some more on the legend that is...

Fat & Fucked-Up

  Halloween, 1990

was among the many memorable F&F'dUp events. Performed in Santa Barbara at the prestigious Center Stage Theater, a large and attentive audience was thrilled by the "...Los Angeles chamber rogues." Here's a portion of the review that was published in the local press:
 

• "...they sauntered on to the set of the play 'Vacuum' and immediately began using and abusing the shabby domestic scene-- wandering about, Looking in the refrigerator, slouching in the couch , engaging in telephone gibberish or having vacuum cleaner wars during a mock-serious cello/horn duet.
• Repeatedly they poked fun at their own musical instincts. These are not just dadaist clowns with no respect for what is true and "straight" in chamber music or any other indefinable idiom. As volatile and off-the-wall as Fat and Fucked Up is, the group exercises better music through interactive chemistry. Operating without the safety net of written material, they have a strong sense of improvisatory dialogue, and the group's odd instrumental grouping allows for nice textural balance.
• 'Illegitimate' instrumental techniques are part of the group's signature. Any form of sound production is valid and desirable including banging on instrument cases, bow-bouncing, or playing only the mouthpiece. It's all fair game."
•  
• -Josef Woodard, The Independent (Santa Barbara), November 8, 1990
• 
• Jon Huck, Bill Roper, Michael Intriere, Josie Roth

• Kraig Grady
  Kira Vollman
  Michael Intriere

Shown above in the production of "Blessed are All the Little Fishes" featuring JOHN FLECK, performed at Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (LACE) February 24-26 & March 3-5, 1989. This production, by the way, gained Mr. Fleck notoriety as one of those "naughty" performance artists who would later be blacklisted by Sen. Jesse Helms committee to censor the N.E.A.'s choices in funding artists and institutions. That discussions continues, today.

But back to FAT & FUCKED-UP...
This was an experience that opened for many an alternative/undergound venue over a 10 year period... an ensemble conceived in a haunting tradition of purely abstract sound which defied every convention of what a "band" was expected to be. They never "rocked" an audience. Instead, they cast a spell that would stop even the most angry punksters and catapult an audience into a new reverence for the subtlety and power of sound without a hook or a message or an amplified bass guitar.

The members consisted of:

with Kraig Grady , Josie Roth, Monica Townsend, Michael Intriere and Jon Huck.

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