Classic old-school post-punk/goth in the Siouxsie vein, New York City's Scarecrow highlighted Beth Balousek's icy, menacing female vocals, wed to tribal drums and spiky, swirling guitar and bass interludes.
Forming at the end of 1983, the quartet known as Scarecrow could legitimately claim to be New York City's very first gothic band, just ahead of Of a Mesh , and they were a huge influence on later local bands in the same style such as The Naked and the Dead and The Ochrana .
A stellar three-song demo appeared early in 1984, led by macabre maternal waltz "Mother's Crawling" and its ornate bassline. "Blood in My Dreams" found the band in a haunting dialogue with the deam state, laden with sonic shadows, while on "Concrete Is My Pillow," a creeping catacomb guitar riff led our heroine Balousek in search of her "fleshless lover."
After several exceptional CBGB gigs in early '84, followed by a notorious writeup in the fanzine Ephemeral Youth, Scarecrow split up.
Additional live Scarecrow material can be downloaded from their SoundClick page.
Guitarist Joe Truck (switching to vocals) and bassist Cushen (prior to Scarecrow, both had played together in 1983 projects Tea for None and Twelfthnight ) formed the swampabilly splendor of
Chop Shop , who existed from late 1984 through late 1985, and the pair also produced the 1985 recordings of The Naked and the Dead.
In 1986, Joe Truck briefly played drums in Burning Rome
before forming the Misfits-inspired Brain Eaters
, who released 1986 EP Crimson Nights (Brainiac Records) and placed "Ballad of Arcane" on the 1987 Sorority Sampler compilation album. They later morphed into glamsters Rocket Angel .
Truck (on bass and vocals) reunited with two fellow Chop Shop alumni in 1993-94 as a trio called Hellvis , releasing a 7-inch EP The Frog (1993, Fat Bastard Records), produced by Wharton Tiers. The band recorded a full-length album in 1994 with Tiers that remains unissued, though several songs from it can be heard on their MySpace page.
In 1995, Truck (who had by then achieved his greatest notoriety as a tattoo artist; he currently inks at All Souls Tattoo in San Pedro, CA) formed trash-rockers Snake Charmers , whose discography included 7-inches "The Gorgon" (1996, Shrunken Head) and "Nuthin for You" (1999, Shrunken Head), and full-length discs Rock N Roll Deathwish (1999, Sonic Tone) and Drop Dead Blues (2000, 20 Stone Blatt Records).
In 2007, Truck returned to rocking with a vengeance as bassist for the newly formed trash-glam-metallists Confederacy of Horsepower , whose Vagabond Cabaret debut album was released in 2008.
Bassist Andrew Cushen, who had previously played drums in underrated post-punk outfit Redex (1981-82), fell under the spell of Delta blues, and went on to play bass, electric guitar, slide guitar, and lap steel in a plethora of New York blues-punk bands such as Hi-Sheriffs of Blue, Love in Vein, Workdogs (he appears on 1988's Roberta), and Hellhounds, before careers in videogaming and computer programming.
Scarecrow drummer Ron Gonzalez later joined the legendary NYC noise-rock outfit Swans ; his drumming can be heard on their classic 1986 Jem/PVC albums Greed and Holy Money, as well as the double-live Public Castration Is a Good Idea. He allegedly later played in a project called Spades with fellow Swans alumni Roli Mosimann and Norman Greenberg.
Frontwoman Beth Frye nee Balousek resurfaced in 2002 to inform Scarecrow fans that she was alive and well in upstate New York, busy raising two children and writing.
GIGOGRAPHY
01-09-1984 - CBGB, New York, NY
02-01-1984 - CBGB, New York, NY
03-07-1984 - CBGB, New York, NY
04-12-1984 - CBGB, New York, NY
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