This one’s for Jeremy.

Apologies for the audio quality. A few parts are a bit blown out because the camera mic wasn’t ready for the loudness of the venue. Had to put up a couple of our slower songs because the camera audio was just awful when we turned our amps to 11. Ah well. Anyway, here’s a taste of what you missed from Saturday’s show. Here are Wormcheck and Prescription Antigravity. Look for us on our sold out arena tour this summer. Lady Gaga is opening for us.

Bear Eats Fish is Brady on bass, Jeff Gustafson (Leon from Outpost Doom) on vocals, Deejay on drums, and myself on guitar.

Diggin’ a Foxhole.

from our first practice in 4 years. Go go crappy rock!

Lincolnites, take notice. Bear Eats Fish‘s comeback is Saturday, June 19th at Knickerbockers. We’ll be playing with Mother of All and Loup River City Band

I know nobody gives a shit about this, but when I find stuff that the Splattercast guys were involved with floating around the internet, I want to post it here for posterity. Because we all know Deadlantern.com will be here until the world ends in 2012. I’m trying to convince the rest of the guys to do a reunion show. I think Deejay, Brady, and I will be jamming in a couple weeks. Maybe come up with some new stuff. We’ll see what happens.

Anyway, this was an interview done by Tery Daly for a local band website called Star City Scene in July of 2004.  It’s still posted but I’ll include it after the jump as well. You know, for posterity.

Jeff Gustafson and I have played together in two different bands, and all during the time we’ve played together, he would periodically mention a side project he had going with some of his friends called Thieving Winona. He wouldn’t talk about it much. He was never quite disparaging about it, but all indications were that it wasn’t a “real” band, more just friends goofing around in the basement. He didn’t seem to take it very seriously, so when he mentioned that they were playing a show, I was surprised, and very intrigued.

Intrigued, you ask? Yes. The reason I wanted to see them was because one of the founding precepts of this band is that each person play an instrument they’d never played before. Jeff, a great drummer, was the lead vocalist who’ never sung before. DeeJay Sharton, ordinarily a guitar player was the drummer who’d never drummed before. Mat Kister, normally a bassist or drummer became the guitarist who’d never played guitar before, and Brady Johnson had never played anything before, so he became the bassist who’d never played bass. This can either be a recipe for crap or greatness, and in the hands of these four, it’s definitely the latter.

Their show blew me away for a thousand reasons. The music is great. Heavily influenced by old-school punk, but with incredible melodies. They can crank out incredible rockers like “Sweet & Low”, “Three Times” or “Ultra Big Phil”, and turn around and play beautiful songs like “Wormcheck” or “Prescription Anti-Gravity”. I was shocked by Jeff’s incredible lyrics. I mean seriously, how the hell does he think of this stuff? Heads gilded in gold? Ouija boards in the outhouse? Racoon Faces? The song Ultra Big Phil is was taken from the logo on a convienience store cup, but has nothing to do with cups. Then there’s Jeff himself. Suave Lumberjack? Fat Elvis making Pancakes? Tom Jones on speed? It’s impossible to call, but the show Jeff puts on must be experienced! This is a band with great songs, but as players they’re kind of inexperienced on their instruments, so when I see/hear them, it brings back everything I loved about The Ramones, The Sex Pistols, and other early punk bands who’d not played instruments before they started up their band. The musical performance isn’t perfect, but that only adds to the quality of the songs.

Perhaps the saddest part of all this is that by the time you’re reading this, the band doesn’t exist anymore. DeeJay is moving to Colorado, and some of the band don’t want to continue on without him, then after that, Mat starts school in the fall, so even if they got another drummer, the band wouldn’t be playing for that much longer anyway, so they’ve decided to just call it quits. Despite the fact that this band has only played about 4-5 shows in their short life, they will always be one of my favorite bands in Lincoln.

SCS: How and when did Bear Eats Fish, or more correctly, Thieving Winona form as a band?

Mat: Thieving Winona started back in December of 2002 (and yes, I have a recording of our first ever practice that proves it!). Originally, Mike Decatur (Minutia Stew) was asked to sing, but Jeff showed a great interest so we inserted him into the starting lineup and that’s how it came to be.

Deejay: I think we started as a joke, but after our first band practice and our first recording people seemed intrested, so we decided to keep doing it.

