Prologue One: The Thin White Duke

When I was a junior in high school, David Bowie visited our quaint little backwater metropolis of Evansville, Indiana on his Station to Station tour. Already a huge fan, I was in the fifth row. All hope of a normal life was now completely out of the question. I blame him for everything.

Prologue Two: The Gizmos

I suppose the seeds of what eventually became Stop the Car were first planted during my first and only year as a bored, maladjusted, and therefore singularly unsuccessful student at Indiana University in 1978. I had seen a flyer for a show at the Bloomington Public Library by a local punk band called The Gizmos and decided to attend (alone, because no one else I knew had any interest in going, even for the freakshow aspect). I don't remember anything about the music, other than that it was loud, unpolished, and gleefully obnoxious. The only thing I took with me that night, other than the notion of "hey, I could do that", was the amusing recollection of a cryptic, three-word phrase scrawled across the front of the guitarist's shredded t-shirt: "stop the car". I have no idea if it meant something to him or anyone else at the show, all I know is that it seemed like this wonderful, dada-esque phrase that could mean just about anything or nothing at all, and I remember thinking, "That would be a cool name for a band".

Prehistory One: Johnny Freeze, Matinee Idol, and an ill-advised medication

After returning to Evansville and bouncing around at a few different jobs (because, as my father, God rest his soul, said, if I wasn't going to school, then by God, I was going to work), my girlfriend at the time told me about a band put together by some guys at her school called Dashiell Hammett. I knew the leader of the group, Paul Aarstad, through mutual acquaintances, and managed to land a rehearsal tape, which impressed me greatly...excellent songwriting and accomplished playing well beyond their years. After talking to Paul, I realized that we shared a love of '60's garage bands and a keen interest in the burgeoning British punk rock scene of the day. After a bit of politcking, I was able to convince Paul that the one thing his band lacked was a strong frontman, and after an audition in rhythm guitarist Mike Horn's basement consisting, if memory serves, of singing "Louie Louie", "All Day and All of the Night", and a few originals, I was in.

The band was newly christened Johnny Freeze and the Chills, and true to the style of the punk bands we so admired, all the members took on new stage names as well. Paul became Johnny Freeze, Mike became Michael Scorn, bassist Gene Severins was renamed Bats Bop, drummer Cary Carlisle became Animal Instinct, and I was christened Marky Neutron, which later morphed into Marky Midnite. Our first show was a Battle of the Bands in the Bosse High School gym, which we took by storm, winning hands down. It was a revelation to me...the band was great, the girls were screaming, and, to put it delicately, I got laid after the show. I was doomed.

With the proceeds from our triumphant debut, we rented a shelter house at Burdette Park and threw a victory concert and party. Life was good, but change was in the air. Gene moved back to his original home in Worcester, Massachusetts and Mike was ousted by Paul after a falling out between the two. After carrying on for a very short time as a three-piece calling ourselves the Xmen (with me playing bass), Gene and Mike were replaced by Paul's older brother Jon on bass and Brad Richardson on rhythm guitar (who took the names Insect Fear and Bradley James, respectively), The band's name changed again as well, to Matinee Idol (taken from the title of one of Paul's songs).

It was this version of MI that saw in the decade of the 80's. We somehow convinced a few Evansville club owners to go out on a limb and book us for shows. At our first show, played at the immortal Jerraco's Bar on North Main Street, I recall an extremely intoxicated woman cornering me and telling me over and over that we had to improve the sound of the PA because she couldn't pick out the words I was singing and that "lyrics were supposed to tell a story". I doubt if she remembered her name the next day, much less any "story" I was trying to tell her. Our closest brush to a break on the local level came when the owners of the now-defunct Omni nightclub were persuaded to put us on the bill with another local band, a group of club-scene veterans who had "gone new wave" and renamed themselves The Phonz (pronounced "phones"). It was a try-out gig, dubbed "New Wave Night" by the club owners, with the potential outcome being that the two bands would play together once a week on a regular basis. On the first night, our first set went great, and I remember one of the guys in The Phonz telling me that the owners were impressed and wanted to talk to us about making this a weekly occurrence. Unfortunately, during The Phonz' first set, Animal somehow convinced himself that swallowing a Quaalude was a really cool thing for a rock and roll drummer to do. About two songs into our second set, I noticed the tempo beginning to go south in a hurry. About four songs into the set, Animal put his head down on his snare and had to be escorted to the men's room, where he proceeded to both apologize and vomit profusely. Needless to say, the rest of the "New Wave Nights" did not include Matinee Idol on the bill.

