Archeology, by The Stick Figures

Archeology

by The Stick Figures

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stereojunk holy hell. what an amazing discovery Favorite track: Mr. Simon.

Matt DeMello (himself) An astonishing post punk artifact and the stuff of archival stumbling dreams.

markymoon Classic retro but as it’s new to me it’s fresh.

Time capsule must

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Normal-bias cassette recorded in real time by Floating Mill. Features a laser-etched shell and glow in the dark spine. Designed and manufactured by FMR. Includes an informational j-card, lyrics booklet, and a digital download with more information and documents about The Stick Figures.

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The CDr comes in a 6-panel wallet with an informational booklet, lyrics insert, and a digital download with more information and documents about The Stick Figures. Disc duplicated at 1x speed.

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1.	N-Light 04:52	lyrics	buy track
Fight it out, fight it out Contradiction, what it’s all about Find the message, touch the light Newly severed, newly sized Walk the highway, walk the street Life is real, lines are straight Watch the houses, watch the cars Find a rhythm, by the wall [chorus] N...Light N...Light N...Light I want everyone to be just like me So I can stay in the world Or stay in the world Fight it out, fight it out Contradiction, what it’s all about Find the message, touch the light Newly severed, newly sized [chorus] I want everyone to be just like me So I can stay in the world Or stay in the world
2.	Crayola Bowling 04:26	lyrics	buy track
Lights on tights Looks alright Hospitable I work in a hospital Lights are my favorite Crayola color Lights are my favorite Crayola color Lights on tights Looks alright Snow hospital I work in a hospital Lights are my favorite Crayola color Tights are my favorite For Crayola bowling
3.	September 02:38	lyrics	buy track
September falling to a song I’ve known the moment all along It seems like Monday might afflict me So I stare Kids never wonder what to wear September falling in a word Whose were those voices that I heard? It seems like Sunday comes to see me Once a year Whose are those voices that I hear? September falling in the air Kids always know just what to wear I’ve heard that Thursday looks like Every other day Kids never wonder what they say
4.	Green 03:24	lyrics	buy track
Blue orange yellow pink These are colors Brown green purple red These are others Black and white that’s pretty basic Yellow red they’re necessary Purple and pink they’re outrageous But green it’s contagious Chorus! [chorus] You can eat at a green table You can wear green lipstick I can invest in green cars and houses Everyone indulges our thing for green Sometimes I look at green I don’t even recognize it Sometimes I act real green Everyone always denies it Blue orange yellow pink These are colors Brown green purple red These are others Chorus! [chorus] Chorus!
5.	Everplayed 02:48	lyrics	buy track
I kicked a tree over The other day Cause I never paid Never paid Never stayed Never stayed Never stayed Everplayed [x2]
6.	Mr. Simon 00:52	lyrics	buy track
Mr. Simon He’s on the loose Mr. Simon Head in a noose Mrs. Simon She’s gonna cook his goose Mrs. Simon She’s got nothing to lose Baby Simon She’s out tonight Baby Simon Gotta get it right
7.	Yesterday 01:48	lyrics	buy track
Yesterday I am talking to myself I say it’s yesterday Well today is yesterday Now today I am wondering to myself About the things I thought to say Yesterday I wish you didn’t have to Go away I wish you’d stay Stay til yesterday Yesterday I am talking to myself I say it’s yesterday Well today is yesterday Now today I am wondering to myself About the things I thought to say Yesterday
8.	Energy 02:04	lyrics	buy track
Something’s burning Pushing turbine Strip my landscape Urban handshake Do the skyscrape Do the skyscrape Do the skyscrape Offshore drilling So fulfilling Locomotion Loan emotion Love in motion Love in motion Love in motion [chorus] (Energy) keeps me going (Energy) keeps something moving (Energy) keeps me on my toes Pumping ethyl Pumping methyl Science friction Adding fractions Throbbing action Throbbing action Throbbing action [chorus] On my toes On my toes On my toes
9.	Language (Live) 02:16	lyrics	buy track
Please show Patricia how to talk Please help her learn to speak and squawk All the children in their houses Burning candles in their rooms Patricia wants to have advantage We all want her to real soon Please help my mama at the stove She’s got a black cloud made of smoke Make a Xerox of lasagna Eating well in Tanzania Patricia’s got her California’s Send a postcard from the Amtrak [chorus] Knowledge in the air Clouds all spell despair Language in my brain Lips all sealed in pain Please lock the children in their rooms Please burn the candles in their rooms Patricia’s gonna go to college Everyone may join the Airforce We’re all going to dance a rain dance In praise of wine and language [chorus x4]
10.	Screaming (Live) 03:49	lyrics	buy track
There’s some kids in a house by where I live They screaming all the time They make it hard to go to sleep They make it very easy to stay awake What are those children screaming for? Well I’m sure I don’t know It seems they should have just a little more sense Doesn’t it? There’s some kids in a house by where I live They got a house out there in the woods Who built that house in the woods, huh? Who brought their kids there? Who brought their kids there? Those children seem to scream all the time I wonder what they’re screaming for? It’s like living by a high school on a Friday night In football season without drums Without drugs
11.	Make a Fire 02:45	lyrics	buy track
Make a fire, no never make a fire And never twist towards me Make a fire, no never make a fire And never twist towards me Seems a shame to fix you up Fix you up, strange enough Seems a shame to fix you up Fix you up, strange enough A knock becomes a fire, make a fire No never make a fire A knock becomes a fire, make a fire No never make a fire
12.	Ellis Otivator Dub 01:49	info	buy track
13.	Ellis Otivator Dub 2021 05:36	info	buy track

