Flipper was founded in 1979 by Ted Falconi, Will Shatter, Steve DePace, and Ricky Williams. All were from early San Francisco punk bands, Rad Command, Negative Trend, and Sleepers, respectively.
Ricky Williams, though a great singer, was too messed up, and was fired after about 6 months. He was replaced by Bruce Loose, who we consider to be an original member. Bruce was on the very first recording released by Flipper, which was a song entitled "Earthworm" on the SF Underground / Sub... (more)
Flipper was founded in 1979 by Ted Falconi, Will Shatter, Steve DePace, and Ricky Williams. All were from early San Francisco punk bands, Rad Command, Negative Trend, and Sleepers, respectively.
Ricky Williams, though a great singer, was too messed up, and was fired after about 6 months. He was replaced by Bruce Loose, who we consider to be an original member. Bruce was on the very first recording released by Flipper, which was a song entitled "Earthworm" on the SF Underground / Subterranean EP.
The most notable live show with Ricky Williams, or Ricky Sleeper, as he was known, was the show in which we were the support for X on their very first trip to San Francisco. It was at this show that Ricky scored a KO on Will Shatter while swinging a mic stand. End of show for Flipper.
Ricky left us with some good memories and the name Flipper. It was his idea to call the band Flipper, as he had named all of his many pets, Flipper, so too would he need for the band to have the same name, for no other reason than it was a name he could remember.
The band lineup was Bruce, Ted, Will, and Steve from 1979 until Will Shatter's untimely death in Dec. 1987. During this time the band released 3 singles and 5 albums. We picked back up again in Jan. 1990 with John Dougherty on bass guitar and released one single before being signed by Rick Rubin to Def American and releasing "American Grafishy".
John Dougherty met the same untimely death, and we found ourselves flying the missing man formation, once again. There was quite a long break this time. It would be more than 10 years before Flipper would reform.
It would take a call from CBGBs to get the band back together. Hilly needed our help to play a couple of benefit shows. We answered the call in Aug. 2005, with an old stand by bass player friend, Bruno DeSmartass of Bad Posture fame. We played the 2 CBGBs shows, the final show at the famed Olympic Auditorium in LA, a sold out history making event at The Fillmore in San Francisco, and a succession of other shows. These included a performance at The Toronto International Film Festival, a Paper Magazine Party in NYC, in which Moby joined us on stage for an epic rendition of Sex Bomb, and an Edward Culver punk photo book release party, as well as club dates on both coasts.
Our friend Bruno left the band, on his feet and still breathing, in Sept. 2006. We had an opportunity to play the "All tomorrows Parties" festival in England which was being curated by Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth, in Dec. 2006. Without a bass player we had to find someone.
There was one name at the top of the list that just had to be. Krist Novoselic.
We invited Krist to join us for the festival and a tour of England and Ireland with old friends The Melvins. Krist accepted the invitation to our great pleasure and the rest is history. The tour was a great success and great fun. We have played a number of fantastic shows on the West Coast and we are now focusing on a new album of songs.
Source: Flipper
