Fat Riker

Nov. 26, 1991

I got all of those tapes distributed! Those copies of “Signals” came in useful after all; I just taped up the write protect tabs and recorded over that Canadian nonsense. Of course, our recording session didn’t quite fill up the whole tape, so there’s probably still some of the original album left on the end. I was thinking about filling in that time by looping “Backwards Song” in reverse to see if it sounded like anything intelligible like that. I couldn’t figure out how to make my boombox play in reverse and record at the same time, so I abandoned the plan.

Of course, missing another day’s work combined with Carlos demanding I rent a carpet steamer for him to use now meant that I was going to be running a bit thin on my finances this month. Not to mention the van was running on fumes and I had hopes of making it down to White Water to stir up some support at the University of Wisconsin. The fuel mileage on the van hasn’t been the same since I had to get it dredged up out of Gilbert Bay last summer after that incident at the dairy farm. Those 10 miles down US Highway 12 were looking pretty daunting, believe me.

I even called up Keith to see if he wanted to cut school and ride down there with me and maybe lend me a few bucks for gas, but his mom picked up the phone and yelled at me. I think he probably would have wanted to go if I had been able to get him on the horn, but it didn’t look like that was happening. I thought about riding down to the high school and hanging around out front until I spotted Keith but that seemed like it might take all day. No, I had to figure out something else.

Eventually I had a great idea – I took some of the Orange Julius signs down from in front of my apartment and used the last of my duct tape to stick them to the side of the van. I mixed up some of my knock off drinks in the kitchen, poured them into a big thermos jug and took a short drive down the road to the 7-11. I threw open the back door of the van and opened shop.

Even with it being cold, I was still able to move some Juliuses. I was doing pretty brisk business with some Canadian motorists that had pulled over to load up on gas and Funyuns but I saw a cop car pull by really slowly a couple of times and decided to close up shop. I cleared a little over fifteen bucks, not counting expenses, which was more than enough to get the van down to White Water. Plus, I still had like half a thermos full of Julius to drink on the way.

I gunned it down Highway 12, hoping to catch the record shop before the lunch rush, but I got turned around once I got into town and ended up circling some old empty K-Mart building for two hours before I found the right road.

Once I found the place, I was finally able to unload some of the tapes. The guy said they had a section for local bands, but seemed a little confused by the “Signals” cover art. I asked the guy to borrow a marker and I scratched out the old band name and title and wrote in our own.

After I had them all marked out, I realized I didn’t have an album name yet. I was feeling a little light headed from all the Orange Juliuses I drank on the way in and couldn’t think of a good name, so I just rewrote “Signals” back in.

The guy at the store said I could leave five copies with him and they’d “try to keep track of how many they sold”. The store gets an 80% cut on the merchandise sales, which I thought was pretty fair. We set the price for five dollars a tape so the band will basically get one dollar per sale. Carlos wrangled me into giving him a 50% cut up front on all merchandise sold, plus his regular share on the back end.

Still, not too shabby.

I went and tried to pass out a few copies on the college campus, but no one was particularly interested. I dumped the lion’s share of what I had left in the library’s return slot, so I hope they’ll just reshelf them with the rest of the audio/visual stuff and we’ll get some listens that way.

I coasted back into Fort Atkinson with the needle on “E” and the van actually ran out of gas about eight blocks from my house. I managed to roll the van into a fire lane before it stopped completely; it should be pretty safe there until I can come back for it in a couple of days when I get paid. For a little advertising, I threw a copy of the album into the tape deck and cranked it up as loud as it would go. It should loop until the battery dies. I left the remaining copies in a pile on the hood so people can take one if they like what they hear. Besides, I had to lug my Orange Julius signs and the thermos back by hand. I did not want to have to deal with carrying those tapes too.

Nov. 27, 1991

I called Keith over to tell him the good news about all the tapes being distributed. I also hoped we could practice a bit without Carlos since I couldn’t afford to pay him to come over this week.

I guess Carlos got to Keith, though, and Keith said he wanted to get paid too. This was bad, because I was broke after buying gas and that case of Funyuns. I probably shouldn’t have bought the chips, but after seeing those Canadians chowing down the other day, I had a wicked craving for them. Anyway, I didn’t have the money to pay Keith so I reimbursed him with some buy one get one free Orange Julius coupons I printed up on the old dot matrix printer at work.

This seemed to satisfy him, especially after I told him he could use the coupons at the actual Orange Julius at the mall. He really can’t, but by the time he figures that out, I hope we’ll have a new album close to being done and be pulling in some profits from “Signals” as well. Then I expect he’ll change his tune.

The practice session went pretty well, but Keith had to stop playing after two songs because he said he stomach was hurting. I’m a little worried that the Sunny D I’ve been using for the Orange Juliuses has went bad, but I’m hoping that’s not what made him sick. To save cash I usually buy a whole bunch of Sunny D when it’s on sale and pour all the jugs into this big ten gallon bucket I have to save space in the fridge. It works pretty well most of the time but I accidently left the bucket sitting out when I went driving around and it may have spoiled. That would be bad – I’ve probably got like 3 gallons of D left in there. I’m not sure I can absorb that kind of financial loss at this point.

Nov. 29, 1991

Carlos showed up today, completely unannounced. I hadn’t called for him, but he shouldered his way in and started cleaning the floors. When I asked him to stop because I couldn’t pay him, he just pretended like he couldn’t hear me over the vacuum.

I acted like I needed to use the bathroom and slipped out through the window in there. I thought I’d just stay gone for the rest of the day, and hope he would get bored of waiting on me to come back and pay him.