about

Floating Mill Records, FMR.001

The Stick Figures, formed in 1979 by University of South Florida students Rachel Maready Evergreen and David Bowman (siblings), Robert and Sid Dansby (also siblings), and Bill Carey, were a seminal fixture in Tampa, Florida’s deep and talented pool of late-70s/early-80s post-punk groups.

In a 1981 review from Dublin’s Hot Press magazine touting “places as unlikely as” Tampa being “well in sync with the globe’s pole-position [post-punk] scenes,” Nigel Burnham praises the “excellent” Stick Figures. After noting the band’s fandom of Delta 5 and how they opened for The Fall and Lounge Lizards, Burnham distinguishes The Stick Figures from their contemporaries by claiming that “there is enough here to suggest the SFs are going their own way—with a vengeance...we’re hardly talking here about specific songs—rather a revolutionary approach.” But The Stick Figures didn’t go their own way with a vengeance for much longer, breaking up less than a year after the release of their 1981 eponymous EP.

For the last 40 years, those four tracks were The Stick Figures’ complete discography—until now. Archeology, the first release from Floating Mill Records, takes the original EP and adds six previously unreleased songs, two live tracks, and a reimagining of the EP’s experimental “Ellis Otivator Dub.”

Citing contemporaries such as Orange Juice, The Buzzcocks, and fellow emerging southern bands Pylon and The B-52s as influences, The Stick Figures’ instrumentation on Archeology frequently and proudly wears a warm, exuberant grin. But even from Archeology’s opening lines, chanted in unison over a groove evoking their love for Parliament/Funkadelic (“N-Light”), the conflict between fun, catchy instrumentation and dark, cold lyrical content is spelled out: “Fight it out, fight it out / Contradiction, what it’s all about.” And the two songs where The Stick Figures’ musical grin is perhaps at its widest, “September” and “Mr. Simon,” focus on the uneasiness of back-to-school jitters and a man whose head is “in a noose,” respectively. Only on songs like “Screaming (Live)” and “Language (Live)” do The Stick Figures want you to realize that their grin has actually been a sneer the entire time.

Through those punkier live numbers, Velvet Underground-inspired cacophonous whirlwinds “Green” and “Crayola Bowling,” and consistently dark lyrical imagery, Archeology is able to maintain a sense of youthful playfulness and simplicity that is complemented by Rachel’s twee, “touch-boredom/touch-bitch” (Sperazza!) lead vocal. Even in a song as scathing as “Language (Live),” which claims that “clouds all spell despair” and calls for children to be locked in their rooms, The Stick Figures find some room for humorous amusements: “Please help my mama at the stove / She’s got a black cloud made of smoke / Make a Xerox of lasagna.” And on “Screaming (Live),” The Stick Figures observe that living by children that inexplicably scream from inside their house “all the time” is like “Living by a high school on a Friday night / in football season without drums / without drugs.”

Don’t take our word that The Stick Figures’ music is more dynamic and engaging than just about any post-punk band of their era (or ever, for that matter); take journalist Gary Sperazza!’s from his time at the New York Rocker running “The Crib Death Zone,” a column highlighting and ranking the best demo cassette tape submissions to the magazine. Having listened to 10 Stick Figures’ songs, several of which are featured here, Sperazza! was one of the few people outside the Tampa scene to have heard the band beyond their EP. After hearing these tracks, Sperazza! named The Stick Figures as the winner of his competition of “unheralded genius” in the June 1981 edition of the New York Rocker, asserting that The Stick Figures are, “if nothing else, better than all the other Velvets/Television/Feelies-derived aggregations” due to a “small fortune in good ideas, entertaining songs and imaginative playing.”

