Scatterbrain

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Scatterbrain
General information
origin Long Island , New York , United States
Genre (s) Crossover , funk metal , fun metal , hardcore punk
founding 1989, 2007
resolution 1994 or later, 2007
Current occupation
Guy Brogna
Mike Boyko
Paul Nieder
Tommy Christ
former members
Electric guitar
 Glen Cummings

Scatterbrain (English for "Maria") was an American crossover band from Long Island , New York , which emerged from the band Ludichrist in 1989 , broke up around 1994 and was revived in 2007 for a few appearances.

history

The core of the band Ludichrist, consisting of the two guitarists Paul Nieder and Glen Cummings as well as the singer Tommy Franco, who had taken on the name Tommy Christ, made the decision at the end of November 1988, in view of the stylistically limited possibilities and the resulting boredom, not simply a musical one To make change, but to start a new band right away. The decision should have been preceded by classified ads that were placed independently of one another and to which they answered each other. With the addition of Lower's old musician colleague Guy Brogna - they had studied classical music together for three years - on bass and drummer Mike Boyko, like everyone else from New York City , the line-up was established in early 1989.

In March 1990 Relativity Records / In-Effect Records released the debut album Here Comes Trouble . The main producer was Paul Nieder himself. It also features backing vocals by John Connelly ( Nuclear Assault ). The record sleeve was designed by Robert Williams, known for his Appetite-for-Destruction cover ( Guns n 'Roses ). In Germany , the album was only released by CBS in November 1990 , until then it was only available as an import. At this point it had already reached number 138 on the Billboard charts in the United States . This was followed by appearances in the USA, France (a festival), Belgium and the Netherlands, as well as a tour of Australia that included 25 appearances. The single Don't Call Me Dude released there steadily worked its way up the charts to number 14 and received a gold award . The video clip for this song was also played on Headbangers Ball on MTV . Over 150,000 units of the album were sold in the home country and 200,000 units worldwide.

Unhappy with the New York indie label and its major distribution , the band switched to Elektra / Warner Music , who had already shown interest in the first album. The LP title Scamboogery (English for "loading") was already planned when one happened to hear a radio interview with boxing legend Joe Frazier in which he used the same word. They called him and asked if he would like to sing the title. It was put into practice in June 1991. He was not completely bleak, because at the beginning of the 1979s he had already tried his hand at disco . Another song, Tastes Just Like Chicken , which exaggerates the interchangeability of products, especially the monotonous radio program, should be called The Choice of the Pepsi Generation or Dark Side of the Pepsi Generation . The product designation would have had a million-action results in the record company which is why a renaming of the song called for.

From November 1991 to March 1992 Scatterbrain headlined the US . Without taking a break, they then continued touring in Europe , where you could occasionally join the Ramones or Red Hot Chili Peppers tour. Meanwhile, the movie comedy Encino Man started in the USA and ran under the title Steinzeit Junior in Germany . The band can be heard on the soundtrack with the song Mama Said Knock You Out . Back in the States, the total tour duration was reduced to just under a year. Eight months of intensive songwriting followed . In the meantime, a lot had happened at Elektra in terms of personnel, which meant that none of the Scatterbrain supporters at the time worked there and the new managers rejected all songs. The reaction of the snubbed band was the immediate termination of the short major label experiment. This step led to tension within the band and ultimately to the exit of guitarist Cummings, who wanted to distract himself from the trouble in Nashville and stayed there.

As a quartet they found a new label in Pavement Music . Due to a motorcycle accident in Nieder, who had to wear a cast for two months as a result, only a few songs were completed. The mini-album Mundus Intellectualis , intended as a re-entry, was to be followed by a full-length album in early 1995. Since it did not materialize, it became the swan song of a promising project that had started with press homage.

