The Stick Figures

The Stick Figures formed in 1979 from the ashes of The Art Holes – an early Tampa art-punk band that featured David Bowman, Lee Warren, and myself, Bill Carey. After a lineup change (Lee moved; we added Rachel Maready, David’s sister, and a set of brothers, Sid and Robert Dansby), The Stick Figures took inspiration from the do-it-yourself, anything-goes ethos of the first wave punk bands and added in influences as diverse as Parliament/Funkadelic and John Cage. During the 2 ½ year lifespan of the band, we wrote dozens of songs, mixing elements of pop, punk, funk, noise and other musical genres into a varied yet cohesive body of songs. With no financial backing aside from our student jobs, we had managed to make rudimentary recordings—live and in the studio—of much of our repertoire. What would later become fashionably ‘lo-fi’ was simply the best sound we could achieve with the resources available to us at the time. Our independent release of a 7” 4-song EP in 1981 through Green Records placed us in the first wave of the nascent ‘indie’ movement. The band imploded when we attempted to move to NYC in 1981 in search of a broader audience. Until now, no other music by the band has been released.

Most of what we are now preparing for release through Floating Mill Records comes from 40-year-old cassettes of rough mixes and live performances. We’ve done our best to make them listenable, while still capturing the chaotic essence of our music.
-Bill Carey, The Stick Figures