"FRISCO" LYNCHPINS: INFAMOUS SLEEPERS, FLIPPER AND NEGATIVE TREND

Hello again my fans & followers.

Today I'm gonna handle a threesome of bands that are interconnected and made the day back in S. Francisco Underground. I'm obviously referring to ones in the title.

We can say it all began with The Sleepers, one of the most popular alternative acts in SF along with The Offs, centered around pivotal names as Ricky Williams (also called "Ricky Tractor" when he was still active as drummer in Crime and much later Toiling Midgets) and Micheal Belfer, guitarist for Tuxedomoon. Sleepers combine the elements of Crime and Tuxedomoon, but maybe Ricky didn't know yet he was laying the ground for what it would have been the best act coming out....Flipper. He was a wasted guy yet creative-minded. It was him to give Flipper their name, although he's been soon fired out for the messing behaviour he had within the band. Infact, the core of Flipper was rather composed of Will Shatter and Bruce Loose doing vox/bass, Ted Falconi on guitar and Stephen DePace on drums. After a bunch of early released EPs (Love Canal/Ha Ha Ha, Sex Bomb/Brainwash), wormed their way into the punkstream with the epic, ever-remember yellow LP Generic Flipper. 

The sound of original Flipper was indeed rough, powerful, noisy, heavy, forerunning to the next arrival of Grunge, Noise Rock, and Sludge, so much that they got mentioned and covered many times by Melvins, Nirvana, Jane's Addiction, Unsane....

F. payed a lot of attention to environmental problems and nature abuse issues, like immotivate animals death. That's why they adopted the "Dead Fish" as definitive logo.

You can't go wrong with Flipper, they're pleasure guarantee.

Meanwhile, even dating back to '77, a linking offshoot between Offs and Flipper has been already established in the shape of Grand Mal, short-living band featuring Shatter, Craig Gray, Don Vinil from Offs, Search&Destroy's Val Vale, and Todd Robertson. This was supposed the first incarnation of what would later become the more great Negative Trend.

NT changed vocalist members quite often, along a total of 4 lineups; first was Rozz Rezabek, then later came Mikal Waters, and possibly the most appreciated 3rd one with F-Word flagship Rik L Rik and even the occasional replacement of the same Ricky Williams. NT had also been started to implement members from Toiling Midgets, Sleepers and Flipper, such as Tim Mooney and DePace, playing a big amount of shows at Mabuhay Gardens and Whisky A Go-Go, the most relevant punk venues in SF. They released just one self-titled LP in 1978. 

Well, connection is very tight, as you just can see.

Credits:

James Stark for Sleepers photograph.
Negativetrend.net