From left to right: Tyler Phelps, Lee Foust, Robert English, Jim Mericle

Play Tunes As You Read

A Nominal History
being a timeline and discertation on the viscisitudes of being in a band during the early 1980s

by Robert English

© 2004 - 2008 by Robert English, obtain permission before using elsewhere.

 
1980
Rob is busy recording his own songs in a home-built studio, using two cassette decks and massive overdubbing. He is in and out of bands during this time, and also works as a roadie and sound-mixer-guy for a local band called "Heroes" (the nucleus of which, Tim Hall and Paul Cancilla, would later become "Cry Wolf" and hit it big in Japan during the late 80s).

During the summer, Dan Pearson (later of the band "American Music Club" with Mark Eitzel) calls Robert to form a punk band called "The Snobs". The stated intent is to play three gigs and then vanish into obscurity. Robert phones Lee to see if he's available to play drums - he is. A different fourth member is recruited for each gig - we didn't plan it that way, it's just the way it turned out.

"The Snobs" play three gigs - one a house party, second a birthday party for a girl in Concord (with 10 other local punk/new-wave bands in the area, "Peter Accident and the Duck Revolution" being the most notorious - Peter Accident, the lead singer, had the habit of setting his hair on fire during a performance), and the third for a private party at the Police Academy in Concord. The band's version of "The Time Warp" from the "Rocky Horror Picture Show" was a favorite. Lee writes some songs for the band, which consist of lyrics and rhythm only - Robert writes some guitar riffs to complete them.

While rehearsing for the Snobs, Robert and Lee find they are both interested in similar punk/new-wave material. Lee writes some more lyrics, which Robert fills out with chords and melody. Some early tapes are recorded using the cassette-deck overdub method.

Robert first borrows a four-track reel-to-reel, then buys his own, and scrapes up enough money to start his own record company (a very hip thing to do in 1980) and release his own single: "Bulge" and "Indulgence" (mis-spelled on the label as "Indulgance") are the songs issued on the first Blunt record B-1. Dr. Demento liked the "A" side, and everyone else liked the "B" side.

Lee contacts two friends of his, Jim Mericle and Tyler Phelps, to help with the performance and writing of his lyric suite, "316". This material is written in much the same way that the earlier material is, though both Tyler and Jim add their own creative input. The flow of songs from this aggregation becomes prodigious after this, and the newly-acquired four-track machine is used heavily for the next few years.

 
1981
The new band still does not have a name. Turning to the dictionary, two words that Lee chooses at random are "Nominal" and "State". Thus, "Nominal State" is born.

We prepare a set of material and perform for the first time before an invited audience of friends at a garden party at Lee's house. His parents are mangaminous (if puzzled) hosts.

The band's first gig at the Mabuhay Gardens comes sooner than anticipated; we're called in to fill for a no-show opening band on a Friday night. We open for "Hüsker Dü" and "D.O.A.", one of the better crowds we ever played for. Their reaction to us is warm, considering they're there to hear straight-up punk (which we're not). The crowd included S.F. Mayorial candidate Jello Biafra, who was seen frisking in the mosh pit when "Hüsker Dü" started playing - he probably did not arrive early enough to hear us.

One early gig at the Berkeley Square nightclub bombs horribly. It teaches us a valuable lesson, and we improve after that.

We wind up playing about once a month at the Mabuhay, usually the low-profile early weeknight opening spot, but we're glad to be performing. No known tapes exist of these early shows, and it was just as well since that place had notoriously poor acoustics.

While writing and recording new material at the studio, two tracks stand out as being worthy of release: "Street Scene" and "Destiny". The owner of "Vinyl Fever Records" in Walnut Creek, who handled Robert's first single as well as the first album of "Negativland", enthusiastically suggests releasing these. They are mixed from the four-track demos by Dave Denny at "Isolation Studios", in Concord California, and released as Blunt B-2. A photographer friend takes some pictures of us around San Francisco, and two shots taken in the (then) new Embarcadero Center are chosen for the sleeve.

A local band that was a strong influence on our sound, "Tuxedomoon", does a new years eve show at the On Broadway - we attend the show, and afterward privately present Blaine Reininger with a copy of our single while telling him how big an influence his band's work was for us. He thanked us, probably bemused at being accosted in this friendly way.

 
1982
Lots of writing, recording, and getting one or two gigs a month. The single is being distributed through "Systematic" in Berkeley (as well as by each of us in the band) and, though it barely sells, the people who like it really like it. A quarter-page ad for the record appears in issue #50 of the "New York Rocker" and generates a few sporatic mail-order purchases. Plans are afoot to issue a follow-up single that is a better representation of the band. Robert is currently in the process of writing and recording his album, "Experiments in Relativity", which is later issued as Blunt B-3. Also, with Rob's permission, "Bulge" shows up on a compilation tape from Europe called "The Homo Sexpiens Project" (last song on the "A" side of the tape).

