The Feelies: Stan Demeski, Dave Weckerman, Brenda Sauter, Glenn Mercer, Bill Million.
A few years ago, on our way to Philadelphia, my wife and I got stuck in New Jersey when our rental car crapped out on us. In going a bit out of our way to get a replacement, I saw signs for a town called Haledon.
This left me somewhat geographically starstruck, as this was where, in 1976, some nerdy young guys started a band named after a form of entertainment imagined by Aldous Huxley: having progressed from movies to talkies, the Brave New World would have Feelies.
“Call us nerds again and I’ll stick my dog on you!” (L to R: Vinny DeNunzio, Bill Million, Glenn Mercer, and Keith DeNunzio, aka Keith Clayton)
Glenn Mercer and Bill Million hit the New York City circuit in 1977 with brothers Vinny and Keith DeNunzio (aka Keith Clayton) on drums and bass, respectively. The impression that the band made was so immediate that the Village Voice anointed them “the best underground band in New York.” This was no small feat in field congested with a plethora of punk, new wave, and post-punk groups.
In 1978, the line-up that would soon enter the studio was in place: Mercer, Million, Clayton, and drummer Anton Fier. This quartet recorded the single “Fa Cé-La” in 1979 on the British label Rough Trade. With major American labels wary of signing them, The Feelies’ debut album Crazy Rhythms appeared on the independent British label Stiff in 1980.
Although people who reviewed music for a living wrote adoringly about the album in their assorted publications, this acclaim failed to result in a subsequent rushing of money to record shops by the music-buying public.
(The review of Crazy Rhythms that I posted on Amazon.com several years ago is here.)
Stiff wasn’t too keen on the band’s disinterest in recording a hit single, and The Feelies kind of evaporated without actually breaking up.
The Crazy Rhythms quartet, in their full, pre-ironic hipster glory. (L to R: Anton Fier, Bill Million, Glenn Mercer, Keith Clayton)
Anton Fier formed a band called The Golden Palominos and later joined Pere Ubu. Mercer and Million worked on the soundtrack to the 1982 movie Smithereens and played in Jersey-based bands such as The Trypes and Yung Wu, whose lead singer and songwriter was Dave Weckerman and that also included the DeNunzio brothers.
Mercer and Million rekindled The Feelies in 1983. This time, the line-up included Weckerman and two members of The Trypes, bassist Brenda Sauter and second percussionist Stan Demeski. This assemblage recorded 1986’s The Good Earth. The record’s warm, rustic, and mostly acoustic feel was at least in part due to the album’s co-producer, R.E.M. guitarist and Feelies fan Peter Buck.
That same year, The Feelies played a high school reunion band in the Jonathan Demme movie Something Wild. In between bits of songs from Crazy Rhythms, the band performs David Bowie’s “Fame,” on which Weckerman somehow manages to make a somewhat perfunctory vocal delivery sound inspired.
The band got some major-label love from A&M for 1988’s Only Life and 1991′s Time For Witness, albums that included covers of The Velvet Underground’s “What Goes On” and “Real Cool Time” by The Stooges, respectively.
Only Life and Time for a Witness were equally strong efforts that were only slightly weaker than Crazy Rhythms and The Good Earth. But as Glenn Mercer told DigBoston‘s Ryan Bray in 2012, being on A&M didn’t suit The Feelies: “We got steered in a certain direction and got talked into things that were out of our control. And we didn’t operate too well that way.”
On July 5, 1991, The Feelies played their last show together (for quite a while, at least) at Maxwell’s Tavern in Hoboken, New Jersey. Bill Million decided to pack up his family and move to Florida, which he apparently decided was none of his (former) bandmates’ business.
In 2011, Million explained his sudden departure from the band: “There seemed a sameness about what we were doing. We were playing a lot more than was suitable to all of us, and it literally became a grind. I found myself looking down at a set list during a show and counting how many songs we had left … But there were also some personal things going on … [M]y sister, who I was very close with, was dying of cancer, so I was dealing with that. And my parents were down in Florida, and we were dealing with them long distance.”
While Million let his guitars fall out of tune and collect dust as he worked in computer security for Disney, the other Feelies fanned out in other musical directions.
