No Doctors
Encyclopedia
No Doctors was an American rock and roll
band based out of California
's San Francisco Bay
Area. Their music drew from a wide range of styles and traditions, most prominently noise
, punk, blues
, metal and jazz
. Members included guitar
ist Elvis S. deMorrow, Chauncey Chaumpers on guitar, Mr. Brians on drum
s, Mr. Clopez on drum
s, and CansaFis Foote on saxophone
, with vocal duties distributed amongst its members in a socialist-collectivist fashion.
in 1998. A cast of revolving sidemen were to come in and out of the band throughout their early career. Prior to playing as No Doctors, Foote and Chaumpers had created experimental noise recordings for the purpose of psychic investigation, while deMorrow had distributed cassetteworks under the names of "Peyote Tax Return" and "F*ck Your Yankee Bluejeans," created together with an artist now known solely as "Devilman" (RIP).
Still teenagers, the boys began playing sporadic live shows around Minneapolis-St. Paul, inspired by much of the underground noise scene as documented by local record labels E.F. Tapes, Destijl, Fusetron, and the local fanzine Muckraker.
They were soon approached by CEO Matthew St-Germaine with the idea of assisting with a record label, called Freedom From
. Much of their early years as a band were influenced heavily by the diverse and radical roster of artists that was quickly cultivated. The Argentine avant-space trio Reynols was to have an exceptional influence on philosophy when the boys accompanied the band on their first American tour, where they explored Minecxio and the role of the No-Mind.
influences of the first album toward a greater connection with punk rock
and heavy metal
. Critics repeatedly compared the work to the Velvet Underground, Pussy Galore and Royal Trux
, and Amir Karim Nezar went so far as to declare "No Doctors are the living incarnations of Satan."
, where they shared a practice space with friends Deerhoof
and Kreamy 'Lectric Santa, frequently played live shows in the Bay area, and embarked on a California-only tour in October–November 2006 entitled "US Out of CA." They also released several tracks through compilations and a 7" entitled "T-Bone (Pts 1 & 2)," and released their third full-length album "Origin & Tectonics" on CD/LP in June 2007. No Doctors officially disbanded during the liquidity crises of late 2008, settling outstanding obligations to creditors and dividing all remaining assets in order to recoup market losses sustained from bundled toxic derivatives. Fis and B started Careerers, Elvis plays as Black Stool, and Chauncey abandoned music, taking a gig in contract security. There is no word on the other drummer.
The character was first presented to the general public through the cover of No Doctors' debut LP, depicted beneath a hooded robe and clutching an enormous pair of drumsticks. Since then similarly garbed individuals have sporadically appeared with No Doctors in concert, generally operating percussive devices of a highly unorthodox nature. These devices have ranged from gigantic rolls of Pionite to glass jars full of water to other bands' amplifiers, often but not always attacked with his signature baseball-bat-sized drumsticks. Beware, he got a new pair.
Occasionally taking the place of Mr. Brians himself, CLPX has more generally appeared alongside the regular drummer in a tandem mode, though his role has been nothing if not inconsistent. Some have charged that the role amounts to little more than the band dressing up an outside business consultant. Others have romanticized the donning of the cloak as a passing of political power or even mystical significance. Regardless, there have been at least four "clopezi" who have chosen to distinguish themselves: "'W' Clopex," "Martin the Moon Doggie," "'Claps' Mulligan" and "Carlito Lopez."
It is generally accepted that the spelling of clxpz must remain inconsistent in order to properly convey the meaning of the term. The term "Clophesgian" is similarly employed to reference a wide number of seemingly incongruent or contradictory ideologies, dependent on context, including but not limited to finance, metaphysics and aquatic lifestyles.
Rumors of a Clopezian States of America issuing its own currency have NOT been substantiated.
Rock and roll
Rock and roll is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, primarily from a combination of African American blues, country, jazz, and gospel music...
band based out of California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
's San Francisco Bay
San Francisco Bay
San Francisco Bay is a shallow, productive estuary through which water draining from approximately forty percent of California, flowing in the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers from the Sierra Nevada mountains, enters the Pacific Ocean...
Area. Their music drew from a wide range of styles and traditions, most prominently noise
Noise music
Noise music is a term used to describe varieties of avant-garde music and sound art that may use elements such as cacophony, dissonance, atonality, noise, indeterminacy, and repetition in their realization. Noise music can feature distortion, various types of acoustically or electronically...
