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GLOOP NOX AND THE STIK PEOPLE
CONTINUING WHERE THE BEATLES LEFT OFF...
In 1973 I attended Lawrenceville School, a boys' prep school in central New Jersey, where I met Jim Nevius. Jim had played drums and electric bass in bands but was now playing electric guitar and singing in his band, Gloop Nox and the Stik People, which rehearsed in the basement of his family's home in Yardley, Pennsylvania. I had started playing guitar several years earlier and was anxious to join a band. Jim casually invited me to audition. I waited weeks for him to call but didn't hear from him, so I called him and he invited me to a rehearsal. I took a bus from Princeton to Trenton, walked across the bridge over the Delaware River to Morrisville, Pennsylvania, carrying my Fender Stratocaster, auditioned for the band, and was invited to join.
At that time the band consisted of Jim Nevius, Marc Baldwin on electric Farfisa organ and bass, Darrel DiLiberto on electric bass and congas, Chris Leadem on drums, Michael Osborn on drums, and me on electric guitar. Freddy Reed later joined on electric mandolin and electric guitar. We rehearsed almost every weekend, playing a few tunes such as UNTOLD VISION, BEER DRINKING WOMEN, MISTER MUCUS PUKES AGAIN, STEIBENESH DENTURES, ELDERLY TOADS AT WAR, and POWERLINES ACROSS THE UNITED STATES over and over and over again because we didn't think to invent more new songs to play.
Our music could be described as progressive rock leavened with juvenile humor. We performed a “milk commercial” to musical accompaniment in which I spat out milk as did Danny Thomas in his unfunny TV shticks. We played at a couple of high school dances, but mostly incessantly rehearsed each weekend in Jim's basement. On stage at our performances we set up parts of mannequins and a gnarly prop tree for displaying gloves from Jim's dad's department store in Trenton.
We performed at a Pennsbury High School talent contest where we lost out to a teen jazz combo. Darrel then publicly scolded the jazz band, yelling at them from the stage that they sucked and that we should have won the stupid talent contest. Pathetic!
I printed up business cards for the band featuring an atomic symbol of electrons in elliptical orbits around an atomic nucleus and a wood engraving-style depiction of a sphinx and a pyramid beneath a starry sky. To get jobs for the band I naively sent these solitary business cards (and nothing else!) to various schools in the area in envelopes addressed to “Social Events Committee” with the school name and address. Amazingly, no one ever called us in response to this clever marketing ploy.
We nabbed a chance to perform at an Arp Synthesizer
sponsored talent contest at the Tower Theater in Philadelphia in April 1975. I submitted a reel tape demo sampler of our band rehearsals which resulted in our invite. Bluesman James Cotton and Roger Powell from Todd Rundgren's band were among the judges. Alas, our luck fared as well as at the talent contest at Pennsbury. Darrel didn't yell at anyone this time, though.
We performed at a couple of avant-garde artsy events in Trenton sponsored by Dennis Bathory-Kitsz's Trans/Media artist's collective. They were worlds away from the crappy high school dances and talent shows we ruined.
Later incarnations of the band variously included Jerry Coll on drums, Freddy Reed on electric bass, Mike Barnaba on Fender Rhodes electric piano and Minimoog synthesizer, Ted Riskin on Minimoog synthesizer and trombone, John Olla on drums, and Bob Sandor on electric bass. Jimmy Weed played electric piano and a Hammond B-3 organ with a humongous, heavy, wooden Leslie amplifier. We stupidly dragged the Hammond B-3 Organ and the heavy Leslie to a Charles Boehm Middle School Autumn Prom at which, halfway through performing, we were kicked out without pay for our obnoxious antics.
After we graduated high school, the original band line-up spontaneously disintegrated. Michael Osborn went on to tour with 50's teen stars Danny and The Juniors, dated Madonna once before she became mega-famous, and drummed on records with Holly and the Italians, Marshall Crenshaw, and The Rockats. He now works at Apple as a graphic designer. Marc Baldwin got married, had kids, ran a pool cleaning service, then mysteriously disappeared. Darrel DiLiberto played percussion on an album by a Parliament-Funkadelic spin-off band and likewise disappeared. Chris Leadem, struggling with mental health issues for years, committed suicide with a gun in Englewood, Colorado in 2010.
In 1976 Jim Nevius and I, still living at home with our parents and working at crap jobs, formed a Top 40/Disco band I named 'Zygote'. This time the business card featured a farmer on a tractor. Bob Sandor joined on bass, Mike Barnaba played keyboards, and John Olla played drums. We played once at the Shamrock Inn on Route 33 in Hamilton, New Jersey, but were kicked out mid-way through the gig because someone snitched to Barb, the bar owner, that Bob was only 16.
In the early 1980's, Freddy Reed, Jim Nevius, and Scott Simon performed in the promising New York City club band Neighbors and Allies whose exciting promise never quite panned out. Scott Simon went on to join seminal synth dance hit band Our Daughters Wedding whose promise was better fulfilled.
After decades of crawling through life's vicissitudes, Jim Nevius and I decided to reform Gloop Nox and the Stik People in August 2011 in New Jersey to record our songs JUST FOR FUN. We enlisted the services of supreme bassist Bob Sandor and seasoned drummer Ken Lawrence who have gigged in multiple bands and honed their musical skills for ages in the Delaware Valley. They entered into the project with a great “can do” attitude and quickly learned the songs. We also enlisted the services of shredding guitarist Paula Cohen of New York City.
Scott Simon added keyboards to the tracks he produced and engineered at his studio on his horse farm in the lovely rural haven of Locktown, New Jersey.
Here are those songs for your listening pleasure.
---John Trubee, Santa Rosa, California August 11, 2014