Guitarist/ Vocalist Ralph Spight has spent twenty-five plus years traversing the world playing a tight brew of kinetic punk with his band Victims Family and it’s offshoots Saturn’s Flea Collar and Hellworms. The Northern California trio put out numerous albums (six on the Alternative Tentacles label) and toured repeatedly through the US and Europe and garnered a rabid cult following worldwide.
When Victims Family split in 2002 after the departure of David Gleza, Ralph put together a record with an eclectic bunch of Bay Area musicians which became the basis for “The Freak Accident” (Alternative Tentacles Records, 2004), a stylistic rollercoaster ride through punk, pop, latin surf, blues, piano ballads and more. Assembling a live band for this material proved difficult but the live shows began to include freakish improvisational deconstructions of the albums diverse tracks and the band toured the Northwestern United States and played Alternative Tentacles 2006 South by Southwest showcase to an enthusiastic response.
Parting ways with several members of the group Ralph and drummer Mike Branum (Hell’s Kitchen, Capitol Punishment) pressed on recruiting their old Plainfield teammate Kimo Ball to do hold down bass duties and returned to Ralph’s more noisy math punk direction.
The resulting sophomore effort “Tissue Sample” (out now, on their own Nerve Center Recordings label) is a tight sinewy set of eleven brash, satirical rock songs that take on heavyweight topics such as, the teaching of evolution (we’re for it), torture (we’re against it), suicide, cross-dressing, hero worship, consumerism, human cloning, unrequited love, religious fanaticism and the relative merits of various poisonous substances. Musically the band is tight as a drum with giant grooves, a crushing bass tone and moments ranging from raging hardcore to shimmering beauty to garagey blues.
In the fall of 2007 the band toured Europe opening for Canadian legends No Means No and played regional shows around the Pacific Northwest in support of the album.The band is currently on indefinite hiatus due to Big Mike’s joining the Hanson Brothers and moving to Germany and Ralph and Kimo being busy providing the twin guitar attack for Jello Biafra and the Guantanamo School of Medicine, but a four song EP is in the works which we hope to release in early 2011. Stay tuned.
“Tissue Sample” is available on CD direct from thefreakaccident.com, CD Baby.com and in fine stores everywhere. The album is distributed in Europe through De Konkurrent, is available on vinyl on our web site as well as gatetohell.net. and is downloadable through iTunes and other internet sites.
Ralph Spight – Vocals, Guitar, Keyboards
Kimo Ball – Bass,Noises
Biggus Mikus – Drums
Discography-
The Freak Accident – S/T (Alternative Tentacles Records) 2004
“Tissue Sample” (Nerve Center Recordings, 2007)
next: Triclops!