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Fear (band)

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This article is about the band. For the emotion, see fear.

Fear is a punk rock band from Los Angeles, California that formed in 1977 and is still a band today. The band started out as part of the early California punk rock scene, and gained national prominence after an infamous 1981 performance on Saturday Night Live. Throughout their history the band has included such notable members as Flea and Chuck Biscuits.

History

Early Years

Fear formed in 1977 with Lee Ving and Derf Scratch searching for a drummer and eventually a guitarist. They received notoriety for their stage presence and eventually signed a recording deal with Slash Records. As part of the Los Angeles punk scene, the band was featured in Penelope Spheeris' 1980 documentary, The Decline of Western Civilization. The film showed them angering members of the audience with personal attacks and offbeat humor. Singer Lee Ving asked one member of the audience "This is 1980—can't you afford a fucking haircut?" The bass player Derf Scratch tells the joke: Q:"Why do girls have their two holes so close together?" A:"So you can carry them like a six-pack!" The cult classic movie included other well known acts like Black Flag, X, and The Germs.

Spheeris met Ving and drummer Spit Stix when they were hanging handbills on telephone poles. After talking with the two, she abruptly asked if they wanted to be in her film. The band achieved notoriety through the movie and even attracted attention from actor John Belushi while being an unsigned act. The mixture of humor and music demonstrated in the film gave the band a unique personality, which seemed to lack in the later years with several member changes.

The Saturday Night Live affair

Their most famous performance was on the 1981 Halloween episode of Saturday Night Live hosted by Donald Pleasence. The band was booked at the insistence of John Belushi, who was a huge fan. Belushi initially offered them the soundtrack for his major motion picture Neighbors. The movie studio eventually forced Fear off the project and to make up for it Belushi got them the spot on SNL. Among the politically incorrect nature of Fear's songs, the band's appearance included a coterie of dancers, several of whom had been contacted for the event by both Penelope Spheeris (another avid Fear booster) and Henry Rollins (contrary to popular belief, was not in attendance); among them were Belushi, Ian MacKaye of Minor Threat (and later Fugazi), Harley Flanagan and John Joseph of The Cro-mags, and John Brannon of Negative Approach, causing destruction of the set. During rehearsals the director wanted to prevent the dancers from participating, so Belushi offered to be in the episode (it had been a few years since he left SNL) if the dancers were allowed to stay. The end result was the shortening of Fear's appearance on TV. The band first performed "I Don't Care About You". The band started their second performance by saying, "It's great to be in New Jersey", to which the audience booed (the show was filmed in New York). Fear then played "Beef Bologna", "New York's Alright If You Like Saxophones", and started to play "Let's Have a War" when the audio and video of the telecast faded into commercial.

New Line-ups

After the band's 1982 debut release "The Record," Ving fired long time friend and bass player Derf and replaced him with Flea (who later joined the Red Hot Chili Peppers). Next to leave was guitarist Philo "The Foot" Cramer and drummer Spit Stix after the band's 1985 effort "More Beer." The two members cited financial disputes with Lee Ving and his attempt at acting as well as personality conflicts with Ving's "right wing" beliefs. With Fear sidelined, Ving continued his acting career in the late 1980s. Eventually, Fear completed two more recordings in the 1990s, "Have Another Beer With Fear" in 1995 and "American Beer" in 2000. While the most recent albums aim to respark the magic on "The Record," without the original members they did not achieve the success Ving hoped. The band currently performs and plays their classic songs, but Ving is the only original member. Philo Cramer has started a new band, Fighting Cocks, in 2004.

In a 2004 interview with former drummer Spit Stix, it was mentioned he would participate in a Fear reunion tour if Philo was part of it. He noted, "Well, Philo and I together can overpower Lee, you know? We can be enough.... Because it used to be Philo, me and Derf too in the beginning." Stix further stated that Philo, who has a degree in physics, is politically far left and balances out Lee's far right philosophy. Without this balance, Lee's political point of view is too overwhelming to deal with on the road for a reunion tour. Fear was recently added to play several Southern California stops on the 2008 Vans Warped Tour.

It was John Belushi, who discovered the band Fear and brought them to Cherokee Studios to record songs for the soundtrack of a major motion picture he and Dan Aykroyd were starring in called, "Neighbors." Music producing partners Steve Cropper and Bruce Robb (producer) remember recording the memorable band's music, but nobody knows exactly what happened with the final soundtrack which was ultimately replaced in the film by very traditional movie score. "How can I describe what it was like recording in the early days of punk? We had decided to track the song selection in order, and were on track 4 before the band realized they were all using different set lists. The irony is we couldn't tell," said music producer and Cherokee owner Robb.

Personnel timeline 1976-2007

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Period = from:1976 till:2007 ScaleMajor = unit:year increment:1 start:1977.0 gridcolor:grid1

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 width:25 fontsize:L align:left anchor:from textcolor:black fontsize:S mark:(line,white) width:25 shift:(5,-5)

 bar:Vocals color:red
   from:1976 till:1993.5 text:"Lee Ving"
   from:1995 till:2007 text:"Lee Ving"

 bar:Guitar color:blue
   from:1977 till:1978 text:"Burt Good"
   from:1978 till:1987 text:"Philo Cramer" shift:(5,3)
   from:1991 till:1993 text:"Philo Cramer"
   from:1995 till:1997 text:"Sean Cruse"
   from:1997 till:2007 text:"Richard Presley" shift:(5,3)

 bar:Bass color:green
   from:1976.5 till:1982.8 text:"Derf Scratch"
   from:1982.9 till:1983.7 text:"Eric 'Kitabu' Feldman" shift:(5,3)
   from:1983.7 till:1984 text:"Flea"
   from:1984 till:1987 text:"Lorenzo Buhne" shift:(5,-13)
   from:1991 till:1993 text:"Will MacGregor"
   from:1995 till:1997 text:"Scott Thunes" shift:(5,3)
   from:1997 till:2007 text:"Mondo Lopez"

 bar:Drums color:black textcolor:white
   from:1977 till:1978 text:"Johnny Backbeat" shift:(5,3)
   from:1978 till:1987 text:"Spit Stix"
   from:1991 till:1993 text: "Spit Stix" shift:(5,3)
   from:1995 till:2007 text: "Andrew Jamiez"

Discography

Albums

7" Singles

Compilations

Covers of Fear

In popular culture

The song "Beef Bologna" makes an appearance in the 1987 movie thriller Summer Camp Nightmare. A band performs it in the camp talent show, angering the straitlaced camp director played by Chuck Connors.

References

FEAR's song "I Love Living In The City" was used in Tony Hawk's Underground 2 Video Game

External links



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Last updated on Wednesday July 23, 2008 at 12:03:02 PDT (GMT -0700)
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