Fantastic Spikes Through Balloon

April 27, 2017 10:41 AM

"Yet in the last week of March 1997, with The Wallflowers' "One Headlight" topping Billboard's Modern Rock chart, Capitol Records quietly released one of the noisiest, most wired and willfully perverse major label debuts of the year from a band called Skeleton Key." With inspiration from the Jesus Lizard, Primus, Led Zep, and even Prince, Skeleton Key produced taut pop songs that sound "...like a clockwork junkyard." Members of the band would go on to produce macabre puppet shows, seed bands like Enon, and compose the music for Bob's Burgers.

From Noisey:

Skeleton Key were a guitar-bass-drums band with the added wrinkle of a second drummer, Rick Lee, whose "junk percussion" kit contained a whimsical variety of pots, pans, toys, and scrap metal. Between frontman Erik Sanko's big gulping basslines, guitarist Chris Maxwell's blown-out riffs, and Lee and drummer Steve Calhoon's clanking polyrhythms, Skeleton Key made a busy, nasty racket. But songs like "The World's Most Famous Undertaker" and "Dear Reader" lunged forward with enough hard rock heft that someone at Capitol thought the band had a chance at radio airplay. At times Skeleton Key resembled a punkier, artier Primus, right down to the guttural Tom Waits homages "Nod Off" and "Big Teeth." That may not sound like a recipe for mainstream success, but Primus actually sold millions of records back then.

The band's only official TV performance was on weird MTV show Oddville, but you can get a sense for the live ferocity and scrapyard aesthetic at this '97 NYE show.

Guitarist Chris Maxwell went on to become one half of Elegant Too, providing the musical accompaniment to Bob's Burgers, including such tunes as BM in the PM.

Bassist Erik Sanko has continued to lead the band, with excellent follow up records Obtanium and Gravity Is The Enemy. He also produces bizarre and odd puppet shows, with collaborations with Kronos Quartet among others.

posted by Existential Dread (16 comments total)

I had not heard of Skeleton Key before and after the first two tracks, I think I like them. On the other hand, "One Headlight" was twenty years ago? Jesus.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 10:51 AM on April 27, 2017 [1 favorite]

Not sure what One Headlight has to do with it other than timing, but I looked through the #1 singles a while back & that was just about the last #1 song that was played by humans.
posted by Devils Rancher at 10:51 AM on April 27, 2017 [4 favorites]

Ooo, I made a point of seeing them whenever they were in Providence. An incredibly dialed-in act that easily upstaged whoever else was on the bill at the Met Cafe, Babyhead or wherever. I remember some art school uber-hipsters decided they sounded too much like Primus, but I thought that was a superficial comparison.
posted by ducky l'orange at 10:59 AM on April 27, 2017 [1 favorite]

The One Headlight reference reminded me of this thread about how 1996 seemed to be the year that hard-to-pigeonhole acts like Skeleton Key (who I was unfamiliar with, thanks for the post Existential Dread!) fell out of favor, clearing the "Alternative Rock" airwaves for more straightforward/pop-oriented bands like The Wallflowers.
posted by Funeral march of an old jawbone at 11:08 AM on April 27, 2017

Yeah, the Wallflowers reference is mostly for juxtaposition, I think. It's not a bad song, but it's pretty much diametrically opposed to the noisy skronk of Skeleton Key. This record, Fantastic Spikes Through Balloon, is one of my favorites of all time. Saw them on Lollapalooza that year and they just ruled it. Finding out that Chris Maxwell went on to record a lot of the hilarious Bob's Burgers tunes is icing on the cake.

Also, I saw Skeleton Key in ~2006-ish, and they themselves got kind of upstaged by their awesome opening act, Stolen Babies.
posted by Existential Dread at 11:33 AM on April 27, 2017 [1 favorite]

Excellent post, ED, thanks! I listen to "Fantastic Spikes..." on the regular, and have done so since its release (a benefit of working in the music industry in the 90s was getting turned on to lots of great bands that nobody's ever heard of).

