Music

Remembrances  of the Fall of the Berlin Wall

Anniversary Special

by Elizabeth Fiend

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No, these aren’t mug shots. They’re our visa photos. It’s amazing they let us in! Allen Fiend and Elizabeth Fiend, 1989.

Editors note: The Philly punk band More Fiends, founded by Allen and Elizabeth Fiend (host of BiG TeA PaRtY Sustainable Living) is the band that creates the soundtrack for BiG TeA PaRtY videos. Please enjoy this departure from the regular BiG TeA PaRtY sustainable living content and share my recollections of  the fall of the Berlin Wall on this anniversary. Peace out. Love, Elizabeth

I was lying on a twin mattress on the floor of a narrow bedroom watching Happy Days which had turned incredibly funny because in the German dubbed version The Fonz had a whiney, high pitched voice. Plus, come on, Fonzie was speaking German. The program was interrupted by what seemed like some sort of special news report. Instantly — voices, screaming, intensity, astonishment, from the kitchen down the slender hallway of my band’s home base in Hamburg. And more cries from outside, down the block, next door.

It was November 9th 1989 and More Fiends had been on tour already for a grueling seven weeks.

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More Fiends on a fortified roof top, Malmo Sweden. Molotov cocktails at our feet (look to the left of Elizabeth). Left to right: Elizabeth Fiend, Allen Fiend, Ron Fiend, Rich Poor.

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MORE FIENDS the MUSIC BEHIND
BiG TeA PaRtY Sustainable Living

Photos from “The Swimsuit Issue”

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Allen Fiend = Bass
Dave Fiend = Drums
Elizabeth Fiend = Slide Guitar
Bob Fiend = Guitar

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MoRE FiENDS
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An explosion of vivid colours both in looks and personalities, More Fiends prove to be illuminating musically too. With superfuzz thrash, disoriented voodoo rhythm and gloriously camp vocal extremities, they have come up with one far out wild party. The powerful effect of the Fiends’ multi-ingredient homebrew is a drug free buzz for quality kitsch lovers everywhere.
—- SOUNDS magazine, London
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More Fiends freebase an explosive mixture of hardcore and no wave–the two primal movements that’ve done so much to shape the course of the U.S. underground this generation–with a healthy appetite for the bizarre. A garishly cluttered wall of sound, More Fiends seem like the soundtrack of a street battle being waged in a phone box. We’re talking overcrowded here and there’s one helluva lot of debris floating around in this mix. Raw shreds of post no wave fallout rub shoulders with the off the beaten track eccentricities of Euro-American punk. Colourfully eccentric in the extreme and fatally shaped by their urban environment, More Fiends are by turns hilariously intense and crazily off the wall. — SOUNDS magazine, London England

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DISCOGRAPHY

‘SECT OF THE ANTI-HUMAN’ 7 inch–Smacked Ass Entertainment
‘LEGENDS OF PHILLY PUNK’ 7 inch compilation ep–Carbon 14 Magazine
‘SCRAPPLE’ boxed set of 7 inches–WKDU compilation
‘TOAD LICKIN’ lp–US edition: Peel Session and Southern Studio trax
–Rave Records
cd–European edition: extra trax recorded in Hamburg
–Semaphore
‘LUST’ 7 inch–Rave Records
‘LIFE’S TOUGH FOR THE STUPID’ double 7 inch–Rave Records
‘YO ASPHALT HEAD’ lp–US edition: Rave Records
cd–European edition: Semaphore
‘WHAT HAVE YA BROUGHT ME NOW?’ 7 inch–Rotten House Records

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More Fiends have toured America and Europe extensively. They have performed at the NEW MUSIC SEMINAR, New York City; the BERLIN INDEPENDENCE DAYS FESTIVAL, Germany; the INTERNATIONAL ANARCHIST FESTIVAL, San Francisco and have recorded a PEEL SESSION for the BBC radio, England.

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EVENT: Allen and Elizabeth Fiend on the RADIO. Sunday, Jan.25th 12-1pm., : Tune to: 1650 AM

Please join actress and director Maria Moller of Shakespeare In the Park in this reinvention of NPR’s “This American Life.”
On Januray 25th Maria’s NEXUSradio’s guests will be Allen and Elizabeth Fiend of the legendary Philly punk band More Fiends.

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 Allen Fiend –bass, guitar, vocals — is the founder of More Fiends, the only Philly band to have ever recorded a Peel Session for the BBC Radio. Elizabeth Fiend — slide guitar, vocals.

More Fiends provide the soundtrack for all of the BiG TeA PaRtY videos with Allen Fiend being the TV show’s sound engineer.

Hear More Fiends Songs, listen to the Fiends tell their stories:
~+~ The very beginning of punk in Philly, what the scene was like. How we came to be squatters.
~+~ More Fiends tour stories: what the squat / political / music scene (which we were part of) was like in Europe. ~+~ Stories about being on tour in Germany when the wall came down. What Poland was like while Lech Walesa was running for president. Plus: riots, fights, cops busting shows in Scandinavia.
~+~ The Scum-Rock scene in New York (which we were part of).
~+~ Elizabeth Fiend will describe what it was like to be a girl in a punk band. “No, I’m not the singer, I actually play an instrument…”
~+~ Readings of lyrics and stories about how they came to be written Plus, MUSIC, MUSIC, MUSIC.
~+~ BiG TeA PaRtY, the song! Yes, it was a song before the TV show.

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