Biography
In the early 1980s guitarist and producer Don Fleming teamed up with drummer Jay Spiegel in Washington, D.C., to launch Velvet Monkeys, a band devoted to pop-culture tributes. Both musicians had already spent time in Jad Fair’s long-running noise-pop ensemble Half Japanese, a group they would keep recording with across the remainder of the decade; Fleming had also played in the Stroke Band toward the end of the 1970s alongside Bruce Joyner of the Unknowns. Additional personnel in the fluid garage-rock lineup included Malcolm Riviera on guitar and keyboards, Elaine Barnes handling keyboards and vocals, Charles Steck on bass, and a rotating cast of others. Their earliest documented appearance came on the 1981 Limp Records compilation Connected. That same year the band issued its debut full-length, the cassette-only Everything Is Right, on their self-run Monkey Business imprint, followed in 1983 by the comparably garage-oriented Future. Three years later they shared the avant-pop cassette Big Big Sun with longtime associates Half Japanese. After that release the group went on hiatus while Fleming and Spiegel relocated to New York to join producer and musician Kramer in his pop-deconstruction project B.A.L.L. During the break they oversaw the 1989 compilation Rotting Corpse Au-Go-Go, which gathered earlier Velvet Monkeys material. Following the reportedly contentious breakup of B.A.L.L., Fleming and Spiegel revived Velvet Monkeys, enlisting guest contributors Thurston Moore, J Mascis, and Pussy Galore’s Julia Cafritz for the 1990 concept album Rake—also the band’s final statement—which playfully referenced 1970s exploitation soundtracks such as Curtis Mayfield’s Superfly. In return, Fleming and Spiegel later contributed performances and production work to recordings by Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr., and Free Kitten. Throughout the 1980s Velvet Monkeys also surfaced on various compilations, among them The Other, Sub Pop 9, Train to Disaster, Let’s Sea, and Deadly Spawn. They additionally placed a single on Sub Pop that featured a cover of the Beatles’ “Why Don’t We Do It in the Road” as its B-side and issued the double-single Better Living, drawn from early-1980s demos, on Thurston Moore’s Ecstatic Peace label. In 1990 Fleming, Spiegel, and Riviera transformed themselves into the new outfit Gumball. Two years afterward the Rake track “They Call It Rock” appeared on the soundtrack to Alison Anders’ film Gas Food Lodging, sharing space with material from J Mascis and others. Six years later the previously unreleased 1985 SST sessions House Party—recorded with Workdogs’ Rob Kennedy and Scott Jarvis, both fellow Half Japanese alumni—finally saw release via God Bless; its centerpiece was a ten-minute reading of the Stooges’ minimalist dirge “Little Doll.” Although Velvet Monkeys had already been absent from the scene for five years when that album emerged, the group had not been entirely overlooked, even as Fleming and Spiegel grew better known for their work in other projects.
Albums