On that record, to me, Skeleton Key evokes the sound of Oingo Boingo (mostly in the strong bass playing, polyrhythms, and funky three-note chord groupings).

Interesting side note: The lyrics for the album were printed in reverse on the CD insert (maybe to get around music publishing restrictions? Or just 90s orneryness, perhaps). I remember scanning them and flipping them in Photoshop, to print a copy for reference /music_dork
posted by retronic at 11:38 AM on April 27, 2017 [3 favorites]

I went to school with Rick Lee, who was later in Butter 08 and Enon, he's a great guy! His current band Crooks On Tape is pretty cool.
posted by outfielder at 11:39 AM on April 27, 2017 [1 favorite]

Whoa, this Crooks On Tape thing is really cool, thanks!

I remember the packaging for Fantastic Spikes received some awards; they also inscribed some sort of bizarro story on the sleeve interior where the hinges on the jewel case were. I'll try to find the album this evening and transcribe it.
posted by Existential Dread at 11:48 AM on April 27, 2017 [2 favorites]

"Spreading Stain" is one of my favorite songs of theirs and has been since I got that first EP what seems like a thousand years ago. It's like Helmet meets J Robbins meets Danny Elfman. So tasty.

Also, I got to see them play live twice: once in Shafer Court @ VCU in the late 90's and again at some weird club in Brooklyn (Rye Coalition opened...woah). Being a dumb kid from Richmond and not some cool NYC kid, I think I was only one dancing at that show in Williamsburg. Erik seemed to approve. Best overalls in indie rock.
posted by tehjoel at 12:42 PM on April 27, 2017 [1 favorite]

Oh man, I can't remember how I stumbled onto them, but Skeleton Key has been a secret mixtape weapon for me forever, and one of the best live shows out there. I'm a sucker for that rumbling, polyrhythmic percussion.
posted by klangklangston at 12:57 PM on April 27, 2017 [1 favorite]

And that first Enon album is genius. Shame they slid to schmindie afterward — losing Lee's weird electronic wagon really cut the Brainiac out of them for good (despite Lee coming from SK, not Brainiac).
posted by klangklangston at 1:00 PM on April 27, 2017 [1 favorite]

This Enon record Believo! is really really cool and weird. I really like Conjugate the Verbs, it's melodic and trip-hoppy and dissonant.
posted by Existential Dread at 4:24 PM on April 27, 2017

I actually woulda sworn Fantastic Spikes was earlier than '97, 'cause I "discovered" the band and album when they swung through one of the Cleveland indie/punk clubs I was working sound at, and a lot of the most memorable stuff was in the early 90's. But yeah, great show, great band, great album, lots of fun. Thanks for posting, ED.
posted by soundguy99 at 5:48 PM on April 27, 2017 [2 favorites]

Not my cup of hot fat, but they put on a good live show circa 98 or so.
posted by Joseph Gurl at 9:54 PM on April 27, 2017

Anyone else here get a distinct Touch and Go records feel, circa mid late '80s? Do not know them at all but that first song really makes me feel like I missed out.

Thanks for posting this.
posted by Phlegmco(tm) at 12:38 AM on April 28, 2017

Okay, I dug the CD out. Inscribed on the jewel case here is a little tale:

I bought a donut from the donut store. Normally they have fantastic donuts. I took one bite and realized it was a cheap imitation donut from Bulgaria. It was disgusting. It was even worse than the Oklahoma donut I had a few years ago that was filled with plastic spikes. I had to be hospitalized a few days. That is where I met my girlfriend. She worked at the circus selling balloons. She had accidentally swallowed one trying to impress her ex. She told me I was cute. She didn't ask about my weight problem. Later I told her that my dad had owned a donut store that had burned down. He had put arsenic in one of the donuts and like "magic", he told me, mom died

posted by Existential Dread at 8:07 PM on April 28, 2017