Fishboy

Formed around Eric Michener’s brightly eccentric songcraft, Fishboy merges indie pop’s many shades, shifting from sparse acoustic textures to surging power-pop drive. A native of Texas, Michener earned the nickname “Fishboy” after accepting a dare to swallow a live fish at the Dallas World Aquarium on a middle-school outing; the incident reportedly aired on local television. His first album, Tim Fly's Cause He's Having Fun, appeared in 2000 via Business Deal Records, the modest imprint and music collective started by his older brother Dirk. Two years later he issued the self-released odds-and-ends collection The American Friends of Carlos Velez, then followed it in 2003 with Zipbangboom, which included horn contributions from Adam Avramescu. Avramescu became an official member on that record and inaugurated a series of personnel additions that continually reshaped the group.

By the 2005 release of the band’s third album, Little D, Fishboy had grown to encompass drummer Winston Reed Chapman and bassist Brady Goodwin. Chapman departed shortly afterward to concentrate on Bosque Brown, and John Clardy stepped in during the winter of that year. buoyed by favorable notices for Little D, the group spent the next twelve months touring alongside prominent acts and appeared on the Chicago-area children’s program Chic-a-Go-Go. Goodwin exited in summer 2006 to enter seminary and was succeeded that autumn by bassist Justin Lloyd. Around the same period Fishboy signed with the Athens, Georgia label Happy Happy Birthday to Me, which issued their fourth album, Albatross: How We Failed to Save the Lone Star State with the Power of Rock and Roll, in 2007.

The follow-up, Classic Creeps, arrived on the same imprint in 2011 and featured a fresh supporting cast: Adam Avramescu handling piano, organ, trumpet, French horn, percussion, and group vocals; Tommy Garcia on drums, percussion, whistle, and group vocals; and Ryan Williams on electric and upright bass. When the self-released concept album An Elephant surfaced in 2014—centering on Thomas Edison and Topsy the Elephant and accompanied by a comic drawn by Michener—the lineup had shifted again to include bassist Scarlett Wright, drummer Grahm Robinson, and multi-instrumentalist Samuel Escalante on keys and horns. The subsequent record brought in bassist Dave Koen and revolved around a concept of assorted artists; to accompany the music Michener produced one painting daily throughout October 2016, ultimately completing two hundred works. These 3"x5" watercolor-on-chipboard portraits titled “Art Guards” were integrated into the album packaging and offered for sale alongside Art Guards, which Lauren Records released in May 2017.