The Bizarros - Biography
By Oliver Hall
Akron, Ohio’s Bizarros were among the first wave of American punk bands. Even more than the rest of their US punk contemporaries, the Bizarros seemed transfixed by the sonic vocabulary and poetics of the Velvet Underground and the Stooges. There is almost no Ramones in the Bizarros’ version of punk. The band has continued to record and perform occasionally since reuniting in 2003.
According to www.thebizarros.com, the old story is true: the original members were all, in fact, the sons of rubber factory workers. (“All of our dads worked for the rubber man,” Don Parkins writes.) The web bio also discloses that the original five members had been friends since high school in Rubber City.
Entrepreneurial singer Nick Nicholis formed the band on New Year’s Eve 1975-1976 with fluid lead guitarist Jerry Parkins, multi-instrumentalist Terry Walker (now also a ventriloquist), Jerry’s brother Don Parkins on bass and guitar, and drummer Rick Garberson. It seems likely that the band’s name refers to the Bizarro alternate universe of Superman comics. The Bizarros’ first release was the self-released Lady Doubonette EP (1976 Gorilla); Nicholis pronounces it “Lady Dubonnet” in the song, a moody psych number with an atmosphere similar to that of Pere Ubu’s and Television’s first singles.
Nicholis inaugurated his new label, Clone Records, with the Bizarros’ and Rubber City Rebels’ split LP From Akron (1977 Clone). Clone became the representative label of Akron’s rock underground during the late 70s and early 80s, releasing singles by Tin Huey, The Waitresses, Teacher’s Pet, and two Bowling Balls from Hell compilation LPs. The Bizarros next released the “Laser Boys” single (1978 Clone ), and “Nova” from their first EP appeared on The Akron Compilation (1978 Stiff).
The Bizarros’ debut album Bizarros (1979 Mercury) was intended for release on Blank Records, the short-lived Mercury subsidiary that released now-legendary LPs by Midwestern punk bands Pere Ubu and the Suicide Commandos, but Blank folded before the release of Bizarros. The album opens with the obscure classic “Young Girls at Market,” a driving Velvet Underground beat with startling images of punk mysticism from Nicholis.
Rick Garberson died of carbon monoxide poisoning on July 15, 1979. It is unclear whether Garberson fell asleep in his garage with the car running or deliberately took his own life. The Bizarros continued with drummer Dave Ashley, the brother of singer Jane Aire, for two more years, but only released the French single “The Cube/Underground” (1980 Sordide Sentimental) and the compilation track “Another Desert Story” before breaking up in 1981.
Nicholis, Walker and the Parkinses reunited with drummer Martyn Flunoy in 2003 to record a new album, Can’t Fight Your Way Up Town From Here (2003 Clone). According to Flunoy’s bio, he “was born when the Holy Ghost of the Blues and the Scarlet Sisterhood met through Sonic Intervention and Rhythmic Sodomy.” The same lineup has recorded a new album scheduled for release in fall 2009.