It was shortly thereafter that I began to get frustrated with being in MI for several reasons. First of all, I wasn't entirely comfortable with the changes brought about by losing Gene and Mike and replacing them with Jon and Brad. I particularly missed the simple but rock-solid rhythmic foundation the two departed members had provided. As any of you who have ever experienced seeing or hearing Jon Aarstad play bass will attest, the man is amazing. Classically trained probably from the womb, and raised from a young age with a serious John Entwistle fixation, his playing was incredible, but it sounded like another lead instrument from another planet, and providing a simple, solid foundation was not on his list of fun things to do with a bass in his hands. We even experimented for a short time with having me play the old, lower register bass parts while Jon did his thing, but it never worked. Also, Cary Carlisle's imminent replacement by Paul's friend Mark DeVoy seemed destined only to further dilute the propulsive underpinnings that had so attracted me to the band in the first place. The biggest reason for my frustration, however, was that I was beginning to write my own songs. To his credit, Paul attempted to accomodate me, but in the final analysis, MI was Paul's band, and for me to have a true outlet for my own material, it became obvious that I would have to leave the band, which I did in mid-1981.

Prehistory Two: Young Caucasians & The Xmen (God, Guts & Guitars)

Within a few hours of officially quitting Matinee Idol, I was on the phone to one Vincent Hammerstein, an aspiring bassist who I knew not only as my then-girlfriend's brother, but also as a regular member of the group that hung out with MI. I remember telling him that, due to my frustrations getting my songs played in MI, that I wanted to make sure he understood that the new band I was putting together was going to be my baby, and that I would be calling the shots. He agreed, but I came to suspect over the next two decades of our association that he forgot this part of the conversation right around the time he hung up the phone. Regardless, we clicked right away, and after about a week of practicing, had about ten songs ready to go. I suppose, for all intents and purposes, this was the true birth of what would later become Stop the Car.

We brought in drummer Michael Woodruff, an across-the-street neighbor of Chills/MI drummer Cary Carlisle, to round out the band. Needing a name, we dubbed ourselves Young Caucasians, a sarcastic nod to the sweater-wearing whitebread vocal group from a recurring skit on Saturday Night Live. We spent a lot of time practicing, as we were all pretty much learning to play our instruments as we went along. Our first (and only) show was on Halloween night 1981, at another Burdette Park shelterhouse soiree headlined by Matinee Idol. The photo at right was taken during our set (the blurry, almost hidden figure second from left is Vince's sister Julie, singing a cover of Patti Smith's "25th Floor" that we did that night). One other notable attendee that night was yet another of the seemingly omnipresent Hammerstein clan, younger brother Jeff, who I suspect was bitten that night with the same "hey, I could do that" bug that had afflicted so many of us during those halcyon days of yore. It wasn't too long thereafter that Jeff (or Fefffman - and yes, the number of "f"s was significant for some reason I have long since forgotten) purchased a guitar and amp and signed on as our second guitarist. It was also around this time that Michael Woodruff, a sweet guy but a little tempo-challenged as a drummer, was voted out of the band. In the first of what would be an almost Spinal Tap-like parade of drummers to pass through over the next decade, he was replaced by Jim Schutte,.

