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Cruel
Music Magazine interview |
Princeton
Packet interview 3/17/99 |
A Halo Called Fred / Necessity is the Motherfucker of Invention CD (Powerbunny 4x4 Records) Hats off to the one called Fred for coming up with "Minuet in F," the best song about fucking (with apologies to Big Black) I've heard in years. The rest of NITMFOI is plenty fun, too. But more than fun; A Halo Called Fred shows a marked predilection for DIY percussin', eclectic musical appropriation, and coffee house humility, all refracted through the voices of people who have watched too much Monty Python. That's the only way I can explain "The King of Bean" or "Chicken Boy"; but neither of these will prepare you for "Zoom Zebbatab." Nothing will, in fact. AHCF veers precipitously close to self-consciously "funny" on occasion; the saving grace, every time, is the pure anarchy of approach. These guys'll bang on anything, say anything, do anything, and that's what keeps you listening to something like "Nekkid Hoedown." There are some bonus radio- and/or dance-floor-friendly versions tacked onto the end of Necessity, too, which are stranger than their predecessors in some ways. As for the notion of "strange" and Halo Called Fred, I daresay we're only seeing the beginning of that convergence. --Sam Gaines, Eye Magazine, 1999 |
spinme.com This is one of those weird bands that everyone should discover. A Halo Called Fred play Tupperware and acoustic guitars. Imagine They Might Be Giants merged with Barenaked Ladies and you're at least in the ballpark. "(Hat)" isn't that well recorded, but it's a decent funny example of their humor as they explore how any item can be construed as a hat. That they do it with such avant-garde energy just makes it more fun to listen to... probably in a very stoned or collegiate mood, or both. - JF Parnell , spinme.com, Nov. 29, 1999 |
The Aquarian November 6, 1996 A HALO CALLED FRED / Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band Fuckin' with your head on several completely different levels – Brushwood Thicket Farmer, Jim Bob Rubbernecker, Geverend Dee, their invisible friend Chester (on cosmic vibes) and new (?) guitarist Gerrymiah T. Bullfrog follow their semi-genius Body Parts and Flying Things EP with more twisted pop madness and sugar-fueled sing-along absurdism. Inspired by an assortment of conflicting influences as The Beatles, They Might Be Giants, the Violent Femmes, Herman's Hermits, Ween, Iggy Pop, punk pirates, Wreckless Eric, Mike Heron, Monty Python, Bullwinkle, B-movies and Trini Lopez – everything in their path is happily sucked into the AHCF processing machine and spit out in glorious Technicolor. |
The Aquarian May 15, 1996 A HALO CALLED FRED / Body Parts And Flying Things Featuring Jim Bob Rubbernecker, Geverend Dee, Brushwood Thicket
Farmer and their invisible friend I.F. Chester on cosmic vibes; AHCF
are a guitar, bass and Tupperware trio that best embodies the junk
culture spirit of bad Saturday morning cartoons, sugar-fortified
breakfast cereals and a creative use of mom's kitchen utensils. So
slap-happily stupid...so amazingly weird...they come off as raving
geniuses. |
July 20, 1994 Five fucking awesome songs. My band played with these guys twice and I like them just as much on tape as when I saw them live. A great sense of humor, with a song dedicated to the late Mr. Hooper of Sesame Street Fame (whose autograph I still have) and one called "I Don't Wanna, It'll Hurt". So it's three musicians (vox acoustic guitar, bass and the weirdest percussion you could possibly find) and their invisible friend Chester, being happy, very funny and playing music that in no way sucks. Alternative Press Online |
A Halo Called Fred / Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band There are bands that are cute. There are combos that are clever. And there sure are groups you gotta laugh at. But there ain't many that are genuinely funny, wacky, silly, goofy, absurd and ridiculous. OK, there's Live, but other than that, who? I'll tell ya who, Bunky: A Halo Called Fred. A band that makes the Presidents Of The United States Of America sound like they live in the White House (actually Clinton cracks me up more than those baldies). A krazy krew that sings sweetly about intestinal organisms and demands multiple nostrils, "like the apostles". A rag-tag, foul-mouthed, over-educated, under-stimulated, lawsuit-courting bunch of no-account clowns determined to skiffle and batter their way into your black nail-polished heart. The soundtrack for your life when you go blind and MTV cancels The State. Thank you, God! The Courier-News / Get Out! |
MAKIN' WAVES by Robert Makin 5. A Halo Called Fred / Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band |
"It’s no surprise that they (Internet Underground Music Archive programmers Lord and Patterson) prefer slightly left-of-center bands like A Halo Called Fred, which Patterson considers the best guitar bass and tupperware trio out of New Jersey." - Rolling Stone July 14 - 28, 1994 |
RANDOM APPEARANCE! The Halo appears in The Web Publisher's Design Guide for Macintosh by Mary Jo Fahey on page 280, illustration number 2. (Coriolis Group Books, 1996) |
ACTUAL CELEBRITY QUOTES: "I'd much rather have you guys open for me than the band who's
opening for me tonight." "I don't think I'm smart enough to understand that band.." "Hey, you got a pretty good voice." "Freebird!!!!" "Sgt. Pepper is my favorite album" |