Keith Brown - vocals & guitar
Tim Cullen - guitar & vocals
Mick Flowers - drums
Marko Desantis - bass
Influences
Just for starters:David Bowie, Roxy Music, The Replacements and Paul Westerberg, Tom Waits, Celebrity Skin, The Pixies, The Jayhawks, Wilco, Fountains of Wayne, Dinosaur Jr., Husker Du, Soul Asylum, The Psychedelic Furs, Weezer, Nirvana, Pearl Jam, T-Rex, Deep Purple, The Sparks, Donovan, Andy Prieboy, Tiny Tim, Sonic Youth, Afghan Wigs,New York Dolls, The Velvet Underground, Jason Faulkner, Cheap Trick, to be continued.........
On November 7, 1995, Keith Brown was killed in a tragic car accident, devastating all who loved him and his music. This site is not maintained by the band. It was created by family and friends to keep the memory of Keith and Popsicko alive.
Bio from Popsicko.com:
Keith Brown-guitars/vocals Tim Cullen-guitars Marko Desantis-bass Mick Flowers-drums Combining the knotty, bass-driven rhythms of Southern California punk with the poetic fervor of early Cheap Trick sounds like an audacious idea. What's amazing is that Popsicko pull it off with charm and panache. Wait a minute, who ever heard of a punk band with panache? For Popsicko, that's an easy enchantment to deliver. The Santa Barbara-based group offers a heavy, punchy sound that is fashioned from the interplay between the group's members, a chemistry refined over four years time with surprising melodic resilience.
Their debut CD, Off To A Bad Start is a hard-charging collection of song sketches and sonic experiments that eloquently expresses singer Keith Brown's restless spirit. Yet ironically, the album's title now describes two unlucky events in the band's history. First, was Popsicko's great score of getting the chance to open up for the wily Meat Puppets; too bad the show date ended up being the day after the LA Riots broke out in 1992 (needless to say, attendence was hardly what they'd expected.) Then last year, right after the group signed to Smart Recordings and released Off To A Bad Start, Brown was killed tragically. Now the record is a thrilling legacy to the propulsive punk-pop project led by this talented singer.
Formerly the lead vocalist of Pennywise, Keith Brown left that outrageous punk band he was a founding member of as a teen and relocated from the South Bay to Santa Barbara to attend college in 1991. There he hooked up with bassist Marko Desantis and the two started forming a most unusual band conglomerate--The Cardboard Superstars--something like an early Red Kross with lots of Sparks and David Bowie influences sprinkled throughout their young pop songs. Later they transformed into Popsicko, with guitarist Tim Cullen adding searing melody to this strange arsenal of tunes, and drummer Mick Flowers' brutally swinging beats grounding them with a powerful punch.
The intense results of this musical mixture are now showcased on Off To A Bad Start with splendid momentum. Popsicko has managed to forge a new style from the raw material they loved during their youthful follies. And it's this distinctive way of making new pop music, eliminating the conformity of the mainstream and the predictability of plain punk, that gives Popsicko a strident edge.
well it is good to see this page. i remember those days in sb and when my friends a i would skate downtown (state street) to see the shows on the weekends (that cool time before it all was shut down). it is not like that anymore and has not been for awhile now. i remember popsicko and kieth very well and to this day his sister sabrina is one of my closest and dearest friends. i don't want to talk about that "day" but it changed my life too because i was so close to sabrina and her family.
i loved watching popsicko play, they were so fun to watch even though i was not even close to old enough to get into the bars, my friends and i would watch them though the windows in between bombing the parking garages on our skate boards (when you could still do that too). my friends started the livingroom shortly after that and i know kieth would have liked to play there as well.
it is great to see he still lives on and i will never forget him! the short time i knew him he was always so nice to me and told me to always keep playing my drums, i still do today.
keep it up and it was good to listen to some of those songs again!
I miss the old Santa Barbara scene! Be sure and check out the new Popsicko images me and the Mel have been adding to this site. These songs have aged well; we were a good band, but time has revealed Keith to be the genius songwriter we all knew in our hearts he undeniably was. Tell all your friends to add Popsicko to their respective MySpaces; let's keep it alive in spirit! much love, Marko
Defintely a case of gone but not forgotten...To me Keith was not only a key player in a once stong and vibrant music scene here in S.B., but a thoughtful, generous and charismatic man who I am proud to have called my friend.
How's about a little "I Don't Need You"??? That song kicks ASS!!!
Also - what about a "Glitterbug" and/or "The Wonderfuls" site...and about a million other bands that Keith was involved with (or started)???
And, possibly, a picture of Keith's mirror-plated Iceman???
Keith, I miss you terribly! I cannot believe in a few weeks I will be in your sister, Sabrina's wedding, I will be thinking of you all day knowing somehow, someway you must be somewhere looking down on her on her big day!