Around this time a development in all our lives occurred which would affect the direction and focus of the band for the next two years. Vince, Jeff, and I all began attending Grace Lutheran Church in Evansville, headed at the time by pastor and author Walter Wangerin, Jr. (Book of the Dun Cow, Book of Sorrows, Ragman, and many others). Personally, it was the first time I'd ever heard Christianity discussed by someone with a brain, and I found a beauty, a serenity and a truth at the core of it that moved me very deeply. It was through our association with Grace that we met Tim Moore, a singer with God-given pipes and astounding range who could bring tears to your eyes by singing the phone book. He was intrigued with what our band was doing (even though, or maybe because of, the fact that it was light-years removed from any music he had ever performed) and signed on as vocalist soon thereafter. Although the irony would have been pretty delicious, we decided that retaining the Young Caucasians name now that we had taken on an imposing, over 6 feet/250 pound black man as our lead singer probably wasn't the best idea. We also wanted a name change to reflect the change within the band that our immersion in Christianity had brought about, and after flirting for a while with the name The Spirit, settled on reviving the previously briefly-used Xmen name. The picture on the left is from the original Xmen line-up from 1982, featuring myself, Vince, Fefffman, Tim Moore, and Jim Schutte, taken on the roof of the now-demolished 414 S. Kentucky Avenue (the precursor to the infamous STC house a few blocks away at 1116 E. Walnut).

It was during this period that we began working with two people whose behind-the-scenes work, though largely unsung, would literally set the stage for all of the 1980's underground music scene in Evansville, John Horton and Bill Yancey. I'll begin with Horton, a young, enthusiastic dreamer and would-be entrepreneur with visions of being Brian Epstein to the Xmen's certain, Beatles-like ascent to world domination. He signed on as the Xmen's manager and swiftly began trying to solve one of the biggest dilemmas facing the band: there was, quite simply, nowhere in Evansville for a band playing original music to perform on a regular basis. Working from behind the counter of his newly-opened used-record store, Cool Cat Record Exchange on Division Street (in a building long-since demolished for the construction of the Lloyd Expressway), one of Horton's first bookings was to get us on the bill at a series of shows at the old Alhambra Theatre building in the Haynie's corner area of town. The series, dubbed "Magic Days in May", was the brainchild of Adept Audio co-owners Mark McLean and Michael (Shev) Shevlin (who will play a more prominent role in our story in Part Two), The Phonz opened the series, and the next weekend, on Sunday, May 22, 1983, the Xmen made their first appearance there. Admission was one dollar, and with a crowd of about 75-100 people, the night was considered a success by all involved. The series as a whole, however, failed to meet up to McLean and Shevlin's hopes for reopening the Alhambra on a permanent basis, but our association with Adept Audio was far from over.

By the time of the Alhambra show, the Xmen line-up had undergone another change, with Lisa Dove joining on keyboards. Schutte had recently left the group to form another band with some friends, a 60's cover-band lounge act called (I kid you not) Stickshift USA. (Nice to know at least one of us had our musical priorites straight). Replacing Schutte on drums was one Mike Boyles. My most enduring memory of Mr. Boyles, (other than that he was just flat-out weirder than hell), is of him, in a fit of rage over something, putting his foot throught the speaker of an old vintage Vox amp I had inherited from my older brother. Needless to say, this did not endear him greatly to me, and this six-member line-up (pictured at left) lasted only a few months. An ad in the paper resulted, as such ads are wont to do, in a surreal parade of hopefuls auditioning for the spot. One of my favorites was a fellow who possessed absolutely the largest drum set I have ever seen in my entire life. The catch was that he could play only one simple 4/4 beat, very loudly, in one tempo. It didn't matter what song or style we played, his drumming remained blissfully unchanged. Happily, though, this series of auditions ultimately resulted in the band, at last, actually getting a real drummer when the initially-mustachioed Mark Fischer joined. Dove's association with the band ended a few months later, mostly due to my perception that she lacked the same focus regarding the band that the rest of us possessed.

During the summer of 1983, John Horton put together a benefit concert for the Evansville Parks Foundation called RockFest, to be held at Mesker Ampitheatre an outdoor stadium and the city's second-largest musical venue. On the bill were the Xmen, Matinee Idol, cover band Destiny, and metalheads Silent Partner. To promote the upcoming show, the Xmen played a series of free "concerts in the parks" at various locations throughout the city. One of these shows, outside of Lloyd Pool, was Fefffman's last performance with the band, due to a family move to Raleigh, North Carolina. (He still lives there to this day, working as a paramedic and still playing guitar, currently with a band called 4DayBreak). RockFest was a modest success, which I remember most because (a) it was the largest venue we ever played, and (b) the female lead singer of Destiny threw a diva-like fit after our set, which I ended by destroying a television set with my guitar. It seemed that the stage, now littered in broken glass and debris, was no longer suitable for her barefoot performance, and I heard about it in no uncertain terms. I didn't clean it up.