, punk, blues
Blues
Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...
, metal and jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
. Members included guitar
Guitar
The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...
ist Elvis S. deMorrow, Chauncey Chaumpers on guitar, Mr. Brians on drum
Drum
The drum is a member of the percussion group of musical instruments, which is technically classified as the membranophones. Drums consist of at least one membrane, called a drumhead or drum skin, that is stretched over a shell and struck, either directly with the player's hands, or with a...
s, Mr. Clopez on drum
Drum
The drum is a member of the percussion group of musical instruments, which is technically classified as the membranophones. Drums consist of at least one membrane, called a drumhead or drum skin, that is stretched over a shell and struck, either directly with the player's hands, or with a...
s, and CansaFis Foote on saxophone
Saxophone
The saxophone is a conical-bore transposing musical instrument that is a member of the woodwind family. Saxophones are usually made of brass and played with a single-reed mouthpiece similar to that of the clarinet. The saxophone was invented by the Belgian instrument maker Adolphe Sax in 1846...
, with vocal duties distributed amongst its members in a socialist-collectivist fashion.
Early career
Chauncey Chaumpers, CansaFis Foote, and Elvis deMorrow began creating music together in Minnetonka, MinnesotaMinnetonka, Minnesota
As of the census of 2000, there were 51,301 people, 21,393 households, and 14,097 families residing in the city. The population density was 1,893.0 persons per square mile . There were 22,228 housing units at an average density of 818.9 per square mile...
in 1998. A cast of revolving sidemen were to come in and out of the band throughout their early career. Prior to playing as No Doctors, Foote and Chaumpers had created experimental noise recordings for the purpose of psychic investigation, while deMorrow had distributed cassetteworks under the names of "Peyote Tax Return" and "F*ck Your Yankee Bluejeans," created together with an artist now known solely as "Devilman" (RIP).
Still teenagers, the boys began playing sporadic live shows around Minneapolis-St. Paul, inspired by much of the underground noise scene as documented by local record labels E.F. Tapes, Destijl, Fusetron, and the local fanzine Muckraker.
They were soon approached by CEO Matthew St-Germaine with the idea of assisting with a record label, called Freedom From
Freedom From
Freedom From is a Minneapolis, Minnesota based record label which primarily focuses on the international noise underground genre. The label was founded in 1996 with its first official release by a San Francisco three-piece named Job. Up until early 1998, the labels focus was singularly cassettes,...
. Much of their early years as a band were influenced heavily by the diverse and radical roster of artists that was quickly cultivated. The Argentine avant-space trio Reynols was to have an exceptional influence on philosophy when the boys accompanied the band on their first American tour, where they explored Minecxio and the role of the No-Mind.
S/T LP
The year 2000 saw No Doctors moving to Chicago to begin work on their debut album. At this point the band expanded into a consistent sextet, with the additions of Mr Brians on drums, Patrick Fogarty on bass, and W Cłøpŝkí on subtle whispers. Numerous other sidemen appeared as well, including the notorious Kevekev. Several distinct copies of the album were initially circulated, as noted by critic Liz Armstrong of the Chicago Reader. The album's deft integration of Minnesotan völk-noise inflections into rock's idiom curried little favor from elite urban critics, but secured the band's place in the American noise underground.Hunting Season
No Doctors' second record, Hunting Season, was recorded at Tarantula Hill in Baltimore with the assistance of Twig Harper and Carly Ptak (Nautical Almanac), and Chiara Giovando (Black Elf Speaks, Black Coitus Family, Harrias, Motörhead). The album was a move away from the dadaDada
Dada or Dadaism is a cultural movement that began in Zurich, Switzerland, during World War I and peaked from 1916 to 1922. The movement primarily involved visual arts, literature—poetry, art manifestoes, art theory—theatre, and graphic design, and concentrated its anti-war politics through a...
influences of the first album toward a greater connection with punk rock
Punk rock
Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...
and heavy metal
Heavy metal music
Heavy metal is a genre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, largely in the Midlands of the United Kingdom and the United States...
. Critics repeatedly compared the work to the Velvet Underground, Pussy Galore and Royal Trux
Royal Trux
Royal Trux was an American alternative rock band from 1987 to 2001, founded by Neil Hagerty and Jennifer Herrema .-History:...
, and Amir Karim Nezar went so far as to declare "No Doctors are the living incarnations of Satan."
