe then we've had in the states for consistency
of crowds and getting paid and all that.
NFH: Do you
have any long range plans?
James: No.
We've all committed ourselves to doing it. We always say we want to make enough
money so we don't have to work, which is basically true, I think. We're all just
sick of working, and we want to be able to play music. And with all these lame
bands around that make millions of dollars, I don't think that's such a big thing
to ask. So we'll just keep doing it. We're all good friends, and so far it's been a
lot of fun. We've had a lot of bad shit happen to us too, and it's kind of like if
we quit now all that shit wouldn't have been worth it. Like getting all our stuff
stolen in Seattle, and having the van break down several times when we used our
singer's van...he had a Volkswagen Vanagon. We blew a clutch out in San Francisco
and blew out the U joints in New York and ended up paying like $2000 for
everything, and then getting our practice space broken into. Right before I joined the
band they got everything burned in the practice space they were in...it caught on
fire.
NFH: Just as a
final stereotypical question, where'd the name come from?
James: We got
a case of beer and sat down and said "All right, what are we gonna call
ourselves", and everybody just started spitting words out, and nobody's
exactly sure who said "The Fluid", but that's what came out. We like it because
we wanted something that didn't mean anything. We didn't want to have some real
stupid name or try and sound too serious, so we just said "The Fluid, sure.
What does that mean? Nothing." It's not a stereotypical kind of name.
