I have below a translation of one of the hardest things I’ve ever read. Harder than making it through Tom Sawyer’s southern dialect or Joyce’s consciousness. It was a challenge, and hours to complete fully. I had to rewrite and re-think what I knew about grammar—semicolons, punctuations, paragraphs, ellipses, inner dialogue, etc. It was a beast. But reading it made me laugh, because it started to throw in puns and wordplay (if you only knew the inside jokes!) I tried to mark and notate the mental illness as best I could. Still difficult, but worth it. Especially if you are a fan of alternative music, and never heard of the cult band The Frogs. I’ll leave it at that. Without further ado: The Frogs’ Myspace autobiography.
[It] began in earnest 1980. [We] played five “warm up” shows to get our feet wet at UW-Milwaukee—open mike, etc. Rocked them, knew we were ready and moved on… to the Starship (a downtown Milwaukee nightclub). Initially [we] had a small but loyal “skate punk” following… That didn’t last. From June to October 1980, we went through half a dozen changes stylistically—soundscaping faster than our audience could keep up with: a) electric guitar, three drums, floor tom, snare and cymbal; b) electric guitar, three drums, floor tom, snare, cymbal, drum machine, washing machine, etc.
After Halloween 1980 we decided we wouldn’t play live again until our set consisted of all originals—and we set out to do just that. Then sometime in 1982, Jim wrote “Death Songs” (to be continued). Backtrack: we were never a folk-rock duo; we were drums and wires, drums and electric guitar from the get-go; and we rocked the hell out of Donovan, Beatle ballads, Leonard Cohen, nursery rhymes, etc. An eclectic mix as I say, from the start. Although, what must be stated up front is that—for all intents and purposes—when we got the group together in 1980, to our eyes and ears rock was already dead. But, we decided to throw in our two cents’ worth anyway. So we started playing live; mastering the stage as we went, becoming our own beast friend in the process. The perfect unit/ensemble a la Beatles, Rolling Stones, who-have-you; and that was that. [We also liked] taking the piss out of every (pretentious) bitch/witch/bastard who happened along the way; needing bringing down a rung or two (or three or, for that matter/fatter, four). To be continued for you and me. (Two beat continyoued for u and meet.)