Adding even more clout, John Peel also put his name behind the band. BBC Radio 1’s legendary deejay reached out to The Stick Figures’ friend/lawyer/manager, Pam Wiener Dubrule, for a copy of the EP: “Just read about the Stick Figures in Dublin’s Hot Press. I wondered whether you could send me a copy of your EP to play on the radio here in London. This isn’t a clumsy attempt to avoid payment by the way. How much?” Peel lived up to his word, forking over the cash and playing “September” on his radio show in 1981.

Even with Peel’s endorsement, The Stick Figures’ musical revolution, as prophesized by Burnham, never came to fruition. Within a month of that Hot Press review, The Stick Figures charted course for the opportunities New York City offered an up-and-coming band, stopping to play shows in Atlanta during the Summer of 1981 on the way. Just as their ambition and talent finally earned interest from a label, Glass Records, the band, whose youngest member was still in their teens, succumbed to being “penniless and young” in an unforgiving Big Apple stuck somewhere between the 1977 blackouts and the 1981 garbage strike. Within a year of the move, some members retreated back to the Sunshine State before even stepping on a New York City stage while others roughed it out, leaving over 1,000 miles of East Coast to divide the group in two and force them to look for artistic fulfillment in other ventures.

But that retreat was not with their tails between their legs—The Stick Figures had made something together: a damn good EP (and dozens of equally impressive unreleased tracks). And, as unsung pioneers of the budding indie and DIY music scenes, they really “made” that EP. All five band members designed a cover before photocopying, assembling, and hand-coloring the 7” release themselves—all 500 copies—to be sold by Green Records, the Tampa-based label they formed and ran with the ever-helpful Pam Wiener Dubrule and a handful of other Tampa musicians.

While we at Floating Mill Records are no Rough Trade or Visa Records (Sperazza!’s recommendations to sign The Stick Figures at the time), we are honored and elated to be the first label to sign such a compelling band and release their first full-length album, Archeology, on vinyl, cassette tape, CD, and for digital download as our first release.

This release is 40 years overdue, but we feel the music sounds as urgent and awe-inspiring as ever. So put on The Stick Figures, and “Find a rhythm, by the wall” (“N-Light”).

credits

released September 3, 2021

_________________________________________

The Stick Figures’ second full-length album, this one of entirely unreleased studio recordings from 1980 - 1981, will be released by Floating Mill in Summer 2023 and will be available on vinyl, tape, CD, and digital download.
_________________________________________

"This album is dedicated to Pam Wiener Dubrule and Gloria Bowman; two women who provided guidance, sustenance and support even when we didn’t deserve it…!” - The Stick Figures

DAVID BOWMAN - Bass on 1 + 3-11; backing vocals on 1 + 8; farfisa organ on 2; mellotron on 5.
BILL CAREY - Guitar on 1 + 3-11; backing vocals on 1-2, 8, + 11; piano on 1; bass on 2.
ROBERT DANSBY - Drums on 2-11.
SID DANSBY - Guitar on 1-4 + 6-11; drums, violin, and backing vocals on 1; treated guitar on 4; percussion and harmonic guitar on 5.
RACHEL MAREADY EVERGREEN (formerly “Rachel Bowman”) - Lead vocals on 1-11; xylophone on 3.

Track 12, “Ellis Otivator Dub,” was assembled by Rob and Sid using samples of Stick Figures songs and Moog synthesizers at SYCOM at USF’s School of Music.

Track 13, “Ellis Otivator Dub 2021,” was assembled by Rob and Bill using samples of Stick Figures songs and Moog synthesizers.

Tracks 1-8 + 11 engineered by Ken Veenstra at his Progressive Music Studios (Davis Island, Tampa) on a 0.5” 8-track tape machine.

Remastered by Bill.

Analog Transfer for track 13 performed by Bill Smith, United Recording (Hollywood, CA).

Tracks 1-3 + 12 originally released in 1981 by Green Records, Tampa, FL.

All songs written and performed by The Stick Figures.

All songs recorded between April and November 1980.

Floating Mill Records, FMR.001
September 2021

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The Stick Figures Tampa, Florida

Post-punk band from Tampa, FL. Active from 1979 - 1981. Reissues from Floating Mill Records.

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Archeology

by The Stick Figures

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