Biography
Indiana-bred yet Los Angeles-rooted, Crawlspace operates as a constantly shifting art-punk project fronted by vocalist Eddie Flowers. Blending abrasive guitar textures, hypnotic space-rock passages, punk-driven force, and intermittently lofty lyrics, the group tends to polarize audiences while still delivering substantial rewards for listeners drawn to adventurous hard-rock explorations.
Flowers previously fronted the Gizmos, an Indiana outfit that, alongside MX-80 Sound, helped shape the earliest Midwestern new-wave sound. Relocating to Los Angeles during summer 1979, he joined forces with guitarist Bill McCarter in a short-lived project called the Idle Hands. Once fellow Indiana natives the Lazy Cowgirls settled in Los Angeles in 1985 and reconnected with McCarter, Flowers and McCarter launched a parallel endeavor alongside Lazy Cowgirls bassist Keith Telligman and drummer Allen Clark; the ensemble first operated under the cumbersome Big Dad & Ten Pounds of Swingin' Meat before adopting the more concise Crawlspace, a name taken from a 1970s television film centered on a disaffected teen. With the addition of lead guitarist Mark McCormick and another Lazy Cowgirl, Lenny Keringer, who assumed bass duties to free Telligman for guitar, the band tracked its debut and most conventionally structured release, In the Gospel Zone, in 1987.
That album’s lone cover, a Hawkwind-inflected reading of Can’s “Little Star of Bethlehem,” hinted at the increasingly free-form direction ahead. Subsequent personnel shifts saw Sarge Adam replace Keringer on bass and Bob Lee take over for Clark on drums; the revised lineup then issued the singles “August” and “Ocean = You,” marking a clear departure from song-based frameworks. Concert documents from this transitional phase later surfaced on the self-released cassettes Cave Paintings One and Cave Paintings Two, capturing the moment when structured material gave way to pure improvisation. After Adam’s departure in 1990, Joe Dean joined on bass; this configuration committed the hour-long, live-in-the-studio improvisation Sphereality to tape in 1991, though its eventual 1992 release coincided with Lee’s exit to join the more straightforward Claw Hammer.
Deprived of a drummer, Crawlspace entered a two-year holding pattern during which Flowers and assorted collaborators pursued drummerless space-rock duos and trios, selections of which appeared on the self-released cassette Fields Rattle. Clark returned in 1993, switching to saxophone and trumpet, while guitarist Dave Fontana and drummer Greg Hajic came aboard; together they produced the cassette-only Shroom Tit Arithmetic and the radio broadcast The Exquisite Fucking Beauty of Crawlspace, the latter issued on CD by Majora. Working with an assortment of guests and several former members, the same lineup also completed The Dark Folds of Infinity Grow Pink with Desire and Et II, Bluto?.
By 1997 the roster had coalesced around the core trio of Flowers—who now doubled on guitar—Dean, and Hajic, augmented intermittently by Clark and McCormick. The band’s own Slippy Sound imprint became especially active, issuing fourteen cassettes in 1999 and a dozen CD-Rs in 2000 that mixed fresh and archival material. In 2001 the proper successor to Et II, Bluto?, titled Dogs Begin to Crawl, Snakes Begin to Howl, finally appeared.
Flowers previously fronted the Gizmos, an Indiana outfit that, alongside MX-80 Sound, helped shape the earliest Midwestern new-wave sound. Relocating to Los Angeles during summer 1979, he joined forces with guitarist Bill McCarter in a short-lived project called the Idle Hands. Once fellow Indiana natives the Lazy Cowgirls settled in Los Angeles in 1985 and reconnected with McCarter, Flowers and McCarter launched a parallel endeavor alongside Lazy Cowgirls bassist Keith Telligman and drummer Allen Clark; the ensemble first operated under the cumbersome Big Dad & Ten Pounds of Swingin' Meat before adopting the more concise Crawlspace, a name taken from a 1970s television film centered on a disaffected teen. With the addition of lead guitarist Mark McCormick and another Lazy Cowgirl, Lenny Keringer, who assumed bass duties to free Telligman for guitar, the band tracked its debut and most conventionally structured release, In the Gospel Zone, in 1987.
That album’s lone cover, a Hawkwind-inflected reading of Can’s “Little Star of Bethlehem,” hinted at the increasingly free-form direction ahead. Subsequent personnel shifts saw Sarge Adam replace Keringer on bass and Bob Lee take over for Clark on drums; the revised lineup then issued the singles “August” and “Ocean = You,” marking a clear departure from song-based frameworks. Concert documents from this transitional phase later surfaced on the self-released cassettes Cave Paintings One and Cave Paintings Two, capturing the moment when structured material gave way to pure improvisation. After Adam’s departure in 1990, Joe Dean joined on bass; this configuration committed the hour-long, live-in-the-studio improvisation Sphereality to tape in 1991, though its eventual 1992 release coincided with Lee’s exit to join the more straightforward Claw Hammer.
Deprived of a drummer, Crawlspace entered a two-year holding pattern during which Flowers and assorted collaborators pursued drummerless space-rock duos and trios, selections of which appeared on the self-released cassette Fields Rattle. Clark returned in 1993, switching to saxophone and trumpet, while guitarist Dave Fontana and drummer Greg Hajic came aboard; together they produced the cassette-only Shroom Tit Arithmetic and the radio broadcast The Exquisite Fucking Beauty of Crawlspace, the latter issued on CD by Majora. Working with an assortment of guests and several former members, the same lineup also completed The Dark Folds of Infinity Grow Pink with Desire and Et II, Bluto?.
By 1997 the roster had coalesced around the core trio of Flowers—who now doubled on guitar—Dean, and Hajic, augmented intermittently by Clark and McCormick. The band’s own Slippy Sound imprint became especially active, issuing fourteen cassettes in 1999 and a dozen CD-Rs in 2000 that mixed fresh and archival material. In 2001 the proper successor to Et II, Bluto?, titled Dogs Begin to Crawl, Snakes Begin to Howl, finally appeared.
Albums
