The Turtlenecks
The Turtlenecks was a short-lived alternative rock band based in Ohio in the early 1980s. The band's line-up included lead vocalist and guitarist John Flansburgh, drummer Karl Hecksher, bassist and vocalist Julie Kantner, backing vocalist Fred Hickler, and guitarist Chris Lawrence. The band was formed at Antioch College, where Kantner met several students from Lincoln-Sudbury High School, one of whom introduced her to Flansburgh due to their shared interest in writing and recording music. Kantner considers herself a guitarist, but Flansburgh encouraged her to play bass for the band.
The Turtlenecks performed both original material, most of which was composed by Flansburgh, and covers selected by various band members. In 1981, they recorded several songs in Flansburgh's and Kantner's dorm room at Antioch for a "live" EP titled Got Liver if You Want It. Other songs were recorded by the band at a studio in Miami. Several Turtlenecks tracks from various sources were collected and released by Kantner on Bandcamp in 2015 as a self-titled EP. One of these songs, "Indiana Wants Me", had previously been included in the July edition of TMBG Unlimited. Flansburgh also wrote "Alienation's For The Rich" for The Turtlenecks, although the demo of that song included in the TMBG Unlimited collection was likely recorded later.
Flansburgh has stated that the band's repertoire also included "Sweet Home Alabama" because "[Kantner] could play the entire riff on the guitar, so it was like...this impressive display." Kantner has referred to this rendition as "Sweet Home Ohio". Stylistically, Flansburgh called The Turtlenecks "the immediate predecessor to They Might Be Giants, in the sense that I feel the spirit of the band was more kind of coming from where They Might Be Giants was coming from." Flansburgh was concurrently performing in The Blackouts, which Kantner characterized as a more "serious" band, which, unlike The Turtlenecks, performed gigs off-campus.
Flansburgh also recalled that "the drummer of the band had this weird thing. He liked stopping in the middle of songs, and waiting till everybody would turn around...and just as the thread of the song was about lost, he'd start playing again. So, like, we wouldn't actually stop playing, but he would stop long enough to make everybody feel really edgy. And he'd do this in performance, at shows! It was really this strange control thing, he was trying to show that he was driving the car."
Turtlenecks guitarist Chris Lawrence would later become John Linnell's roommate in New York City.
See also[edit]
External links[edit]
- Don't Let's Start fan podcast interview with Julie Kantner
- The Turtlenecks on Bandcamp