At 27, I joined my first band.  I had no musical training or experience, but I had been kicked out of grade school choir in fourth grade for lousy singing. Turns out that might have been a plus for the times.  I did have a Korg MS-10 synthesizer and three years of heavy punk and new wave consumption.  “No Wave” was our freak flag, as exemplified by the ground shattering “No New York” compilation, featuring DNA, Mars, The Contortions and Teenage Jesus and the Jerks.  I had just started a master’s program at Indiana University in Bloomington, and local favorites The Dancing Cigarettes were a remarkable, inspiring example of how hard work and dedication could turn a primitive band into a force of nature.

Let’s do it, we said.  My new friends Lynn Shipley, Aran Brewer and Kathy Roach joined with me to start Premature Babies.  None of us could play a note.  We practiced a fair amount and hacked together some skeletal songs in between drinks and other stimulants.  I wrote and sang some of them, and otherwise made weird synth noises.  Jamie Jetson of the Jetsons, one of Indiana’s finest punk bands, sat in on drums sometimes just for laughs, but it got something of rhythm happening and Lynn began to learn the bass.  Aran (at the time the serious squeeze of Dow Jones and the Industrials keyboard whiz Brad Garton) whacked on the guitar and fun stuff came out.  Kathy Roach made her own sounds on bass and guitar.

Probably no more than a month after we got started, we played our first gig in the fall of 1980 at Bullwinkle’s  (later known as Second Story), opening for Dow, Last Four Digits and the Cigs.  We were terrible but maybe also, we were onto something.  Lynn’s sardonic “Have You Slugged Your Kid Today”, linked here on YouTube, was a crowd favorite and later became a staple of Amoebas in Chaos live shows. “Better Living Through Chemistry” was a group vocal that chanted about the positive societal contributions of various substances.  I sang some monotone-warbles on “Vicious Circles”, a pretentious opus that almost sounds like rap in hindsight, possibly due to the lack of actual musical notes in the vocals.  It might have inspired the title of the debut LP, “Vicious Circle” by Indianapolis legends Zero Boys, released a year or so later, but I doubt if it inspired much else.

I think we played two or three shows and folded up quietly.  Kathy and Aran weren’t really feeling it.  Lynn and I wanted to continue, and fortunately, Lynn’s friend Rich Lamphear’s band Blind Date was breaking up–we played a show with them that would be the last for both bands.  Lynn brought Rich and the drummer from Blind Date, Bruce Demaree to the table, and thus Amoebas in Chaos was born.