THE HISTORY OF THE FISH - page 2

Hagan and Litwack head off to college at the University of Pennsylvania.
 
Litwack begins experimenting with Guitar and Squeeze Box duets, using a series of studio guitar players.

Mike meets piano man Lewis Fains and drummer Lee Wilder (a.k.a. "the brothers") in the faculty dining room.  Their shared fondness for Motown, Rudy Ray Moore, and white women convince them to start a band. Their first gig is for a free lunch in the very same faculty dining room, instantly catapulting them into the ranks of "professional" musicians.

Bradley joins a new band, Weasel & the PeaveyTones. Rather than suffering from artistic differences, the band actually suffered from artistic similarities - primarily in the form of "no artistic ability whatsoever". 

The band never formally broke up, it simply stopped going to its own practices.
 
Bradley vows "no more lame-ass bands!", to no one in particular.

Through their common love of Foosball, an arcane sport virtually unknown in the Northeast, John & Mark meet Dan Kirchheimer, a stellar defenseman.

To 'whiten-up' the sound of his new band, Mike convinces former Breakfast of Champions rockers Steve Hayick (guitar) and Bob Welsh (bass) to join up. The resultant racially diverse (and controversial, for the time) group was christened The Shades of Grey.

Bradley heads off to Drexel University, where he embarks on a lengthy solo career.

The Shades embark on a ten-year odyssey, playing weddings, ski banquets, and the occasional school dance.  During this ten year period, the band rehearses twice.

"The Master of Disaster" (Litwack) and "The White Stuff" (Hagan) team up and enter Penn's 1982 Foosball Tournament. Mark's dynamic, determined, and powerful play style combined with John's annoying trash talk and only high-percentage shot (the stuff), net them victory and their first Foosball Championship.

Hagan and Kirchheimer become partners on a senior project. It quickly becomes apparent that the most efficient division of labor could be realized by having John do all the work while Dan learned blues guitar.

At around this time, Dan & John adopt the alter-egos of Funny-Haha & Funny-Strange, for a mercifully short-lived performance art piece featuring a foosball table, some hot blues guitar riffs, a Concept C-108 Video Terminal, and a lot of shouting. Beyond that, the piece largely defies description, as you can well imagine.

Hassled by 'the Man', Bradley flees Drexel University to take on a programming job at the University of Pennsylvania, where he meets John Hagan.

John & John note the growing popularity of Rap music. They discuss the matter while dining at a local fast-food establishment, deciding that "this looks pretty easy". They resolve to form a rap group of their own, and thus Cold Tea & D.J. Biggie Fry was born.

They record and release their widely misunderstood single, "The Syslord Rap".

Litwack hires Dan to play guitar on his magnum opus, "Squeezin' & a-Pickin'", a collection of traditional Lithuanian 'churning songs' arranged for guitar and squeeze box.

Twenty minutes later, Dan convinces Mark to "put the damned squeeze box down!" Mark never touches (or speaks of) the squeeze box again. Instead, he opts to try his hand at a more mainstream instrument, the electric guitar.

Mike marries Diane Bronder, the first girl he ever loved, albeit thirteen years after the fact.

Cold Tea & D.J. Biggie Fry form the basis of the short-lived supergroup Da Funky Boyz by partnering with Torquemaster Fong (aka Rapmaster Fil), formerly of the avant-garde performance art troupe Colonel Bagels.

They release the genre-busting single "Eat Me, Dr. Carr", backed with a more traditional B-side, "The Billy Bar Blues".

Both songs fail to chart.

Of some historic note: in 1998, John Bradley records a remix of "Eat Me, Dr. Carr", operating under the now-accepted studio norm of "using real musical instruments".

John & John are struck by lightning while walking on Penn's campus. Or perhaps it was an alien abduction - it's hard to tell. During Bradley's mysterious seven and a half minutes of "lost time", he has an epiphany. He decides that the world simply is not ready for their particular brand of 'talentless white-boy rap', and that it is time to get back to his roots.

The next day, the call goes out: "I'm forming a Rock & Roll Cover Band, goddamit. Who's with me?"

After much abuse from Bradley, Hagan decides to buy a house solely to set up a rehearsal studio in the basement. With his last $50, Hagan buys a set of what can loosely be described as 'drums'.

Litwack auditions to join the band as the lead guitar player. He fails the audition, primarily because the only song he could play was The Who's "Squeeze Box", proving that his prior obsession had not been totally forgotten.

Impressed by Mark's ability to carry heavy objects, Bradley announces "Gentlemen, it looks like we've found ourselves a bass player!"

Local hard-rockin' lesbian Kate Coyle joins the band on lead vocals, primarily on her ability to score gigs at Bryn Mawr College. The first incarnation of The Electric Fish is officially born. The Fish play their first gig in March of 1988.

While exceedingly rare (as in "not done yet"), there exist several recorded examples of the Fish's signature sound from this period.

Hagan's live-in girlfriend Helen Geyer joins the band, though in retrospect, it's not clear that anyone ever invited her. Helen's personal tastes run towards horrendously bad 'authentic' delta blues, which proves difficult to realize within the confines of The Electric Fish.

To accommodate her, an offshoot version of the band, dubbed Bellyful o' Cats, is created, with veteran bluesman Dan Kirchheimer sitting in on lead guitar.

Both versions of the band play a gig at Bryn Mawr College, alternating sets. During the Bellyful o' Cats set, the band performs a version of Stormy Monday so godawful that Dan vows never to play with the band again.

With Bellyful o' Cats on permanent hiatus, the Electric Fish go on a grand tour of Bryn Mawr College, playing for hundreds of students on multiple occasions.