The idea behind this is to inform people who haven't actually heard or seen Flat Stanley a bit about them. What they sound like, stuff like that. I've visited alot of other music pages who go on and on about various band events but don't give any idea of what the band in question sound like,or any of the basic stuff like that. If you see what I mean. Anyhoo. This section is designed for the Flat Stanley ignorant. I'll try and set it out in such away that you poor saps can understand.
Flat Stanley is a four peice from Adelaide, South Australia. They've been around for since about 1992, when they were a three piece and sounded sort of arty pop punk. A fourth member, Paul Champion, joined in October 1993. They released their first album, Intravaganza, almost a year ago. Before that they released a vinyl (one of those record things) thing called "Corn Fed Martyr" with three songs and before that a CD called Animus Elvis. They're fantastic live.
This is actually harder to do then I figured it would be. There are some bands I could attempt to compair Flat Stanley to but you, my lovable reader, probably wouldn't know them. Imagine a less experimental version of Sonic Youth, mixed with crappy US college rock styles as presented by such godawful bands as Live (can you tell I'm not a big fan of that sort of thing?). Now add a bit of a pop vien, something along the lines of. Hmm. Weezer almost, but not quite. And you're almost there. Fans of Archers of Loaf, Guided by Voices, Yo La Tango etc tend to like them. Flat Stanley also have the benefit of three song writers/vocalists. Which means that their songs don't all sound the same. Which is nice.
Some of their influences as far as I know include: Sonic Youth, The Replacements, Guided By Voices, J Church (well, Paul sometimes wears a J Church shirt), Superchunk and Archers of Loaf. Infact one band member described them as "if Superchunk and Archers of Loaf met in a dark alley behind the Crown and Anchor hotel, you'd have a vaugue idea of where we're coming from". Pretty fancy. I'd just like to say I think they're a mix of The Replacements or Caustic Soda and Sebadoh. Yup.
This is a section for anyone who's seen the band and wondered which member is which. Paul is the goofy looking, tall one who switches between guitars and actually knows how the play them both, whatsmore he uses some fancy tunings. He also does most of the singing I think, because he's written alot of songs. He has probably the most interesting, distinct voice and sings such songs as "What should already be known", "My Ideal suitor" and many of the more lively songs. Max (or Jeremy) is the one who doesn't switch between guitars so much but is probably as good or better than Paul. He sings slightly fewer songs. You might recognise him as the guy who sung on Recovery (they normally sound a lot better). Not to be underestimated as a song writer, he's a fine geetarist, although maybe not as inventive as Paul. My personal favourite Max song is Defectable (which they played on recovery) or maybe Check out the sell out. I often get the feeling Max is the "leader" of the group. He normally leads little count in kind of things and. Yeah. I just think he is. Always calm, always cool, you can pick him by his "I've been outside in the last month" appearance (lacking in other Flat Stanley members) and the fact he often wears shirts which allow the audience to see his chest hair. Yup. Peter is the bass player, and he's got a lovely bass indeed, a Richenbacker 4001 I think. He's kind 'o' shorter than the other members, normally stands in the middle, wears sun/glasses alot and doesn't get into the music so much as the other two. He doesn't sing so much either. When he does he has a more wispery voice and writes some fantastic songs such as Joe Average (one of the all time favourites), The Kids Are No Good and I think Action New Perspective. Drum wise there's four people to consider. Up until recently Paul Elix has been providing this aspect. However he has left. And before him was Stuart Symons. For a short while they used a keyboard called Mr Casio. Now they have a guy named Dave. I imagine you can figure out the drummer for yourself. That'd be the one playing drums with sticks, rather then strumming something with strings. As far as I know no drummer has written lyrics in Flat Stanley, infact as far as I know all they do is play drums. But what fine drums. Stuart's the one you'd be hearing on any recordings by the way.
And therein lies the problem. If you live in South Australia head down to most record stores and you should have some luck. If you don't want to wander around for ages go into the city, go to Big Star, go to the local music section and fork out $22 or so for Intravanganza, or about $8 for Animus Elvis. Or head down to the basement to obtain the $5 7" Corn Fed Martyr as a limited edition coloured vinyl. Woo! I spelled it right!!! If you don't live in SA, but you do live in Australia you'll probably need to actually talk to the record store people and have them order it for you. It's being distributed by Mushroom Distribution so it shouldn't be to hard to get at. If you live internationally than you could try that as well, but probably better of to email either Flat Stanley or Jason Bootle (try heading to the popgun records site in my FS links section if I haven't done the neccessary technical yibberings to allow you to email them here yet). They also have 2 shirts, both available from Big Star. But the Corn Fed Martyr one is pretty close to having completley sold out so I'd advise you to get that one.
Now head on back to the main page