Bill Yancey, meanwhile, was another Evansville entrepreneur who first came to our attention when he, too, attempted to revive the historic but hard-luck Alhambra Theatre, this time as a combination restaurant and second-run movie theatre. The venture was short-lived, but his next business attempt was to be much more successful and much more meaningful to the nascent Evansville underground music scene. Moving eastward across town, Yancey rented the vacant Ross Theatre, a long-time Evansville movie-going institution that had fallen victim to the influx of multiplex movie theaters built in the 70s and 80s, and to the changing economics of the theater industry. Again showing second-run films, Yancey streamlined his operation by dropping the restaurant aspect, dividing the Ross' screening area into two smaller rooms, and adding video rentals in the lobby, Yancey was also immediately intrigued by Horton's suggestion to include live bands into his mix of offerings. During the summer of 1983, we all pitched in and removed about six rows of seats to make room for a small stage. This original stage was much shallower than it became in later years (I remember being concerned about falling off the front of it if I moved around too much), and included a middle piece that extended out into the audience. On Saturday, August 6, the Xmen (now consisting of Tim Moore, myself, Vince Hammerstein, and Mark Fischer) played the first-ever show at the Ross, again charging the princely sum of one dollar for admission. That first show drew about 50 people, enough to warrant more shows by ourselves and others in the weeks, months, and utlimately years ahead.

Another promotional vehicle for hyping the shows came out of Horton's fevered brain around this time as well; a local entertainment magazine called The Program. Launched on a shoestring budget in October 1983 and bankrolled by Phonz manager Joe Helfrich, The Program took an irreverent look at the world at large, entertainment in particular, and from the onset, directed its chief focus on spotlighting (and trying to create) the local (original) underground music scene. I contributed my efforts as editor, columnist, and cartoonist under a number of pseudonyms (such as Allen Markham , Fakewood Trim and Bill Eisner) while Horton was in charge of selling the ads and promoting the magazine. It grew into quite the little cult phenomenon in its time, and provided a place for local bands like the Xmen, Matinee Idol, The Phonz, The Vains, The Big Employees, Foolish Union, and the immortal Health Hazard (featuring Mohawk Joe) to receive their first (and sometimes only) print exposure. The magazine lasted only 12 issues, folding in the summer of 1984 due to lack of mainstream advertising support, but I'm convinced that the ripple effect it had on the local mindset lasted long after its demise.

The Xmen also did some recording during this period at Wasson Studio in cosmopolitan Boonville, Indiana. Two of the tracks recorded in these sessions ("I Wanna Be Her Man" and "Rock My Soul") later found their way onto Stop the Car's debut release Blue Creatures.

The autumn of 1984 brought with it a number of changes for me, and by extension, the rest of the band. The Xmen had tried for two years to walk the tightrope that many "Christian" bands find themselves trying to navigate; trying to remain true to their convictions lyrically without falling into simple, dogmatic stereotypes, and trying to maintain their musical creativity without becoming hedged into stale musical boundaries. I was tiring of having to justify ourselves to Christians and non-believers alike, since it seemed like we were always either too "this" or not enough "that" to ever satisfy anyone. I decided that my personal convictions would remain just that, and that whatever part of my spirituality I chose to inject into my songs would be on much more of a subtle level. I was also entering a very questioning phase in my belief, and was devastated on a personal level by the break-up of a long-standing romantic relationship. I was bowled over as well by my discovery of the music of the British Goth movement, and became heavily influenced by what bands like The Cure, Bauhaus, and Siouxsie & the Banshees were doing at the time. By mutual agreement, Tim Moore left the band during this period, and the newly-focused 3-piece band that remained needed a new name to reflect its new-found energy and direction. In the case of both Young Caucasians and the Xmen, we had been disappointed to discover other bands in other parts of the country with the same name, so we wanted something that no one else would ever come up with, something that meant many things and nothing at all. What we chose was the phrase I had seen scrawled on a T-shirt at a punk rock show in 1978 and had carried with me in the back of my mind for six years. What we chose was Stop the Car.