Brady: Well, the whole concept for the band was that we were going to all play an instrument that we’d never played before. So DJ who is a guitarist picked up the drum sticks, Mat who had played Drums and Bass in other bands with DJ got a guitar, and I had never played anything ever so i picked up a bass. So we screwed around and wrote a few songs. Eventually we decided we should probably find a singer. At the time Jeff was living with DJ and I, we asked him and it kind of just came together. All of that was probably about a year and a half ago. We went though big periods where Jeff couldn’t make it to practice because of other commitments, so it took a long time to be ready for a show.

SCS: How would you describe your band or your sound to someone who�s never heard or seen you?

Mat: Crappy 4 chord rock

Brady: I always have a big problem describing us to people. I guess i usually say we’re kind of garage rock with a big pixies influence with fucked up lyrics. If the person goes who are the pixies I tell them never mind…

Deejay: I think we sound like a bunch of people who don’t know how to play, working well together.

Jeff: John Irvin describes it best: “Suave lumberjack Rock.” We’ll try and entertain you as best we can.

SCS: How would you describe a Bear Eats Fish show? — If people come to see you live, what can they expect?

Brady: A very large man prancing about the stage singing about animals while the band makes a lot of noise.

Mat: Loud. Jeff is funny. The rest of us are dull and boring since we can’t play our instruments which nixes any type of rocking out on stage for fear of screwing up horribly.

Deejay: Well, live, we are a fruit cake of fun, over the top vocals, way to many hooks, and goofy break-downs. We don’t play well, but we play hard.

SCS:  What types of music and which musicians/groups influenced the band members?

Mat: I wish I could be influenced by other bands, however since I can’t play guitar, I just put my fingers on strings and make noise. I don’t know what the other members are influenced by.

Brady: Man there is a huge range of bands, obviously the pixies, nirvana, and grunge in general. I personally listened to a lot of punk music so that’s in there somewhere too. Bands like nofx, bad religion, less than jake. I suppose there is a touch of indie rock influence as well, saddle creek stuff, like cursive and death cab for cutie. I don’t know i just like making lots of loud noise.

Deejay: I kind of like The Dirt Bombs, and have borrowed a lot from Jeff’s drumming style.

SCS: I have to confess, I thought Thieving Winona was a lame name, so when you changed it to Bear Eats Fish, I was glad, but considering your other choice, The Colon Polyps, I think you still made the wrong decision. Where did the name Bear Eats fish come from, and does it mean anything in particular?

Mat: Thieving winona came from DJs obsession with Winona Ryder. He is in love with her. So we were teaseing DJ about her and how she’s a cleptomaniac, when somebody said, she’s thieving winona and we took that as a name. Bear eats fish came from after a practice we were all discussing how were were tired of the thieving winona band name and wanted to change it, so people were just tossing out band names and that was one of them. We narrowed it down to that one after a bit. I think Colon Polyps is a disgusting band name and refused to have it.

Jeff: I believe it came from the lips of Brady. It has come to mean alot to us as of late–what exactly, I am not sure.

Deejay: I have no idea what the hell our name means, and I still like Thieving Winoana much better.

SCS: When Jeff announced from the stage during your very first show that you were changing the name of the band, did you guys know he was going to do that, or did he just do that in public because once you do it in front of a room full of people, you kind of can�t go back on it?

Deejay: Jeff anounced it with out me knowing. The change of name was as new to me as it was to you.

Mat: He mentioned in passing, jokingly we all thought, that he was going to change our name. We didn’t know he was going to change it to Bear Eats Fish. Although I might be mistaken on the specifics, I don’t really remember. ask jeff.

Brady: I don’t remember to tell you the truth…i think we decided on it before hand.

SCS: How have you grown, musically and creatively, since the band first started?

Jeff: Yes.

Mat: um….I can play power chords a little better than when I started.

Brady: We all sort of know how to play our instruments now.

Deejay: Well, none of us knew how to play any of our instruments when we got started, and now we know how to fake it well. I think that is a great step in the right direction.

SCS: Who writes the songs, and how do they go from someone’s idea to a finished product?

Deejay: Brady writes all the songs but messing up, when we hear him make a mistake, we turn it into a new song, so basicaly they’re all writen like a 3rd grader coloring outside the lines.

Mat: Actually, We write the songs collectively. Brady and I have written most of the musical aspect of it, then Deejay and Jeff complete it with drums and vocals, respectively.

Brady: Yeah, I think it’s a 50/50 split between mat and I. He’ll come to practice with something and we’ll hammer it out. With me, i’ll be screwing around on the bass and both mat and DJ will shout at me to keep playing whatever i was playing and a song will form out of that. Then Jeff will sit and write lyrics while we’re working out how we want the song to go. Really i’m amazed every time we actually get a song worked out.

