do the zru / Issue 1 / Fall 2002

Feature Article:

Science Patrol and Zru Vogue
in the 1980's

Also:

Zruist Montage Art

Science Patrol Photo Gallery

The early 80's were an amazing time for pop music. Punk and New Wave had blasted bloated, sedated rock music out of its doldrums, annihilating the past while declaring "no future;" disco was mainstream and effectively dead, and electronic music was beginning to infiltrate pop but no clear direction had taken shape. The Sex Pistols had disbanded following the death of Syd Vicious and their last San Francisco performance; Johnny Rotten had changed his name to John Lydon and, as Public Image Ltd., put out "Death Disco," a throbbing, grotesque, enthralling blend of "disco" aesthetics, punk attitude, and rock dirge. Suddenly, a lot of music emerged that didn't sound quite like anything that had ever been heard before. The first Human League single, "Being Boiled" (before they went blatantly pop), Gary Numan's Tubeway Army, and M's "Pop Music," to name a few, offered up a hybrid of disco, electronics, rock, pop, and punk that was inconceivable before that time.

It was in this landscape of pop experimentation that Zru Vogue and Science Patrol were conceived. Zru Vogue formed in Palo Alto in 1980, when three former members of Idiot (a glam-rock-punk band steeped in irony whose "Whip Me Or Something" was one of the first songs to blend heavy metal and funk, a formula taken up a decade later by bands like The Red Hot Chili Peppers) began experimenting with pop music by blending African tribal and Middle Eastern rhythms, ambient, and British-influenced trance-pop with dada sensibilities, random electronics, and funk-rock guitars. The fusion worked, though record industry people didn't know what to label it or how to market it. EvenRalph Records, home of The Residents, didn't quite know what to make of it.

Unfazed, Zru Vogue signed with an independent San Francisco label, Adolescent, when label-mates The Sleepers brought a tape of the first Zru studio recording ("Nakweda Dream") to Adolescent's executive producer. Released in February 1981, "Nakweda Dream" was a college radio hit, topping indie playlists in the Bay Area. The record's B-side, "Cumulonimbus" (spelled out phonetically on the record sleeve), an instrumental described by England's New Musical Express as a "neo-African avalanche," also received widespread airplay on independent radio stations.

In 1981, only college radio stations played independent music. "Alternative" or "modern rock" radio stations didn't exist yet (and, of course, there was no world wide web). Commercial radio only played major label rock, R&B, country, and "easy listening." If you wanted to hear The Damned, Sex Pistols, Talking Heads, Velvet Underground, 999, Buzzcocks, or Wire, you tuned in to KFJC (Los Altos Hills), KALX (Berkeley), KZSU (Stanford), or KUSF (San Francisco).

"Nakweda Dream" stayed at #1 on KFJC's playlist for three weeks, and the single received critical acclaim in the alternative press, including Sub-pop who named it the best independent single of 1981.

Later in the year, not long after their legendary benefit performance at San Francisco's Savoy Tivoli with The Sleepers and DNA (Arto Lindsay's noise-rock band featured on the "No New York" compilation produced by Brian Eno), two members of Zru Vogue unexpectedly announced that they were quitting the band and moving to LA, reducing Zru Vogue to two: Andy and Rick. Shaken up but determined to continue, they began rehearsing a new set of songs, and soon went back into the recording studio to produce a full-length LP, this time releasing it on their own Zero Risk Records label.

Simultaneously, during the uncertain months following Zru Vogue's shake-up in mid-'81, Andy accompanied his old school pal Pity and their new friend Spike to Bayshore Studios, where Spike was a part-time engineer, to participate in some experimental recording sessions. Andy brought along his Stratocaster, and Pity had a classic Korg synthesizer (with patch cords and lots of little knobs for twiddling). Spike programmed the Dr. Rhythm, and they ran everything through the synthesizer, including Pity's insanely demented vocals.

When up-and-coming independent film producer Steve Perkins heard the resulting track - a montage of electronic synthesized rhythm and noise topped off with a vocal track that wavered between garbled muttering and distorted screaming, called "Virgil Wilson" - he was inspired to make a short film that eventually aired on PBS and screened as a short before feature films at Bay Area theaters and festivals. He named his film after the soundtrack, calling it "Virgil Wilson: Six Minutes of Suburban Disorder," and when it came time to add the soundtrack credits, Andy, Spike, and Pity decided to call themselves Science Patrol.

