Ludent Tremmel's Starkweather Projekt
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Booking: PO Box 766 • Willimantic, CT 06226 • ludent [at] mindspring [dot] com |
Myopicat Records is currently working on remixing and reissuing some cool old Starkweather material !
In the coming months, approximately 20-30 songs that were originally released as LP's (you remember those!) on Vinyl Siding Records will be available on CD. Check out the music page for a preview. There you will find quality MP3's of the unmastered mixes. Once the reissues are released these rare cuts will be gone...
STARKWEATHER PROJEKT
When the Anglions disbanded in 1984, Ludent decided to retire from the music biz and concentrate on a degree in existential psychology. A kid named Dave Lambert popped by and invited him to jam. Turns out that he was a drummer and he was a big Don Fitch/Anglion fan, who had memorized the Anglions repertoire of tunes. Jean Chane was on hand to provide bass. Jean was inclined to “torture his bass in order to make it speak words in a Hopper meets Zorn kinda way”. So much for retirement.
Ludent was in a mood. The music industry was completely corporate, venues wanted cover bands if any, Reagan was in office and the government was busy distributing cocaine, weapons to dictators, funding death squads and declaring war on resort islands. Meanwhile the kids at college cared only about cocaine, beer, Izods and getting laid. “The proverbial weather was getting stark”. Ludent posted an ad in the Uconn paper that said “Wanted: Demented bass player no one understands”. Roman Schlesinger responded.
The original Starkweather was formed as a guerilla performance group that would pop up around campus and play ‘public service announcements’. It included David Lambert on drums, Roman (no one understands me) Schlesinger on fretless bass, artist Barry Lavoi on traps, and Charles Duncan on guitar. In late 1985, Charles and Barry left the band and blues guitarist Mike Bloomer joined the fold. The project became “musically reckless in pursuit of adventure” and began to record and gig out. Former Anglion Joe(Al-X) Paley signed on as sax player and in 1986 took over bass duty. They where signed by VSR in 1987 and issued their first vinyl album Folie a Cinq in 1988 and the song Reagan is the Antichrist became a hit in Europe and Canada. In the U.S. however, it wasn’t received very well.
Starkweather’s sound evolved from the experimental to progressive funk and eventually into very sophisticated and complex song writing. Their second vinyl LP 50% Off reflected this, but sadly was never issued. The band dissolved in 1989 with Bloomer leaving the band in order to get back to his blues roots. Ludent and David continued to write and record together until 1992. In all, ten albums were recorded and released.
- James R. Ladonk
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