Jeff: The music is usually written before I get there, I just come up with lyrics and a melody.

SCS: Jeff, Where do you get inspiration from for your lyrics, and why don’t you tell our readers the story behind “Ouija Board In The Outhouse”

Jeff: I had a neighbor who lived about a mile down the road who worshiped the devil. He used to read the Satanic Bible and cut himself on the school bus. I remember going over to his house and he’d be playing with a Ouija board and listening to Rush. He was like 17 and I was 8. One day my brother and I found a Ouija Board in a land fill behind our house. We really didn’t know what it was, but it looked cool so we hung it up in our fort. One day our dad saw it and told us of the evil powers it possesed. Being the gung-ho do-gooders we were, my brother and I decided to burn it. We placed the Ouija in a wheelbarrow atop a bed of straw and and shot holes through it with our guns while it burned. Believe it or not, it kept coming back to haunt us–unharmed.

SCS: What was your most memorable live performance and what made it that?

Jeff: Scenefest 2 was definitely the must Un(re)memorable experience–thanks to Mr. Rempe and Mr. Clark (Dan and Ben made a point of getting Jeff all liquored up before the performance)

Mat: I’d have to say our first show, since we had practiced for over a year and it was the first time we played in front of an audience.

Brady: I would have to say our first show at the 9th St Basement. I was in the Hot carls briefly and the closest thing we ever got to a green room is that gross little room off the side of the stage at The Grove with that closet bathroom. We go to this place and they have a room with a big screen TV, couches, and beer. There was even a velvet rope to keep out the riff raff. Then when we actually got up to play it was great. I was screwing around getting my bass ready and i looked up and there were all these people just a few feet away. They all had this look of anticipation. We were all nervous as could be. Then we started playing and everything just seemed alright. All the people were smiling and getting in to it. We didn’t play our best but it felt great.

Deejay: Most memorable would have to be the first show. The fact that it actually went well and that people were intrested was quite a shock.

SCS: Most embarrassing moment in a live show?

Jeff: It’s all a little embarrassing for me.

Mat: Screwing up Science Killer after I started laughing uncontrollably during Jeff’s vocals… “and my tamborine says chiki-chiki-chiki-chiki”

Brady: Personally I think our whole Hallum performance was embarrassing, now let’s never mention it again…

Deejay: I can’t drum, thats hard to hide.

SCS: What do you like and dislike about the music scene in Lincoln?

Jeff: There are multitudes of very special people–this is good.
There doesn’t seem to be a lot of support/interest–this is bad

Mat: Like: people lying and saying that they like you after a show. Big ups for ego boosters. Dislike: elitist attitudes of a lot of bands. I hate bands that think they are great when they are simply crappy 4 chor….er,..next question.

Brady: I like how some bands are very supportive of one and other. It also seems like there is quite a bit in the opposite direction. Like SlamOmaha.com’s message boards. It always seems to me like there is a ton of trash talking about bands on there. I quit going there a long time ago though so maybe it’s different now.

SCS: No, it’s the same old shit over there. Who are some local bands or musicians that you admire or feel should be recognized?

Mat: I like Minutia Stew a lot. Mikes a musical genius. I am really amazed at some of the crazy stuff he thinks of. And of course Jeff Gustfson on drums and vocals. I haven’t seen a local drummer as good as he is and he has an great unique stage persona and performance.

Brady: I admire Rent Money Big, Suzy Dreamer, Minutia Stew, and the Zyklon Bees even though i like Caeaser the Greaser as a band name more than the Zyklon Bees. Keep an eye out for Sad Old Lady From the South.

Deejay: Jeff and Madison. My drums only steal from their table scraps.

SCS: I had gotten a letter from someone at UNL prior to the Hallam Benefit recommending I “preview” The Zyklon Bees music to make sure it wasn’t pro-nazi propaganda. I assured them it wasn’t. What’s in a name, If I beat someone to death with an umbrella, does it make the umbrella evil? should no band ever be called The Umbrellas because of it? Enough of my speechifying..what was the first album/CD each of you bought?

Jeff: Album: Nevrmind-Nirvana, CD: Doubt–Jesus Jones

Mat: The first album I ever bought was Hootie and the Blowfish. However, the first cd I ever received was Kris Kross because my grandma thought that was the “in” thing when she got me my first cd player for christmas. ah, grandmas…don’t you just love them.