Nieder saw Ludichrist as a learning phase, in which one familiarized oneself with everyday life as a musician (before becoming fully profitable, however, he also had day jobs to survive) and the customs of the music business. But even with Scatterbrain, he experienced unsightly facets of the job that prevented him from continuing for more than a decade. It wasn't until 2007 that the band got together again and played concerts in New York; on February 23rd a concert with No Redeeming Social Value , Subzero and Norman Bates and the Showerheads at BB King and on April 28th at The Chance.

style

Scatterbrain has created its own unmistakable type of sound by expanding the crossover practice common at the time of combining two previously independent styles. Elements from heavy metal, thrash metal, funk, punk and classic were mixed into a "homogeneous brew". In addition, the text was almost always verbose and satirical . Here Comes Trouble includes, for example, the cheech -and-chong piece Erache My Eye, which targets the musical circus . Another is about a notoriously unlucky person ( Here Comes Trouble ), another about a second head that has grown overnight ( I'm With Stupid ). The single Don't Call Me Dude is about the relapse reaction of an allergic to the call "Dude" and the blackest humor is offered by Drunken Milkman , which tells of a drunken milkman on a fatal journey. A humorous or critically biting text was also only common in the heavy scene in individual cases, Scatterbrain elevated this means of expression to a principle, created "sophisticated, varied music with cabaret- ready interludes" and thus earned the title "damn original". Paul Nieder explained it unconventionally: “If you listen to this music that accompanies these [Bugs Bunny] cartoons, it always corresponds to the mood of the plot of the film. Very light-footed and easy. You can regard our music as similar in terms of its intention: We want to let off steam, have fun and make music that is funny and easy-going. ”His colleague Tommy Christ avoided the difficult description:“ I can't classify our style and I'm also proud thereon".

In detail, music journalists commented as follows:

According to Matthias Mader in his book New York City Hardcore Volume 2 The Sound of the Big Apple , the band on Here Comes Trouble played a mixture of metal , hardcore punk and funk . The album also contained an instrumental version of the Piano Sonata No. 3 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , which, according to Mader, was also praised by Joe Satriani . There are a large number of "humorous riff quotes from LED ZEPPELIN , METALLICA , AEROSMITH and VAN HALEN " on the album . Mader drew sonic comparisons to Lights… Camera… Revolution! by Suicidal Tendencies and The Best of Times by Murphy's Law . According to Mader, Andre Campbell compared the band to groups like Faith No More , 24-7 Spyz and Red Hot Chili Peppers in a review of the album , although the band played good hardcore punk without copying these bands.

According to Steve Huey from Allmusic , Scatterbrain was even more varied than Ludichrist and showed not only metal, but also rap , funk and classical influences.

Martin Popoff wrote in his book The Collector's Guide of Heavy Metal Volume 3: The Nineties that the band on Here Comes the Trouble is hardly funny and described the music as " parody - rock " and ordered the music to funk metal to. Also Scamboogery he did not find funny. so the band is just a loud version of Weird Al Yankovic . Christ's raps are useless and the sequence of riffs illogical.

According to Martin Groß from Metal Hammer , the band would benefit from the fact that bassist Brogna and guitarist Nieder had graduated from the music college , as it enabled them to confidently implement ideas. Groß described the band's music as "Hardcore dominated by melodies, interspersed with lush funk and shallow rap elements, with the songs taking center stage without any gimmicky". Andrea Nieradzik from Metal Hammer found it difficult to assign Here Comes Trouble to a genre and drew comparisons to Faith No More and Primus . The texts are very humorous. According to Martin Groß from Metal Hammer, the band continue their style on Scamboogery and rely on a crossover of different music styles paired with humorous lyrics. Large comparisons were made to the works of White Trash and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. According to Markus Kavka from Metal Hammer , the band on Mundus Intellectualis has lost some of its appeal, even if all previous elements are still present.

Markus Müller identified “subtle irony” in Rock Hard at Mundus Intellectualis and recognized that the lyrics were designed to “make people laugh and think at the same time”.

The humor also went down with Carsten Mohn ( core ), who gave Scatterbrain an "extra bonus" for it.

The MusikWoche was limited to the musical classification, which was a “mixture of hardcore, metal and funk”, but was “no longer the freshest”.

