Amped in Mystic

The seeds of Mystic Indie Rock

Matt Hannan

Imagine you are growing up in a town very much like present day Mystic, but with some key differences. There is no Green Marble Coffeehouse, but rather a diner with awful diner coffee. There is no Bartleby’s Coffeehouse on the corner, but rather a small convenience store where you can get your staple supplies without having to leave town. Instead of an Army/Navy store, you have a hippie dress shop. Instead of a record shop that can order all of your favorite indie rock releases, it tends to cater more towards Grateful Dead bootlegs.

Some other things are different, too. No one is on the Internet. No one has a cell phone. No one has a computer. No one puts on rock shows.

Pretty dull place to grow up, huh?

That was pretty much the state of Mystic when I arrived there in the summer of 1986.

Loitering and skateboarding were the crimes of the day. Somethings have not changed. With so little to do, it is no shock that most youths chose these two options. But a small group decided that skateboards, hanging around the parking lot booth, criminal mischief and hooliganism were not for them. What follows is their story; their legacy.

It is a legacy that has continued to this day.

Seeing live, local rock bands back in the day was something that mainly only happened in the bars and VFW’s in New London. Bands like The Reducers, Paisley Jungle and Cartoons would put on occasional all-ages shows that would have a huge draw from the entire region. But the focus was always on New London, which was actually scarier than it is now. This is not to say that there were no bands outside New London, but they were few and far between. The only other venue open for bands was to play house-parties.

In late summer 1985, a local girl hosted an all day music party in Eastern Point. The five bands were mainly made up of her friends from Fitch. One was the biggest band from the east side of the Thames, Elastic Waste Band, straight out of Noank. You did not have a successful party without EWB playing it. Another was a month-old quartet calling themselves 17 Relics.

17 Relics (Alex Pellish – guitar, Rich Freitas – drums, Dave Bentley – bass, Mark Quinn – vocals) were inspired to form by bands like EWB, The Reducers and Paisley Jungle, but they found that they wanted a different sound from the others. Their main influences were bands like Rush, Echo & The Bunnymen, The Police, Sonic Youth, U2, Throwing Muses and, of course, REM. Soon after the party in Eastern Point, they were faced with the fact that their singer was leaving for college in Cincinnati, so they scrambled to find a new singer. They struck gold in the voice of Michael Fitzgerald, who was singing in a metal band that wanted nothing more than to play in one of the guys’ parents’ garage. Wanting more, Michael joined 17 Relics without hesitation.

...and if Relics could get up on stage and play live, then why the hell couldn’t they?

Continuing to hone their craft and write original songs, Relics went on to play other house-parties, and started to displace the aging EWB as the “it” band for the east side of the Thames. At one of these parties in the winter of 1987, a few friends decided that it was time that they started their own band. All of them claiming that while 17 Relics were definitely a great band to see live, their sound was a bit softer than they were looking to make. Thus was born one of the noisiest bands ever to play in South Eastern CT: Skimbleshanks.

Skimbleshanks (CJ Stankewich – guitar, Chris Blanker – drums, Rich Martin – bass, Kevin DeBell – vocals) was formed from the notion that there really was nothing to do in southeast CT and if Relics could get up on stage and play live, then why the hell couldn’t they? In the spring, they went thru a small line-up change, ditching DeBell for Mat Tarbox and bringing in Matt McLaughlin on rhythm guitar. Tarbox added a very definite “Ian Curtis” aspect to a noise-art band that lists Sonic Youth, Velvet Underground and Joy Division among their main influences.

Towards the end of summer 1987, I was invited by a friend to a basement party where a band was playing. What I saw and heard there has continued to reverberate thru my life to this day. In a word: Noise. The sound was overly distorted and loud. The vocals, a cross between screams of pain and Germanic march songs. It was the worst thing I had ever heard in my life, but I was instantly captivated by it at the same time. “What is he singing? ‘Battery acid is in my veins’?!?!?!”

With so few bands actively playing out on that side of the Thames, it was only natural for Relics and Shanks to hook up and start looking for better yet venues than house-parties to play. New London was still too much of a closed society for bands that didn’t actually live in the city.

Freitas took the lead in seeking out and securing venues. He managed to land a huge win when he approached the Stonington Community Center (aka: Como). After a few successful shows at the Como, he followed the template laid out by the New London scene and set up an annual show at the Como featuring the top bands outside of New London. Thus was born the Mystic New Music Festival. Generated by a snub from New London’s own New Music Fest, the Mystic version was over the top.

By the time of the first MNMF, bands had sprung up like weeds, probably all following the lead of Relics and Shanks with the “Hell, even I could do that!” attitude. Mystic New Music Fests were completely a breed apart from the standard show of the day. Months of prep-work went into them. Advertising dollars were raised. Herbal teas were served rather than soda or water. Merchandise was fairly abundant in the form of T-shirts and tapes from the bands that were playing. Local artists were tapped to lend a hand with building huge banners to be hung at the sides of the stage and around the room. Crowds of 200 to 300 would attend, absolutely packing the room, so security (thank you, Stonington PD) was a must. The events were epic and after a few years spiraled into multi-day events; there were just too many bands to showcase in a single night by that point! Relics, Shanks, PeterVito, Lotus (et al), ShortBus, PlaidPack, Adam’s Onus, Latex Voodoo and on and on and on. Hell, it seemed that I was the only person living in Mystic NOT in a band at point! From Alternative to Pop to Noise to Hippie Jam to Punk to Electronic Minimalism; pretty much everyone got to be on the bill. And everyone, bands and audience alike, really looked forward to these shows.

But, like all good things, the MNMF had to come to an end. The beginning of the end was obvious. ShortBus (rules!) was banned forever from the Como because of “fishnets and diarrhea”, says a member of the band wishing to remain anonymous. Things were getting out of control. And then a very small detail was overlooked that lead to the ultimate demise of the Como as a viable venue. The cops were not hired one night so they came in and shut the place down (thanks, Stonington PD), even though there had never been a single instance of them actually being needed. People were just a bit more civil and able to police themselves back then, I guess. But insurance requirements are insurance requirements, and so shows at the mighty Como came to an end.

Not willing to be beaten back to playing “just” house-party’s, Freitas soldiered on. Shows were set up in such odd locations as the Groton Long Point Casino (too small) and the Groton City Municipal Building (too big, too far, too cop). Freitas put the word out to the bands that he was looking for a place to host the next MNMF, which by this point had become a twice-a-year event. One day, two local guitarists approached him while he was working his retail day-job downtown and said “What about this Froshin Hall place?”