Barnes & Barnes

Cheerful exponents of deliberately tasteless comedy rock, Barnes & Barnes also described themselves, in the words of one member, as "The original 'Two friends with a 4 track' artists." They achieved lasting recognition through their lo-fi single "Fish Heads," which turned into a regular feature on Dr. Demento's radio program and registered an early success on MTV. The pair's concealed reality was that both members earned their livings as professional musicians aligned with respected soft-rock outfits, while they devoted spare hours to producing intentionally eccentric albums such as 1980's Voobaha and 1981's Spazchow. Although no subsequent release matched the partial breakthrough of "Fish Heads," the duo persisted in issuing further collections, among them 2019's Holidaze in Lumania and 2021's Pancake Dream, until the passing of co-founder Artie Barnes brought their partnership to an end in 2023.

Barnes & Barnes originated with Billy Mumy and Robert Haimer, who had known each other since boyhood. Mumy had already enjoyed a career as a child actor, beginning with an appearance on the television program Wire Service at age three. In 1961 he delivered a notable performance on The Twilight Zone in the episode "It's a Good Life," portraying Anthony, a demanding youngster capable of reshaping reality and thereby keeping surrounding adults in constant apprehension. His most prominent part arrived when he was chosen to play Will Robinson on the science-fiction series Lost in Space, which aired from 1965 to 1968 and remained in syndication for many years afterward. Outside acting commitments, Mumy cultivated abilities on guitar and keyboards while collaborating with his closest companion Haimer on amateur films; Haimer likewise honed considerable talents as an instrumentalist and songwriter. The two labeled their Super-8 efforts "Art Films" and adopted the pseudonyms Art Barnes for Mumy and Artie Barnes for Haimer during those productions.

At age sixteen in 1970, Mumy acquired basic recording gear, after which he and Haimer began composing and capturing unconventional songs purely for their own diversion. They had already been assembling progressively intricate home recordings with no commercial plans when Haimer proposed sending material to the Dr. Demento Show, the weekly broadcast specializing in comedy and novelty music that enjoyed popularity in California and reached a national audience through syndication. Upgrading from two-track to four-track equipment, Mumy and Haimer prepared more polished versions of "Fish Heads" and "Boogie Woogie Amputee" and forwarded them to Barret Hansen, the individual behind the Dr. Demento identity. Hansen started playing "Fish Heads" regularly in 1978, making it the most frequently requested track in the program's history; later that same year Barnes & Barnes issued the single "Fish Heads" backed with "High School Gym" on their independent Lumania Records label. They created an inexpensive promotional clip for "Fish Heads" directed by actor Bill Paxton, who also appeared in the footage, and once MTV launched in 1981 the video entered regular rotation, its peculiar humor and unexpected melodic appeal turning the track into a modest success. A follow-up single, "Something's in the Bag" backed with "Boogie Woogie Amputee," appeared on Lumania in 1979, as did a joint release with Damaskas (also known as Damaskas Hollodan), "A Day in the Life of Green Acres," which adapted the lyrics of the theme from the cult sitcom Green Acres to the music of the Beatles' "A Day in the Life"; that hybrid quickly became another regular on the Dr. Demento Show.

Once Barnes & Barnes attained greater visibility than Mumy and Haimer had anticipated, they reached an agreement with Rhino Records, known for its interest in unconventional comedy releases, and delivered their debut full-length album, Voobaha, in 1980. During this period Mumy began gaining traction within the broader music business; he co-wrote material recorded by Peggy Lee and Shaun Cassidy, and in 1981 the album View from the Ground by soft-rock stalwarts America featured three songs co-written by Mumy, two of which also included contributions from Haimer. Over the ensuing twenty years Mumy and Haimer maintained an ongoing association with America both in the studio and onstage, while few listeners realized that the band included the creators of "Fish Heads." A second Barnes & Barnes album, Spazchow, arrived in 1981 and demonstrated that Art and Artie had refined their studio technique. Barnes & Barnes additionally produced two albums for the eccentric street performer Wild Man Fischer—1981's Pronounced Normal and 1984's Nothing Scary—and in 1989 they helmed The Big Problem ≠ The Solution. The Solution = Let It Be, an album by actor, writer, and noted eccentric Crispin Glover.

In 1982 Rhino issued Fish Heads: Barnes & Barnes Greatest Hits, a five-track EP pressed as a picture disc shaped like a fish head, and the label would release four additional Barnes & Barnes albums between 1984 and 1993, among them The Dinosaur Album, a children's project on which Mumy and Haimer maintained a family-friendly approach although the label omitted the artists' names from the cover; Lumania reissued the set in 2008. Amid Mumy and Haimer's continuing work with America and other performers, their intermittent solo projects, and Mumy's ongoing film and television commitments—he maintained a steady voice-acting schedule through the 1990s and 2000s, appeared regularly on the science-fiction series Babylon 5, and made a cameo in the 2018 Netflix revival of Lost in Space—Barnes & Barnes remained largely inactive after The Dinosaur Album, surfacing again only with Kodovoner in 2005 and Opbopachop in 2009. Mumy and Haimer reactivated the project in 2019 with the seasonal collection Holidaze in Lumania on Demented Punk Records and followed it in 2021 with Pancake Dream; that release proved to be the final Barnes & Barnes album, as Robert Haimer (and therefore Artie Barnes) passed away after an extended illness on March 4, 2023, at the age of 69.