With the help of Jim Healey, a friend of Lee's, we plan and shoot a video for "Street Scene". Video tape equipment was very expensive at that time, so we used Super-8 film to shoot the pictures which Jim and Lee then had cut to sync with the sound - the result was transferred to one-inch videotape. The semi-finished product had lots of technical flaws in it, and only a few people ever saw it, but it had its moments. "VideoWest" which was the local television showcase featuring videos from local bands, showed no interest. "MTV" is still obscure in 1982 and we don't know about it. Later this year, Lee and Tyler sit down with a friend of Tyler's who writes an interview article about the band - it appears in the newsletter for radio station KSJO.

We concentrate on making our live shows better, at our peak rehearsing four nights a week, and we get good enough reaction that we are moved up to opening on Thursday nights at the Mabuhay. The guy who mixes the sound there becomes a fan of ours, and for kicks plays Devo's "De-evolution Anthem" over the speakers before we start our show. This becomes a regular part of our live show there. We also begin to perform at the place next door, Dirk Dirkson's "On Broadway", somewhere in this time frame. There are some live tapes of us during this period, but they are audience tapes of poor quality.

Of the bands with whom we shared the stage during this time, and there were many, there were two that stand out - they probably never issued anything more than a demo tape but they are well remembered:

• "Open Arms", later called themselves "Personnel" - the lead singer was a tall Irish guy who had an interesting stage presence, and the band behind him (guitar-bass-drums) provided good support. One number in particular, which sounded like it was called "Love's Just a Shadow", was amazing - we were in awe. We wanted to gig with them again, but the opportunity never came up. They played around the area for about a year then vanished.
• "Floating Nude" - girl singer in front of a four-piece band, most of their numbers weren't that great but one number of theirs stood out brilliantly - sounded like it was called "All For One" - it featured a cool bass part and intricate rhythm. We only performed with them once, and we never saw them on another marquis after that - they faded away like a thousand other bands.

The tracks for our next release, the "Figurehead" EP, are re-recorded specifically for the release rather than using the demo versions. The results lose a bit of immediacy but the extra polish more than makes up for it. Lee does the photography and the artwork for the sleeve, and also types up the lyric inner-sleeve which makes it into most of the record packages. Blunt B-4, "Rules Of The Game"//"Figurehead"/"Fragile", is mixed by John Rowe at "ATR Studios", in Lafayette California, and released in September. "Fragile" gets a lot of airplay at a college radio station in Ohio. An indifferent review of the record appears in the "Y" issue of "OP Magazine", while Robert's album gets a positive review in the same issue. No other reviews were known to be published.

One of our best gigs ever was during the summer in Mountain View; we open for visiting Minnesota band "The Suburbs". The gig is put together by Bob Gibson, who was then serving as music director at KFJC (a radio station at Foothill Junior College in Mountain View), and on the strength of our records we get the gig. We had a large and very supportive audience and we gave them a good show. The song cycle, "The Descent", is the second half of our set and the crowd loves it. We had recorded "The Descent", during the session for "Figurehead" earlier in the year, for potential release as Blunt B-5.

We are booked at two places in San Francisco's Tenderloin district, near the infamous intersection of Turk and Eddy streets, and neither one turns out well. The first was called the "Sound of Music", where we perform for about ten people (one of whom keeps requesting that we play a song about the Indian Nation). The evening is not complete, however, without being hassled by the police at 2 AM. Here is part of our early morning exchange with one of the Men In Blue who shall remain nameless:

COP: Where are you from?
JIM: Danville.
COP: Well why the f*** don't you stay there? And you - you got anything to say?
ROB: No.
COP: Well get your f***in' a** back in there then.

The group has a falling out during this period as to how much time to spend on rehearsing for gigs - as the audience attendence at most of our gigs has gone up, and the money increased, our usual rehearsal time of two nights a week is starting to leave a lot to be desired. The reality is we are living further apart and it is not as easy to get together. The band breaks up. We went our separate ways, but we do get back in touch from time to time.

