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.
The Very Basics:
Flat Stanley is a four piece arty farty sort of band from Adelaide, South Australia. Musically they are in the same vein as groups like Teenage Fanclub, Sandpit, some of the more organized Blue Bottle Kiss or mellow Sonic Youth and the Go Betweens. Basically they're a bit of a mellow rock band. If you mixed say, Art of Fighting with The Replacements, or, yeah, Sonic Youth with Teenage Fanclub you'd get something not too unlike Flat Stanley.
The members of Flat Stanley are all pretty well musically versed and trained. Further more as three of them sing and share song writing responsibilities the songs that Flat Stanley are responsible for, while all of a similar style, are unique.
Flat Stanley formed in 1992, with the following line up:
Jeremy "Max" MacKinnon: Vocals, guitar
Peter Psaltis: Bass guitar, later some backing vocals
Stuart Symons: Drums
They played live, and recorded the odd demo, sounding a little punk poppish, but with the suggestion of some musical skill. While Pete and Max shared the song writing chores, only Max sung making laying the blame for some of the musical horrors of this era difficult. If you, like me, missed on this time in the Flat Stanley spectrum, don't feel too bad. Although there were some good songs penned at this time there were a good many that were pretty shocking (ie: I Wish I Were A Skater, written by Peter Psaltis who is doubtless now suitably ashamed of it).
In 1993 Paul Champion was asked to join the band to help pull them out of a quagmire of god awful songs, and from this point onward Flat Stanley moved foward with great effect. Peter started singing, presumably. The line up was, accordingly:
Jeremy "Max" Mackinnon: Vocals, guitar
Peter Psaltis: Vocals, bass guitar
Paul Champion: Vocals, guitar
Stuart Symons: Band historian, drums
After a couple of years of this they recorded a CD, entitled Animus Elvis. Most of the songs of this time have a distinct Archers of Loaf sort of feel to them, with chugging, yet not buzz saw, guitar. On Animus Elvis all the songs sound very Archers of Loaf to me, although I'm not much of an Archers of Loaf fan so I wouldn't know, with the exclusion of I Grew Old, which is more punk pop as per the old Flat Stanley, which is odd as it was written by the newest member.
Then in 1996 they released their 7" entitled Corn Fed Martyr. This was probably more of an acurate discription of where Flat Stanley, musically at least, intended to go, and it had spiffy cover art to boot.
Following the release of this I guess they meandered around for awhile prior to releasing their debut album, Intravaganza in early 1997. Intravaganza isn't a bad piece of work and it has some fine songs on it. It's probably a bit slowing in moments, which isn't to say it doesn't have some pretty fast moments such as My Ideal Suitor. On the whole it's a an extension of the Corn Fed Martyr in a slower vein. Early 1997 also saw the last update on the old official homepage.
Following this Stuart Symons left the country. Why? Nobody knows, but many people have since blamed Pete and his workings within the country's legal workings. He's since returned to Australia, but not to Flat Stanley.
During this time Flat Stanley took Paul Elix as their drummer. Which didn't work out to well, and he was asked to leave the band a little later. Hence they spent the majority of 1998 in tepid inaction whilst making a few lacklustre attempts to find a new drummer. It breifly looked like Ben from Rash was going to join but then he didn't. Eventually they adopted a new drummer finding ethos. Instead of simply trying to find someone to fill Stuart's place, they'd get a new band member who'd take part in the creative process. Enter Dave Osborn. With Dave's help they started playing again in July 1998. Their song writing since their re-encarnation is decidedly more organized or something. With this in mind they successfully applied for a government grant and, with the moola from that set about recording "The Whites Of Their Eyes". Fans of the old stuff certainly won't be dissapointed and neither will any new comers. Slickly recorded by Wayne Connolly at the same place they recorded Intravaganza, Big Sound Studios, it's a recorded with the cool sounds the kids adore and with, as a whole release, considerably more direction than Intravaganza. It's also a bit more poppy. So if you like the slow stuff and you like what you've heard so far you might want to check that out, while if you like what you've heard so far and you like the big rock go and find one of the few remaining copies of Corn Fed Martyr and bop along to "Check Out The Sell Out" and other hits. On the flip side is "Joe Average" which is a slightly simpler sounding piece of work than the musical odesseys Pete's been pumping out lately.
Now head on back to the main page