The Story of Giant Jerk
Dayton, Ohio is not only the birthplace of the Wright Brothers and the industrial smokestack, but the birthplace of one the world’s most under appreciated and most secretly influential improvisational folk-core bands, Giant Jerk.
Seems it all happened back in the early 90s with the chance meeting of two idiot savant types, Jan Rigket and Thaddeus Floodgate . As Floodgate tells it, he met Rigket while working in the Audio-Visual dept. of the Dayton-Montgomery County Public Library . In between mind numbing tasks such as alphabetizing the Classical Music CDs by country of origin and sticking returned video tapes in a rewinding machine, Floodgate would often sneak off to the Children’s section in search of lyrical ideas for his secret passion: writing impassioned country music tunes about the Armenian genocide. Meanwhile, Rigket was working as the guy who cleaned all the fingerprints off the gerbil and hamster cages. It was here that the soon to be historic and prolific friendship found common ground in mutual admiration of all things Betsy Byars and Roald Dahl . After Floodgate had turned Rigket onto the work of Patricia Polacco and Rigket alerted Floodgate to the artistic merits among the writings and illustrations of Robert McCloskey , it was clear that this friendship was going places.
Before long, Floodgate and Rigket were getting together for tea and late night discussions of all things Quincy , (as in) "Dammit Quincy, the DA will never go for a conviction on such flimsy evidence!" And it was during these conversations that Floodgate noticed a certain lilt to Rigket’s speech and appreciated the savant’s ability to speak at great length about everything and nothing all at the same time. Busting out a ukulele he had pulled from a trashcan earlier that day, Floodgate suggested Rigket improvise lyrics over his quasi-musical stylings. It was with this bold move that the first Giant Jerk song "She should have used birth control" was born and a legacy spawned.Drunk with the possibilities of their new found ability and their unfathomable love for each other (and whiskey), the boys set about designating themselves the least dangerous band in the Dayton area, vowing to use their powers only for good and only occassionally for evil. Despite their absolute lack of talent or star quality, the boys began to acquire a small yet devoted fan base. There was actually some demand for public performance of some of their more listener friendly songs . Soon the boys were paying the sound guy at the local musicians’ co-op to let them play in front of their friends and a few drunken stragglers. It was in this live format that it became clear to Floodgate and Rigket that in order to achieve the true sound of the jerk, they needed to expand the line up. They found exactly what they were looking for in the power trio of Shirc Real , Jaime Legato and Stue Trory , fellow Ohioans who once comprised the formidable supergroup, Blee Mind Thrice . Blee’s amelodic symphonies and disdain for lyrical content were a perfect fit for the fellas. Once Jerk and Blee joined forces, they became a piece of work with a sound that was truly something.
With the lineup complete, the band began years of intensive writing, recording, sleeping off hangovers, touring and Columbo watching, creating what has come to be known in small circles of bottom-feeding, uninformed music listeners as the most/least impressive and ever growing catalog of completely unlistenable crap. ENJOY.