 
Since Then:
Lee hung around San Francisco for a while, playing with three bands while in that city: "Troubled Recognitions" fronted by Robert Engels (no relation) with Christopher Romero on guitar and John Chan on bass, then percussion and zylophone for "Jenny Jenny" fronted by Diana Barton, and thirdly drums (again) for "The Windowpanes" - a power-trio with John Chan on vocals (a newer group by the same name, founded in 2002, has no personnel or material in common). He also got to be good drinking buddies with Mark Eitzel. He went to Europe, then came back to the U.S. and settled in New York for a few years. While there, he worked with Evelyn McDonnel (a rock critic also living in New York) to co-edit the literary journal "Resister". It ran for two issues; a pair of Lee's poems were in the first issue and excerpts from his novel "Inbetween" made it into issue number two. The poster to the right features him opening for a spoken-word event in New York around the same time. Later he went back to Europe again and he is still living there today. He has written several articles for various journals and some of these articles are on-line:

• H2SO4
  • "Zombie! A Monster for the Masses"
  • "The Horrific Experience of Coming Face to Face with the Other #2"
    (there is a recent blog entry about this particular article here.)
  • "The Horrific Experience of Countercultural Initiation"
  • "The Lava Lamp"
  • "Paradoxa (three short essays)"
• Village Voice
  • Absinthe of Malice - Dancing with the Green Faerie
  • "Free the Slaves"
  • "Take Me Out to the Ballgame"
  • "Waiting For the End in Line"
• Google Books
  • "Passing: When People Can't Be Who They Are" by Brooke Kroeger - mentions Lee Foust and the "Resister" magazine in passing
  • "A Girl's Guide to Taking Over the World" by Tristan Taormino and Karen Green - has interviews conducted in offices of "Resister" magazine

Soon after the breakup of Nominal State, Jim and Robert formed a band with guitarist Erik Benson, called "Opus Dei", which was influenced by the likes of Fred Frith and Frank Zappa. The drum parts were played by an Emu "Drumulator". That band played a few gigs in 1984, at the Grafitti Club in S.F.'s Mission District as well as the Mabuhay, and then had to break up because Jim was going to study in Denmark for a year. Later attempts at reunification resulted in some friendly jam sessions, which were fun, but the the club scene that welcomed experimental music a few years earlier was no longer a hospitable place. Erik moved to Sacramento where he went to engineering school and played in two bands: "Sewer Trout" and "Well Hung Monks". ("Product of Misdirection", a song by the Monks featuring Erik on guitar and backing vocals, is still available on a compilation called "The Thing That Ate Floyd".)

Rob made one more attempt at a band in 1989, called "The Nebulous They", which was formed with the idea of performing at college campuses with a full live band (including a real drummer) augmented by three saxophones. The demo tape was made at Tom Mallon's studio, in San Francisco, where "American Music Club" recorded their best stuff. Aaron Gregory, who played in the band "Toiling Midgets", was the engineer and proved to be an excellent one. These sessions briefly reunited three of the four members of Nominal State in the recording studio: Tyler was brought in for keyboard parts, and Jim played bass. Erik Benson played guitar, Dan Pearson joined in on backing vocals, and the incredible Jeff Campitelli (also from Danville) was hired to play drums. Other great session players were brought in, such as John Bamont who played all three saxophone parts (and was a huge help writing out the score sheets for same), and Ric Lawson on screamin' lead guitar (this is the same guy who painted the cover art for Robert's album "Experiments in Relativity"). It was a good tape - it got sent to college campuses everywhere in California, where it garnered many positive comments. No one wanted to actually book that band to play, however (probably because "Beer Brain", the first song on the tape, featured very strong language - it was ahead of its time! Click here to listen to an excerpt in RealAudio format).

The dream was over, but it seemed the band did not deserve complete obscurity after all.

 
The Records
Strong collector interest in the two Nominal State singles has surprised us, and is more than a little heartwarming. About 120 of each one made it out around the time we were active (either sold, or given away - these are stamped "promo copy" on the label). The bulk of the Blunt Records stock was in storage when a flood came through in the early 90s and damaged them irreparably.

A now out-of-print official reissue CD-R of this material, called "Music Noir", was issued in August of 2004. It included some unreleased material including "The Descent" intended for Blunt Records B-5. Some new copies are still available through "CD Baby," and when these are gone there will be only MP3 downloads available through iTunes. Used copies of the CD-R, as well as an occasional example of the original vinyl, can sometimes be found at "eBay", "MusicStack", and "GEMM".

 
Reunion, 2005
The first time in 22 years since we'd all been in the same spot was early July of 2005. It was mostly a day of catching up on where we'd been and what we'd been doing, covering subjects from Dante's "Inferno" to "The Crass", and generally making time stop. Most of the Nominal State wives and children were there as well, and it was a very happy time. The last threads of conversation continued well after dark and would have gone on longer but, having families, there was work to do the next day. We hope to get together again. As to whether there will be any new recordings or not, that depends on if the inspiration hits us - right now, we just enjoy the comraderie which is as good as it ever was, if not better.

rev 6.26.08, RAE Productions