Shiny Beast started in Raleigh North Carolina in the summer of 1991 after the demise of a band that guitarist David Sullivan and myself were involved in for the previous year and a half, called Willard. I remember that David had come to my apartment one day to show me all of these cool ideas that could have saved Willard but alas it was too late. We found a bass player in the form of one Chicago area resident named Mike Meadows. Mike was a kickass drummer that recently re-located down here to play in his childhood friend Andy Freeburn’s band, Erectus Monotone. So we rehearsed a lot and settled on this name from an old Captain Beefheart record that David liked. Since none of us wanted to sing, we asked Mike Carden of the band Garbageman to sing a few songs, which he did. His caterwauling fit in nicely. After a few shows with Mike, we recorded the first demo. Five of these songs ended up coming out on Tom Flynn’s BONER RECORDS as a cd-5 and a single. It was too bad that SHINY BEAST never recorded anything that sounded anywhere as good as this stuff. This is why we never did a follow up with Tom.
Afterwards, Mike had to leave our band due to his situation with Erectus Monotone, which is a story I don’t want to get into. Lets just say that even though Mike was an amazing musician, personality wise it never would have worked. Kim Walker ended up teaching herself how to play bass in literally a month, which was pretty amazing to behold. She joined the band and this is the lineup that most people saw if they ever in fact did see us, with the exception of Mike Carden leaving or us kicking him out, I don’t remember what happened. We never found anyone to replace him, so we just stayed instrumental out of laziness, probably. We recorded lots of demos and four tracks that no one ever heard because either they weren’t great or because we were lazy or because we didn’t bootlick the right people that could help us out. We tried, though. People seemed to like us around the Triangle area but it seemed to be more of a “musicians” band meaning that we had heard a lot of nice stuff from people in other bands in the area, big and small. We were also lumped in with the whole MATH ROCK thing, which was pretty accurate I guess. We liked stuff like the Melvins, anything Pen Rollings played on and a bunch of other stuff.
Eventually towards the end of our existence, we were able to record some more music for a split album with us on one side and our friends Regraped on the other. Regraped were a mighty two bass driven power trio that we played with millions of times. The record came out on current Birds Of Avalon members Cheetie Kumar and Paul Siler’s label, BLAST O PLATTER records. Sure it sounded like shit, but that is no ones fault but the bands. We eventually called it a day and did a “last show” here in Raleigh that was captured on tape. Mike Carden even sang on a few songs. And that was all she wrote, kids. God bless and Amen.
been listening to the beast alot this week- it makes me smile for some weird reason. i am picturing a soundtrack for a middle of the night bikeride/chase strangely? the damage has been done..........
What’s up? Thanks for being in touch with us!!! I just wanted to let you know that the new CONFESSOR album is now out!! Available at the CONFESSOR website or at your local record store. Check out the new video for, “Wig Stand” AND a new clip from the upcoming DVD, “CONFESSOR Live In Norway” at the CONFESSOR website by clicking on the banner below.
As always, we truly appreciate your support!!!!!
PS. Check out Scott ’ s personal site showcasing some of his abstract artwork by clicking the small thumb below the CONFESSOR banner.