Discography

  • 1990: Live from the Basement ZRock Broadcast (live album, self-published)
  • 1990: Don't Call Me Dude (single, Virgin Records )
  • 1990: Mozart Sonata # 3 (EP, In-Effect Records )
  • 1990: Here Comes Trouble (Album, In-Effect Records / Relativity Records )
  • 1991: Big Fun (single, Elektra Records )
  • 1991: Fine Line (single, Elektra Records)
  • 1991: Scamboogery (album, Elektra Records)
  • 1992: Return of the Dudes Tour (EP, Virgin Records)
  • 1994: Beer Muscles (single, Pavement Music )
  • 1994: Mundus Intellectualis (mini-album, 1994, Pavement Music)

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f Jürgen Tschamler: Scatterbrain . Here comes trouble. In: Break Out . March 1991, p. 12 f .
  2. ↑ a b c d e f Martin Groß: Call 'Em Dudes! Scatterbrain. In: Metal Hammer . March 1991, p. 46 .
  3. ↑ a b c d e f g h i Martin Groß: Scatterbrain . Gray cells, perfectly blown up. In: Metal Hammer . February 1992, p. 132 .
  4. ↑ a b Bio. Myspace , archived from the original on April 24, 2012 ; Retrieved January 19, 2014 .
  5. ↑ SCATTERBRAIN. Biography. (No longer available online.) Rockdetector.com, archived from the original on February 2, 2014 ; Retrieved January 20, 2014 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.rockdetector.com
  6. ↑ Scatterbrain. CHARTY HISTORY. billboard.com, accessed January 20, 2014 .
  7. ↑ SCATTERBRAIN - DON'T CALL ME DUDE (SONG). australian-charts.com, accessed January 20, 2014 .
  8. ↑ a b c Götz Kühnemund: More Trouble! Scatterbrain. In: Rock Hard . No. 57 , January 1992, p. 36 .
  9. ↑ Scatterbrain. northforksound.blogspot.de, accessed on February 1, 2014 .
  10. ↑ a b Ute Linhart: Scatterbrain . I wish I was a chicken ... In: Heavy, or what !? No. 3 /1992 (July / August / September), 1992, S. 22 .
  11. ↑ Various - Encino Man (Music From The Original Motion Picture Soundtrack). Discogs , accessed January 20, 2014 .
  12. ↑ a b c d Markus Müller: Beer muscles . Scatterbrain. In: Rock Hard . No. 91 , December 1994, p. 110 .
  13. ^ Scatterbrain (3) - Mundus Intellectualis. Discogs, accessed January 20, 2014 .
  14. ^ A b Matthias Mader: New York Hardcore Volume 2. The Sound of the Big Apple . IP Verlag Jeske / Mader GbR, Berlin 2011, ISBN 978-3-931624-60-6 , p. 257 f .
  15. ↑ a b c Chris Glaub: Scatterbrain . Here comes trouble. In: Break Out . February 1991, p. 30 .
  16. ↑ Steve Huey: Scatterbrain. Allmusic , accessed January 20, 2013 .
  17. ↑ Martin Popoff : The Collector's Guide of Heavy Metal Volume 3: The Nineties . Collectors Guide Ltd, Burlington, Ontario, Canada 2007, ISBN 978-1-894959-62-9 , pp. 385 .
  18. ↑ Andrea Nieradzik: Scatterbrain . Here comes trouble. In: Metal Hammer . February 1991, p. 52 .
  19. ↑ Martin Groß: Scatterbrain . Scamboogery. In: Metal Hammer . December 1991, p. 63 .
  20. ^ Markus Kavka : Scatterbrain . Mundus Intellectualis. In: Metal Hammer . October 1994, p. 55 .
  21. ↑ Carsten Mohn: Scatterbrain . Mundus Intellectualis. In: core no. 1 , January 1991, pp. 32 .
  22. ↑ Scatterbrain . Mundus Intellectualis. In: MusikWoche . No. 39/1994 , September 26, 1994, pp. 15 .