Talk:Flipper (band)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Contents

[edit] Vocal Credits

Hey Ted, I wanted to add which vocals were Will's and which were Bruce's, but never saw them credited. What's a song from each? Auto movil 05:52, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Hi, longtime Flipper fan Bill here. Bruce sang: 1) Ha Ha Ha 2) The Lights The Sound The Rhythm The Noise

Will sang: 1) Life 2) Sex Bomb

BTW, Flipper is playing along with the Mutants, the Avengers and the Dead Kennedys (without Jello Biafra) at the Fab Mab reunion show at the Fillmore in San Francisco on April 8, 2006. Flipper will consist of the three surviving original members plus Bruno De Smartass on bass. I believe Flipper also played a show in Los Angeles sometime after the CBGB shows.

Post-show analysis: they were awesome, but Bruno can't sing, sorry...

On the crediting of vocals: look on the LPs! Generic has an insert with all credits; on Gone Fishin' they're on the printed innersleeve; on Public Flipper Ltd. they're on an insert; on Sex Bomb Baby they're on the back cover.

[edit] Pet Rock

Could someone add in the main article that they invented the Pet Rock genre for themselves? Im not |_337 enough to edit a wiki article. -Sean

[edit] Moby

The Moby-as-temporary-vocalist rumor has long been discredited by the surviving members of Flipper. It seems he was one of many audience members onstage screaming along with Bruce.

Moby did get up and play bass on Sex Bomb with the band at an after-party for the American Hardcore movie in NYC in 2006. They had to throw him offstage to stop him playing. Wwwhatsup 00:55, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, should probably remove this reference, it makes it sound like he was actually a member of the band. There's no reference to Flipper on the Moby page, so that makes the info less viable too. Kristmace 09:07, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] More stupid rumors

No, Bruce did not steal the tapes from the Subterranean warehouse, or anywhere else. This rumor seems to be a conflation of 2 separate unrelated incidents (er, except for the drugs...). Rubin said originally that he was interested in signing the band for a new recording and licensing the Subterranean albums for CD reissue, but the contract he presented to the band at a meeting in Los Angeles gave him exclusive ownership of them, plus publishing rights for their songs. It's unclear if the band had actually read it before signing. In any case, the band got $20,000 and got to record one new album, Rubin got the rights to the 4 released albums, plus a completed but still unreleased 5th album (recorded at the same time as Gone Fishin' and completed after Will's death) which he's still sitting on. After a brutal, exhausting and very expensive legal battle, Subterranean walked away with the rights to continue to press the LPs, but only for US domestic distribution.

As far as I know the Album is just a set of demos for Gone Fishin' recorded in 1982 along with some unreleased songs recorded during the singles and Generic sessions including The Wheel. I've got the 1982 demos that they plan on releasing, the tracks are- Sacrfice, In Your Arms, Survivors of the Plague, In Life My Friends, One By One, Now is the Time, On and On, In the Garden, First the Heart, I Want to Talk, Flipper Blues, Get Away, Talk's Cheap, The Light the Sound the Rythem the Noise, and Kali. It's also possible that they where referring to Will's A3I record, Ruins of America.

[edit] Flipper's predecessor bands

The article cited SSD as a band that contributed members to Flipper, which is definitely inaccurate. I know there was a punk band from SF in the late 70s called SSI. Is that what was intended? Justin Bailey 20:05, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

According to the insert in my copy of Negative Trend's "We Don't Play, We Riot" ep, Ted came from a band called SST.


The "Heart Monitor" worn by Bruce Loose is actually an electronic pain blocking unit known as a TENS(see Wikipedia entry). This type of device is sometimes used by people who suffer chronic pain resulting from nerve damage (as Bruce does) and other conditions.

[edit] Krist Novoselic

11/9/06 info from email from Steve: "We are off to UK and Iriland in Dec with Krist Novoselic on bass. We are doing a bunck of dates with The Melvins as well as a festival date with Iggy and Sonic Youth."

[edit] Flipper as "anti-punk?"

If memory serves me well, I do recall reading articles back in the day in which the band's slow paced style was labeled "anti-punk" and were not actually considered "hardcore" Did the band apply this label, the listeners or both? Smiloid 08:56, 15 December 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Sex Bomb Origins

Flipper's biggest hit - Sex Bomb - struck me as an amusing parody of "You Dropped the Bomb" by a 1970's funk group called the Gap Band. I have concerns about adding this, because it may be "original research."

I saw Flipper in 1983, when they took over the stage at the end of a Dead Kennedys concert in Santa Cruz County, and Sex Bomb was instantly recognized by the crowd as their most important song.

It might be useful to mention the connection between the Gap Band hit and the Flipper version. Everyone in the audience 25 years ago understood this instantly.

I honestly just don't know how to add this fact without running into "original resarch" territory. All I know is what I saw at the time. Vpfritz (talk) 08:43, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Interesting. Both records came out in 1982 so they were definitely contemporary. Any comparison may well be subjective without at least a documented quote from one of the band stating that intention.
One can compare for oneself on YouTube - Gap Band vs Flipper. Their isn't much similarity apart from the 'bomb' metaphor. But 'Sex Bomb' is definitely Flipper's 'disco' song and I could see them riffing on the popular hit at a live show. It's still their most popular song. Casual live parody is probably not an encyclopedic fact. Wwwhatsup (talk) 09:38, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
Thanks, I agree that this speculation should not be on the main page. I should mention that a real connection between the two songs is the use of an unusual "bomb dropping" whistle sound effect which was present on both records. To me that's the real connection, and it's why I always assumed that the Flipper song was intended as a parody or comment on the Gap Band hit. Vpfritz (talk) 11:49, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Images

I have a bunch of stills posted up at PUNKCAST#1023 of the band in 2006 - I'd add some but I don't know that they're really needed. I've re-added the link to the EL's. I know one would best wish to find free images of the original line-up. It's not impossible that someone could be persuaded to GFDL something. We should find a good pic and target the photographer. I would think that the fish logo is notable enough to bear inclusion even if non-free if some copy were involved, particularly if it had cites. Wwwhatsup (talk) 02:10, 13 February 2008 (UTC)