Fletcher (1993 - 1996)

I've attached some Fletcher songs. I'll do it in two batches. It'sonly four. I should figure out yousendit or zip files but I haven'tyet. Anyway, this is our 7-inch. The songs are

1) Teenage Keg Party

2) Sheep

3) You're a Tramp and I Own Half This Fucking Town

4) White Trash Quiz Bowl Champion

It came out in the summer of 1995. We recorded it at night on thestage of the Dalton Center on the WMU campus. Todd Carter worked theknobs.

Fletcher got together in the fall of 1993 but it took us a while toget our act together. Maybe we never did. At first we were

Bryan Charles--guitar, vocals

Paul Bayer--bass

Dan Storchan--drums

Our first show was at Dagobah Square, sometime early in 1994. It wasan all-ages benefit. Wick was big on those. We played with twitch, theSinatras and one other band. The Deconstruction, maybe? We were thefirst band to take the stage at Dagobah. Shellac was the last. For along time we were terrible but I think we got better. I still kind oflike the 7-inch songs.

Dan quit the band in 1996 and Paul and I took a hiatus. That summer wegot together again and wrote a whole set of all-new songs. The songswere a lot better than what we'd ever written before. Around that timethe Deconstruction broke up and Paul and I and Sean Barney, theDeconstruction guitarist, would play. We showed Sean all the songs andwe learned some of his. Paul Wartella had always been after me to playmusic with him. He was playing in Quixote at the time but swore up anddown he could handle the action so he became part of Fletcher.Wartella was a powerhouse, way better than Dan. He was maybe a littletoo tricked-out and aggressive for us--Paul Bayer and I always hadmore of a pop sensibility--but he gave us a louder sound and it wasgood. Barney wasn't into it, though, and he dropped out after a whileso we were a power trio again. We played all the songs and got betterand better. We played some great shows at 31G, including one with thePromise Ring where I think we held our own. Joan of Arc opened for us.We were all excited but of course Wartella was spread too thin and Idon't think the Quixote guys were into sharing and Paul B. and Iwanted some real commitments and a tour and so forth. Wartella keptflaking but never saying he wanted to quit and some other shithappened and it got sort of strange and finally there was some kind ofbig two-band meeting with everyone in Fletcher and Quixote except meand it was somehow worked out that Wartella would play only withQuixote. Our last show was at Club Soda with Dead River Drag. It wastheir first show. This was December 7, 1996. I remember driving aroundthat day and one of the big modern rock radio stations in town ran astadium-rock-style spot for the show. TONIGHT! AT CLUB SODA! DEADRIVER DRAG! WITH SPECIAL GUEST! FLETCHERRRR! It was like they wereannouncing some monster truck thing. But our name was out in lights onthe marquee. I took a Polaroid. I'm looking at it right now.

Bryan Charles--guitar, vocals

Paul Bayer--bass

Dan Storchan--drums

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LT EXCLUSIVE - FLETCHER

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