Mercer and Weckerman recorded three albums in the band Wake Ooloo. Brenda Sauter founded Wild Carnation with her husband Richard Barnes in 1992. Finally, Stan Demeski teamed up with ex-Galaxie 500 singer/guitarist Dean Wareham in Luna, which turned out to be the most high-profile group of all Feelies members’ non-Feelies pursuits. (Four Feelies were members of The Trypes and Speed the Plough between 1982 and 1991.)
In the 90s and 00s, The Feelies remained highly influential on countless indie and alternative bands’ music—the beginning of “Untitled” by Interpol is borderline plagiarism—and on an album cover by one band in particular.
Crazy Rhythms (1980)
Still, all of the praise that I and others heap upon the band for its originality should not subtract from the fact that the band itself was proudly inspired by many other other artists. In addition to the aforementioned Velvets and Stooges, their albums include covers of songs by The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Jonathan Richman & the Modern Lovers, and Neil Young. In recent concerts, they have also performed Feelies-ized versions of Patti Smith, Wire, R.E.M., Love Tractor, and The Doors.
So how was it that, in 2008, a band that had not recorded any new material together since a comparatively competent guy by the name of George Bush was in office began to emerge from beneath the surface?
It was a slow and not always sure process. In 2005, the song “Let’s Go” from The Good Earth appeared in the Noah Baumbach-directed, Wes Anderson-produced film The Squid and the Whale. (Ah hah…another Jeff Daniels connection!) Two years later, the same song appeared in a Volvo commercial.
Glenn Mercer also released Wheels In Motion, his first solo album, on Pravda Records in 2007. Listed among the credits on the record are Weckerman, Sauter, Demeski, Fier, and Vinny DeNunzio.
Mercer’s solo effort afforded me my first chance to see several of the Feelies perform live, but not under that moniker. Instead, Glenn Mercer did a show at Johnny D’s in Somerville with Wild Carnation as the opening act. DeNunzio played with Mercer and Weckerman, if memory serves me correctly, played with Mercer and Wild Carnation.
So it was that on Saturday, May 17, 2007, I met, spoke to, and got autographs from three members of The Feelies and a guy who had been in the band before it had committed anything to tape. Dave Weckerman mentioned something about Anton Fier still owing him five bucks. Brenda Sauter hinted at the possibility of a Feelies reunion.
And then…well, nothing really. Enough time passed for me to think that nothing was gonna happen. But oh, me of little faith! Early in the summer of 2008, long-time admirers Sonic Youth invited The Feelies to open for them at the River To River Festival in New York City on July 4th. To warm up, the post-1983 line-up played three consecutive nights at one of its old Jersey haunts, Maxwell’s. “Reborn for the Fourth of July,” proclaimed a New York Times headline.
After that, everything began to fall into place, even when it took several months to do so. I saw them at The Roxy—now Royale Boston—on October 22, 2008.
On September 8, 2009, Bar/None Records reissued Crazy Rhythms and The Good Earth on CD and vinyl. As the band continued to play at least half a dozen shows per year, usually no farther south than D.C. and no farther west than Philly, one question remained: Will there be a new album?
The release of Here Before—also on Bar/None—on April 12, 2011, answered that question. At long last, Feelies fans had 13 new songs to sink their ears into. For all I knew, The Feelies recorded the album before they actually split and just waited two decades to release it. Each and every one of the band’s trademarks was firmly in place within the opening track’s first 30 seconds. Mercer’s voice had not changed one whit.
Here Before proved an eternal truth about The Feelies: They may not make very many albums, but they never make a bad one. Given the more-or-less equal treatment that the band affords each release in compiling setlists, The Feelies are apparently as aware of this fact as anyone is.
So will there be yet another record? To again quote Glenn Mercer, “Probably … But we usually time some time in between records.”
Really, Glenn…Really?
THE FEELIES. SINCLAIR, 52 CHURCH STREET, CAMBRIDGE. FRI. 5.30.14. DOORS 8PM, SHOW 9PM/18+/$20 ADVANCE, $22 DAY OF SHOW.
