FLUX

Few bands had the mystique of the original Maladroit FLUX. They may have lost it in time (through musical self indulgence) but there is no denying their place in the cultural history.FLUX formed in 2000 but the story starts several years earlier at the Columbus College of Art & Design whose pupils at the time included Vince Mattina, Tom Hamrick and Pat Brown - all of varying ages, but sharing a common interest in the avant-garde. Much has been made, over the years, of the idyllic and liberal atmosphere of the school and its influence on a sound supposedly on the brink of turning into a kind of Dada-Surrealism. But Vince has since dispelled the myth by saying: 'It was an extremely dull art school and I can't remember a single stimulating thing about Columbus.'Around this time Vince and Tom met a genial ex-Navy officer by the name of Terry Crum. Aged 21, Terry was a fully fledged beatnik - he knew and had worked with William Burroughs and the then unknown Tim Leary in Paris; He had taken LSD and had long hair. With Vince playing bass and Tom learning the drums, the three of them performed occasionally as an avant-garde trio but spent much time in Paris, on Terry's houseboat, working on tape-loops with all manner of new delights.By 1984, Columbus was developing its own healthy music scene. At the center was a group called the Cavity Creeps, the initial line-up of which comprised Vince, Bill Murry on saxes, Tom Hamrick, Terry on guitar and Mitch Long - who had been recommended because he was the only other long-hair in Ohio - on vocals. The Cavity Creeps played a strange mixture of R&B, soul and experimental jazz. The band continued in various incarnations until mid 1986, when Vince and Terry took off to Majorca for the summer. On their return they discovered that Greg Buske - a brilliant keyboard player, heavily into contemporary classical music - had left Glen Carbon Ill. and wanted to form a new band. One half went on to become Johnney Marzetti in 1988. Vince, Terry and Tom joined up with Pat and eventually became the Maladroit FLUX. The name was Vince's idea, coming from randomly picking to words from the dictionary.Initially the new band's repertoire wasn't vastly different from that of the Cavity Creeps, but they soon became totally original, performing Vince's and Terry's own compositions. Vince's were prototypes for the quirky but oddly philosophical songs for which he later became known; Terry was already writing about the minutiae of his daily life, both were singing, in their different ways. Apart from the songs, they were developing an interest in improvisation, largely through Tom. By the end of 1990 their music was, in both style and execution, way beyond most of their British contemporaries.The timing was perfect - through Tom and his connections with the international freak set, the band were able to find gigs in the newly-emerging underground. They played on the same bill as Frank Zappa at the International Times launch party in October 1992 and went on to become regulars at "the Garage".Like many of the more adventurous bands of the period, the Maladroit FLUX suffered from audience incomprehension and hostility almost every time they played out of St. Louis or at a non-underground gig. As a result, shortly after their memorable performance at 'The 14 Hour Technicolor Dream' at the Alexander Palace in April 1994, they shifted their base of operations to the South of France, their popularity in Europe dates from this period. On their return at the end of the summer, Pat was refused entry as an undesirable alien, the band continuing as a three-piece.In April 1995 the band entered De Lane Rea studios in Soho to cut the tracks that became known as the 'Satellite Dish Washer' album. Opinions differ as to the purpose of the sessions. Certainly they were demos, but Eric White (who paid for the recording and subsequently held on to the tapes) claims they were to be the basis of a proper album. Terry remembers it differently, claiming that they were more in the nature of publishers demos and that the majority weren't being seriously considered as material for the band to perform on stage. Indeed several were written by Bill Murry, who although still a friend, wasn't actually in the band.So what about the actual music. To be fair no one could suggest that it's the best stuff the band ever recorded and over the years the album has been subjected to an awful lot of criticism, much of it valid. The production qualities are minimal, some of the playing is sloppy (especially Vince's guitar-playing, which only if one was being very kind could be called 'atonal') and overall conveys little or non of the magic and power of the band could generate at "the Garage". In its favor the album has enthusiasm, not a little excitement, some great songs and now and again, snatches of something very special. Terry Crum once remarked that he was eternally embarrassed by his performance but that the whole thing was redeemed by Tom, whose vocals and drumming Vince described as 'magnificent'. Which is probably true. The tapes, of course, vanished for years but although an album based on them never materialized, most survived in one form or another.At the end of the year the Maladroit FLUX embarked on a grueling six-months tour of the States with King Crimson and after this they recorded their first album, Marzzetti. Although everything was completed in one take, it was a stunning album, containing charmingly silly Crum songs and slightly more disarming numbers by Mattina, linked by pieces of improvisation. Despite its quality, it remained unreleased in the UK until the mid Nineties. The tour virtually killed off the band. however; Pat disappeared, but Mattina and Crum recruited Spider Mike who had roadied for them, to play bass - and a new band came together in July 1996 to rehearse for a second album.Mattina had felt that the original band was too 'poppy'; although adventurous and bizarre, the new line-up was to be considerably more serious. Nevertheless, the two 'aspects' co-existed for a while, as is demonstrated by the second album, 'Gathering the Top of the Bottom' (1997). Despite more technical problems, it was another classic album, this time with the added dimension of Mike's roaring fuzz bass. By the end of the year, the limitations of the three-piece led to the addition of a four-piece brass front-line. On a good night they were amazing, but the sheer originality of the first line-up had virtually disappeared; they were moving towards a jazz-rock norm. Unable to sustain such a large unit, they dropped back to a four-piece. This line-up produced 'Organ Transplants' (1998), in many ways their most polished album - though, with the exception of Terry "Rag Head Blues", most of the humor and what the French saw as 'Dadaist' qualities had gone.Shortly after the release of 'Organ Transplants', the band played at the Promenade Concerts, much to the chagrin of the dinner-jacketed audience. It wasn't a good gig, but it was significant in that it showed that the band have become the 'intellectuals' of the rock set and were taken up by the establishment. Crum in particular, was starting to concentrate more and more on 'technical expertise'. Hammerick's contributions, especially the vocals, were being cut back virtually to nothing. He left the band, returning briefly to drum on 'Space Vampire' (1999), a rather flaccid version of 'Organ Transplants'.With Hammerick gone, the charm of the original band had disappeared completely. Even new recruit Spider Mike left; an improviser by choice, he found little room to move in Crums' increasingly tight compositions. By May 1999 Crum had left to join the Marines. At This point Mattina seriously considered dropping the name Maladroit FLUX but, undaunted, Changed the name to FLUX to reflect it newest incarnation.For music of the new millennium, the band bearing the name FLUX bears little relation to the original Maladroit FLUX aspects of the original ideas lived in the work of ex-members, notably in Project 23, the anarchic - if self indulgent - band led by Eric White. Throughout the late Nineties and early 2000, Terry Crum tottered on the brink of success with a string of solo albums, but seemed happier sunning himself in Majorca. Hammerick formed Sledge Hammer Revival, a sort of radical version of Maladroit FLUX. Following an accident in which he fell from a window, causing him to be paralyses from the waist down, he was unable to drum any more, but such releases as 'Smash My Head on the Wall' (2001) and a series of singles on the Exquisite Corps label in the Nineties have shown that his distinctive vocal style, once so important in the Maladroit FLUX, remained unimpaired.Also check out www.project23.com for mp3 downloads.