Mean Red Spiders
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Mean Red Spiders is an avant-pop alternative rock band formed in Toronto, Ontario, Canada in September 1993. [1] Their music is largely guitar-based, and is influenced by pop art and particularly recorded music. Sonic stages shows were lit with projected layers of screen images with liquid light techniquies. Their music makes extensive use of distortion, digital keyboard loops, recorded voice samples, and effects pedals, creating a repeatable orchestrated wall of sound with vocals.
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[edit] Career
Co-founding member David Humphreys, originally from Flemingdon Park , played his last show July 13, 2001. He left the band wanting to finish his conceptual art pieces [2] involving the film schedules and posters of Toronto's oldest arthouse repertory cinema, the Revue Cinema[3] and auditory music hallucinations he heard in his mind[1]. He threatened to resign his job at the Revue if he did not become the "head manager" at a scheduled meeting with the owner[4] on September 11, 2001, and forced to resign in November 2001. That September, Humphreys was also evicted from his Beaconsfield Ave. home, and went to live in Scarborough with his mother and sister. He then received psychiatric and Cognitive Behavioural Therapy treatment for the first time for schizophrenia[2], and attended the Redirection Through Education program at George Brown College. Humphreys currently lives near Casa Loma.
Following David's departure, Rob Boak (of Interstellar) joined, contributing three songs to Still Life Fast Moving and touring with the band in 2002. Boak left the band early in 2003 and Dave Rodgers (of Neck/Christiana) joined. Mean Red Spiders continue to record and release material, while indulging themselves in Ghostlight, a free-form improvisational collective featuring members of Mean Red Spiders, along with Marco Landini, Brodie West (before his departure for Amsterdam to play with Han Bennink and The Ex), Eric Abboud, James Anderson and Scott Cameron, all friends from Toronto's musical community.
[edit] Band members
At the time of the release of their January 2003 album, Still Life Fast Moving, Mean Red Spiders personnel were:
- Adam Rosen - drums (of 122 Greige)
- Rob Boak - guitar
- Minesh Mandoda - keyboards, guitars, loops (of Parts Unknown)
- Lisa Nighswander - bass guitar and lead vocalist
- Greg Chambers - guitar
Other musicians that have been in MRS include:
- Don Goldrick - Drums (named the band)
- Nick Andrews - Bass/vocals (of Ottawa's Restless Virgins)
- Paul Boddum - Drums (of Neck/Christiana)
- Martin (vocals on El Diabolo's Devo cover Mongoloid)
- Serge (original lead vocalist)
- Leanne Kroker - Drums (of Penny Dreadful)
- Jim Bravo - Drums (of Jim Bravo & the Beetoven Frieze)
[edit] Discography
- Places You Call Home - May 1998 - Teenage USA
- Starsandsons - May 2000 - Teenage USA
- Still Life, Fast Moving - March 2003 - Clairecords
- David Newfeld co-produced Places You Call Home[5] with Mean Red Spiders from 1997-1998 at his then shared Forest Hill home, and produced Starsandsons from 1999-2000 at his Stars and Sons studio located in Chinatown Toronto. Jeff McMurrich recorded and co-produced Still Life Fast Moving in his old studio at Dupont & Spadina and in the band's Pod Studio. Al Forte (of Groundcover) recorded the bass and drum tracks for Places You Call Home in 1996.
