Pretentious
art fag band formed at a former Pillowtex pillow factory in downtown
Atlanta from 1981 until 1986. Stephen Eighmey (aka Steve Beach, Miami Beach) and David Dean collaborated on multi-layered, four-track recordings of improvised music (listen, download, enjoy) and performed for art parties and events at Pillowtex, their home, in the early
eighties occasionally from behind closed doors or wearing white to blend
with screen projections handled by upstairs neighbor and friend Phil
Elie, current local arts and entertainment impresario Dennis Coburn, and/or local underground cultural icon Tom Zarilli.
Pillowtexans gained
some notoriety with the noise/improv circles of the time and hosted three
Destroy All Music Festivals at Pillowtex featuring artists like Limbo District, Fab Area, The Now Explosion, Eastern Stars, Opal Fox Quartet, Etron Fou Le LouBlan(fr), Eugene Chadbourne (featuring his electric
rake), Voice Crack(swiss) Chris Cochran, J
Pippen Barnett, and Fred Frith.
Contacted in 1986 after a particularly pretentious show at Nexus, Dean and Beach
were cajoled by Brian Lilje to add himself and David Watkins (aka ZOD) on bass
and drums, respectively. "The Pillowtexans" became a "rock" band
that also sometimes included Derek Randall Presley who replaced Zod when he bailed
to wallow in drunken disgust and Brian when Dean freaked out and kicked him out
of the band for bonking him in the head with an inflatable shamu at the 40 Watt
club. Presley contributed material that was the only music that sounded the least
bit Texan...
This impossibly self indulgent and often silly band was repeatedly featured on
Live at WREK, on WRFG and opened for bands such as Fetchin Bones, Pylon, Snakefinger,
and The Swans. In 1989 they began recording their only CD release,"Displacement";
the effort killed this band, best known in some circles for their whiney stage
fights which were usually about Beach not wanting to bother to play, Brian not
wanting to improvise or Dean not remembering his part.