Deejay: The Cars

Brady: I honestly don’t remember, probably nirvana or nofx or something similar like that. I remember the first cd i got was a gift from my aunt and uncle, it was Aerosmith: Big Ones. I think my mom took it for herself eventually, which is good because she probably appreciates it much more than i do.

SCS: Whose music are you listening to right now? — What other bands would you recommend people check out?

Brady: In my car stereo i have the new Beastie Boys Cd. At home i’m listening to The Flaming Lips: Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, Gomez: Split the Difference, and Matt Sharp’s self titled cd. I really recomend checking out Matt Sharp’s solo stuff. Really different then the Rentals or Weezer, but really really good.

Jeff: Tripping Daisy, Camper Van Beethoven, Yngvei Malmsteen

Deejay: Supergrass, Decemberists, and Fire On Thursday.

Mat: Right now I am listening to Hum, A Perfect Circle, Deftones, Pixies and Nine Inch Nails. I would recommend that people check out Deadsy, Superchunk, and 10,000 homo dj’s.

SCS: Amen on the Superchunk, I love them. What are your top five albums of all time.

Mat:
# The Fragile, Nine Inch Nails
# Doolittle, Pixies
# Around the Fur, Deftones
# Domestica, Cursive
# The Downward Spiral, Nine Inch Nails

Jeff:
# Jesus Hits Like the Atom Bomb–Tripping Daisy
# Whipped Cream–Herb Alpert and the Tijiuana Brass
# Key Lime Pie–Camper Van Beethoven
# The Lonely Bull–Herb Alpert and the Tijiuana Brass
# RAM–Paul and Linda

Brady:
# Beatles – The White Album, David Bowie: Space Oddity, Bad Religion: Suffer, Nine Inch Nails: The Fragile, Counting Crows: August and Everything After. It’s so hard to just pick 5. I think this list is really effected by my mood at the time as well.

SCS: What single song, in the entire history of music, do you most wish you’d written?

Mat: “Stars” by Hum

Jeff: All Her Favorite Fruit–Camper Van Beethoven

Brady: i have no idea…I’ll probably figure it out next month.

SCS:Are you planning on recording the rest of your songs that aren’t on the first E.P., because If I don’t have a studio version of “Wormcheck” there’s gonna be trouble!

Jeff: I think there’s a possibility

Brady: I think so, some band members want to go into a professional studio, while others think we should just do it in DJ’s studio.

Mat: Since Deejay is rich now, he has been boasting that he is going to pay for us to go through Presto Studios, however I don’t believe him. Maybe we can just use his “portable studio in a box”…..

SCS: So what’s the deal with the future of the band, Deejay is moving away, and rather than get a new drummer, Mat wants to let the band die? What’s up with that?

Jeff: That’s a very good question.

Mat: Oh so its all my fault eh? I’m being blamed for destroying Bear Eats Fish?

SCS: That’s the word around town

Mat: Ah well, that’s how it goes I guess. Seriously, it wouldn’t be the same if Deejay isn’t in the band. I’m not a big fan of replacing members and I don’t really want anyone else. Plus, I am going to be doing school full time as well as working as well as hopefully getting a film project off the ground this fall and I just wouldn’t have much time for practice, let alone shows. Anyways, I hate the band and all the members. I’m taking my songs and getting the hell out of here!

Brady: Yeah, It wouldn’t be the same without DJ. We’ve all known each other for so long there is just chemistry there. DJ really thinks he can make it back and forth from Colorado to practice twice a month. We’ll see how it goes, but i think mat and i are just both pessimists. We don’t think it’ll happen. Plus mat is starting school this fall. Between all of us working, the drive dj has to make, and schooling, it’s going to be real difficult to find a time to practice. Personally i think we shouldn’t kill the band, just let it go into hibernation until things are less hectic. Mat and i might try doing something different if this falls through. I also have another friend who wants to make music with me so we’ll see what happens

Deejay: Death is a part of life, you’ll die, i’ll die, she’ll die, they’ll die. It sucks just like a chicken scratched johnson.

SCS: Anything else you want to share with our readers?

Mat: Never trust Greeks bearing gifts…..

Brady: It’s been fun and i’m still in shock that anyone actually likes the noise we make. Thanks to everyone who has supported us and shown up to our shows.

Deejay: T.V. is the devil. Colorado is great, and drinking is better. Good money for doing nothing is greater than any driving force in the western part of your life, and of course don’t forget to wash behind your ears!