ERP Saints
ERP Saints followed in 2004 as a tribute to the East Rogers Park neighborhood of Chicago. This session saw the band stripped down to a quartet. Critics such as Larry Dolman and Matt Weir praised the effort for its clarity and noted a definitive shift in aesthetics: a turning to the light.Origin & Tectonics
In the fall of 2004 No Doctors relocated to the Bay AreaSan Francisco Bay Area
The San Francisco Bay Area, commonly known as the Bay Area, is a populated region that surrounds the San Francisco and San Pablo estuaries in Northern California. The region encompasses metropolitan areas of San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose, along with smaller urban and rural areas...
, where they shared a practice space with friends Deerhoof
Deerhoof
Deerhoof is a musical group consisting of Satomi Matsuzaki, John Dieterich, Ed Rodriguez and Greg Saunier.-Origins:In 1992, Greg Saunier, having recently graduated with a degree in music composition from Oberlin Conservatory of Music, joined a short-lived San Francisco quartet called Nitre Pit, on...
and Kreamy 'Lectric Santa, frequently played live shows in the Bay area, and embarked on a California-only tour in October–November 2006 entitled "US Out of CA." They also released several tracks through compilations and a 7" entitled "T-Bone (Pts 1 & 2)," and released their third full-length album "Origin & Tectonics" on CD/LP in June 2007. No Doctors officially disbanded during the liquidity crises of late 2008, settling outstanding obligations to creditors and dividing all remaining assets in order to recoup market losses sustained from bundled toxic derivatives. Fis and B started Careerers, Elvis plays as Black Stool, and Chauncey abandoned music, taking a gig in contract security. There is no word on the other drummer.
Martian Clxpæs
The oft-silent Clophez lies at the heart of No Doctors' sound. Understanding the mutable essence of the Clops will unlock the band's signature sound for those who have a reasonable understanding of musical and poetic activities and are willing to study the information with due diligence. Critic Dean Roth summed up his analysis of the phenomenon with his statement, "Cloaps resonates throughout No Doctors' unique idiom like a schwa through the language of the sphinxes."The character was first presented to the general public through the cover of No Doctors' debut LP, depicted beneath a hooded robe and clutching an enormous pair of drumsticks. Since then similarly garbed individuals have sporadically appeared with No Doctors in concert, generally operating percussive devices of a highly unorthodox nature. These devices have ranged from gigantic rolls of Pionite to glass jars full of water to other bands' amplifiers, often but not always attacked with his signature baseball-bat-sized drumsticks. Beware, he got a new pair.
Occasionally taking the place of Mr. Brians himself, CLPX has more generally appeared alongside the regular drummer in a tandem mode, though his role has been nothing if not inconsistent. Some have charged that the role amounts to little more than the band dressing up an outside business consultant. Others have romanticized the donning of the cloak as a passing of political power or even mystical significance. Regardless, there have been at least four "clopezi" who have chosen to distinguish themselves: "'W' Clopex," "Martin the Moon Doggie," "'Claps' Mulligan" and "Carlito Lopez."
It is generally accepted that the spelling of clxpz must remain inconsistent in order to properly convey the meaning of the term. The term "Clophesgian" is similarly employed to reference a wide number of seemingly incongruent or contradictory ideologies, dependent on context, including but not limited to finance, metaphysics and aquatic lifestyles.
Rumors of a Clopezian States of America issuing its own currency have NOT been substantiated.
Former members
- Patlock Fogarty - Bass (S/T, HUNTING SEASON, FFYOU)
- Norway "Skunk" Pedersen - percussion (pre-S/T)
- Baron Bonn von Mudski McMots - Drums (pre-Norway "Skunk" Pedersen)
- MastaMillions - trumpet (S/T)
- Ab'Gayle - Bass (S/T)
- Martine Wendle - percussion (pre-ORIGIN AND TECTONICS)
- Kevan "www.kevekev.com" Harris - Bass (Milwaukee, WI: Dillo Day 2003)
- Eli "Geometry" Jones - Bass (2008)
Discography
- 2002: S/T CD/LP Freedom From
- 2003: HUNTING SEASON CD/LP Go Johnny Go / Cock of the Rock
- 2004: ERP SAINTS CD No Sides
- 2004: FF YOU Cassette Freedom From
- 2005: T-BONE PTS 1 & 2 7" Yik Yak
- 2007: ORIGIN & TECTONICS CD/LP (no label)
- 2008: bootleg