Science Patrol spent many a late night at Bayshore Studios (fueled by 24-hour donuts and7-11 coffee) recording experimental electronic-pop tracks, often with horrible rock bands playing so loud in the adjoining rehearsal studio that they couldn't even hear themselves play.

Recording sessions were entirely unplanned, and one day Andy brought in a song he'd been dabbling with called "Bandit Ducks From Outer Space." Spike started the tape rolling, and before long, the recording evolved into a ten-minute opus of chaotic, interwoven multi-tracked guitars and synthesizers, grounded by an incessant electronic drum beat and a killer bass line. They brought in Rick (from Zru Vogue) to lay down a screaming "aluminum-foil" guitar solo, and sometime-band-member "Dad" (who joined them during their live performances) added rhythm guitar. Andy wrote and sang another verse, randomly firing off his toy pistol. Then the tape sat on the shelf for a while. Finally, one morning Spike emerged after an all-night studio session with the definitive mix of "Bandit Ducks" - cleaned up a bit and shortened to 7 minutes, 50 seconds.

"Bandit Ducks From Outer Space," released in June of 1982 on Zero Risk Records, was destined to become an international cult classic. The song combined electronic rhythms and synthesizers with "clean" electric guitars, absurd lyrics, dispassionate vocals, and cheesy sound effects, in a way that hadn't been done before, or since for that matter. Overall, the effect was strangely soothing, and oddly compelling. For the B-side of the EP (it was released as a 33-1/3 rpm, 7-inch vinyl record), Spike mixed down four of the eclectic late-night studio tracks - each of which was only about 2 minutes - to form a suite of abstract "Pop Songs," which they named generically: "Pop A, B, C, and D."

"Pop A" blended dada lyrics with e-bow guitars, an insistent drum machine beat, and an intermittent electro-funk bass; "Pop B" was a surrealist ambient landscape of e-bows, basses, and synths; "Pop C" featured a rainbird-sprinkler-machine-gun-snare rhythm track, reverse-alien vocals, and spy-theme bass lines; and "Pop D" merged a frenetic rock instrumental track with crazed synthesizer wails and family dinner table conversation in place of a vocal track. A repeating inner groove on the record played an endless loop of Spike's Mum moaning while pouring another glass of wine (glug-glug-glug-mmmmmmmmm).

Science Patrol and Zru Vogue foreshadowed so much of what was to come in popular music. They were precursors, pioneers; ahead of their time. Science Patrol's live act included extended free-style rapping on songs like Monkey God and Oriental Snack, with MC Pity growing sweatier and more intense as the music grinded along. Science Patrol fused funk and rap with rock and electronics, fifteen years before the genre became widely popular among "alternative rock" bands. Their live set also included lounge pop (a cover of Andy Williams' "Music To Watch Girls By"), Dada Dub, lots of pop culture references (they performed the Spiderman theme, a rap song based on the British cult TV series "The Prisoner" in which all lines were from the show's dialog, and the Inspector Gadget theme accompanied by a group of DJs scratching), and the creative use of electronics - including electronic toys like a plastic Bee Gees Rhythm Box, Mattel's Magical Musical Thing, and tiny Casio mini-keyboards - in unusual and unprecedented ways.

Science Patrol songs referenced CabCalloway, Mike Nomad in the Steve Roper comic strip, Bugs Bunny, Tristan Tzara, Spike's family cat (Bell-Bell), old television series, snack foods, Hindu gods, and whatever other random pop-culture icons grabbed their fancy. Even the name Science Patrol comes from the popular 60's Japanese superhero TV series "Ultraman."

Between 1980 and 1985, Science Patrol and Zru Vogue took an approach to music that foreshadowed the direction that popular music would take over the next twenty years. Between them, they recorded a single, two EPs, and an album. But much of their music was never recorded - performances and living room "rock jams" that were only witnessed by those who were there. Nevertheless, they were part of the spark that enflamed a new fusion in pop music; a fusion that brought together techno-pop, funk, rock, rap, punk, dance, trance, ambient, and world music - and dragged along with it random bits of American, European, and Japanese pop culture.

Andrew L. Jackson
San Carlos, California
September 7, 2002