Bear Eats Fish was a band originally called Thieving Winona (this demo was actually recorded when we were still named that). It consisted of Deejay on drums, Brady on bass, myself on guitar, and Jefferson Gustav (the janitor ghost in TGH, Leon in OD) on vocals. The novelty of the band was that all of us were playing instruments we’d never played before with Jefferson never having done any lead singing. We had a decent following in our heyday, thanks to our lead singer who has amazing stage presence. Anyway, we recorded a short five song demo in the basement of Deejay’s house. All vocals are written and performed by Jefferson Gustav and all music was written by various band members. I present it here, in full, for the DL audience. Convince us to get back together

1. Chickenscratch Johnson: The first song for the band that I ever wrote. I remember our first practice and I started playing this, Brady followed along on bass, and Deejay hammered out some drums. This song actually came together pretty well. I had most of it written before we started practicing. I remember working on the bridge a bit. This became a staple and opened all of our shows. It’s rockin’ and let Jefferson go crazy on stage.
2. Science Killer: I just started playing the main hook of this song during practice and what was usually the case, Deejay started bobbing his head dramatically while making a ridiculous face. Science Killer was born. I wrote all of it except for the breakdown, which was Deejay’s idea. And it was a good idea, because the breakdown was one of the most popular components of our live show. Deejay added in the weird hissy static in the recording because he thought it sounded cool.
3. Three Times: This was a Brady song. He came up with the main bass hook and I played some really awful 2-note guitar over the top. I think Deejay and I came up with the bridge. I don’t have many memories of this song.
4. Prescription Anti-Gravity: Probably my favorite recording on the demo (though not my favorite BEF song). I loved the whistling that Deejay and Jeff added to it.  This is  the first, and only, song I ever did a “guitar solo” for.  And once you listen, you’ll know why. I wrote everything except Deejay added the bridge when the vocals say “She floats around the house all day on prescription anti-gravity”, and I really like how that little difference changes the song. One of the trademarks of BEF was that I could never come up with a decent bridge. The bridge was basically the way that we all got to work on the songs together, so it wasn’t just one of us coming in and writing the whole thing.
5. Sweet and Low: Another cool thing about BEF was that we all were polar opposites when it came to musical taste and preference. So this song sounds completely out of character with the rest of the demo. This was my attempt at not “sounding punk” because I hated punk. Unfortunately, all I knew how to play was four chord pop punk This was supposed to be some harder edged rock song, if I remember correctly. I still like the song, I just hate how it was recorded and I’m not too keen on Jefferson’s vocals on this. This was always a song he had trouble writing lyrics for and I think the vocal style changed quite a bit during the live performances of this song. In any event, this song led to “Wormcheck”, which was easily our most popular tune, and everyone’s favorite. So “Sweet and Low” has that going for it, I guess

So there you have it, the original Bear Eats Fish demo. Ultimately, Deejay and I would leave the band and the remaining members would form Awesome Dirtbike. However, I think all of us have a special place in our hearts for those few months when the band consisted of four guys who didn’t know how to play their instruments and didn’t know how to write songs. We just winged it, played whatever came out of the amplifiers and had a lot of fun doing so.

There is only one other known Bear Eats Fish recording in existence, that I know of, anyway. Actually, there are two. One of them is a disc of 7 initial demos that we recorded about a week after we initially formed and which contains 2 songs that we never played at all when Jefferson joined the band as lead singer (None of us could sing and so we spent a few months practicing material until we convinced Mr. Gustav to sing for us). I have this disc and let me tell you, it’s rough. Like, just press record and see what happens, rough. Still, it’s kind of interesting to hear two complete songs that were never played at any BEF practice or gig.

The other is a 9 song live recording from Scenefest, a local festival that was recorded on a soundboard. The recording isn’t great, but if there is enough interest from DL listeners, I’ll post it. On top of the five songs from the demo, we play our metal song, Alphabet Soup, which everybody in the band hated except for Jefferson. He loved it for some reason. Diggin’ a Foxhole was my second favorite song. We recorded it around the same time as Wormcheck and it seemed we were really hitting our songwriting stride, so to speak. Ultra Big Phil which was one of our hardest rocking tunes and High School Rockout, which is our ultimate punk song. Unfortunately, we needed two guitar players to play it and we didn’t have any guitar players in the band, because I don’t call what I did guitar playing

All demo songs recorded in the Fall of 2003