I decided to use the time to walk down the road and check how the freebies on the van hood were doing. It was a bit of a hike, but it was worth it – I think somebody had taken one! The van was gone too, probably towed, but they left the tapes in a pile on the sidewalk. I counted through them and I’m pretty sure one was missing. I didn’t remember how many I had left really, but I’m pretty sure the pile looked a tiny bit smaller. That’s a big win in my book!

Anyway, I waited a while and went back to the apartment. I was hoping Carlos was gone but it looked like he was still there and sounded like he had invited more people over. I listened outside the door for a while and heard voices and music, so I went back downstairs. It didn’t seem like he was going anywhere soon, so I went to a payphone and called the cops and told him that the guy in my apartment was running an unlicensed Orange Julius joint with rotten Sunny D.

The cops and the health department showed up fast and busted the party up. They took my Orange Julius signs when they left, and when I finally got back into the apartment I found that someone had re-kicked in my drums. I’ll probably have to go back to work if I’m going to afford more duct tape to patch them up.

We’re probably going to have to find a new lead singer since I bet Carlos is pretty mad at me now. I’ve kind of gotten used to having a really clean floor though so I may call up some of the maid services in town tomorrow and see if they have anybody that can pull double duty. It’ll just be easier that way.

I have transcribed the following journal entries from their original, handwritten forms in the Fat Riker notebook.  There were many more, both before and after, but I felt these particular entries told a concise enough story to warrant being released grouped together.

***

March 11, 1998

I don’t even know what’s happening with this band anymore. Stuggy’s gone, we lost him around Bovina back on Highway 60. Not that Stuggy could keep a beat to save his life but he was usually good for splitting a bag of frozen crinkle fries with.

Hartford’s got us all running scared.  When I joined up it was just him, Stuggy, Jakey P and me.  A real four piece rock group.  Sure we didn’t have a bassist and I only played tambourine and acoustic chimes but I thought it was a pretty good group considering.  Now Hart seems to be replacing us one by one.

Jakey P was the only guy left from the previous incarnation of Fat Riker, and Hartford got rid of him first.  Poor guy didn’t even know what was happening.  Hart called for a vote on the toppings we were gonna order on our pizza that night.  He said “Raise your hand if you want pepperoni,” and them mumbled something else under his breath.  Of course we all voted for pepperoni but then Hartford laughed and said he had also said that the vote was to kick JP out of the band.  He said we hadn’t paid close enough attention to what we were voting for.

I felt ashamed.

We left him standing in that Super 8 motel parking lot in Oklahoma City, mouth open, cradling his guitar like a baby.  It was a terrible sight to behold, but we had voted I guess.  What were we supposed to say?

Hartford said he knew some guys just down the road we could pick up to replace him with.

These guys turned out to be a trio of brass players; a trumpet guy named Keith, a trombonist named Eddie and a sax man that wouldn’t tell me his name no matter how many times I asked him. He’d just push his sunglasses up further on his face and smile.

I’ll write more later.

March 13, 1998

Yeah so anyway I didn’t really see what these brass guys had to do with being a rock outfit.  They dressed like they were from the twenties or something and kept calling people “Daddio.”  Hartford said it was all the rage to replace lead guitarists with brass instruments but I don’t know.  We practiced a little while we were driving, but they didn’t know the songs and kept doing “freestyle” things.  I already had a pretty tough time trying to play bass tambourine, but now things sounded particularly offbeat.

Stuggy sort of made up for it by playing extra hard but I could tell he wasn’t happy.  He kept shooting Hartford looks from the backseat of the Fat Riker van where he had his drums wedged in, but Hartford just kept screaming along with the songs at the top of his lungs.  By that point, Hart was already starting to talk like those other guys.  I think they had gotten in his head with their fedoras and piano neckties.

That night, Hartford sat all of us down and told us the band was going in a new direction and was going to take advantage of the recent surge of interest in swing dancing.  Stuggy and I were welcome to stay, but we’d have to learn a bunch of new songs that the three brass guys had brought along.  Considering we were right in the middle of the empty vastness of northern Texas, I didn’t see we had much choice.  I just kept thinking about Jakey P, hundreds of miles from anywhere he knew and totally abandoned.

March 15, 1998

We were filling up on gas around Bovina when Stuggy started unloading his gear.  The swing trio were busy using spray paint to modify the band name on the side of the van.  By the time they were done, it read, “Fat Riker’s Swing Extravaganza”.

I saw Stuggs dragging his drums toward the gas station and rolled down my window to ask him what he was doing.  As soon as Hartford noticed he was out of the van, however, he yelled at the swing guys to jump in and cranked the engine.  We sped off, throwing up a mess of dust and gravel.  Stuggy didn’t look back.  I think he knew it was coming.

The other guys couldn’t contain their smiles.  I slunk down in the backseat.  I had a feeling I was next.

March 16, 1998

We made a bee line for Albuquerque, pushing the van hard.  I overheard Hartford and the others talking about a swing group that had just broken up near there.  I think they were hoping to pick up some stragglers to bolster the ranks.  The only times they talked to me were when we would stop for gas or whatever, they would ask if I’d jump out and grab some drinks or something.

I knew they just wanted to leave me behind, so I said no.  I dug into the backseat, pulling my luggage around me.  I took to urinating out of the window whenever I needed to and scrounging in the cracks of the seat for stale cheese puffs to eat.  Things were going to get worse before they got better, but at least Jakey P had left me the notebook to write in.

March 17, 1998

We picked up five of the disbanded swing group members and stuffed them into the van.  We found a used pull-behind trailer to store the gear in, but it was obvious we weren’t all going to fit into seats even with that.  I figured the less they thought about me, the less likely they were to leave me behind, so I opted to ride in the trailer with the gear.

It was dark and hot and I got powerfully thirsty, but I was worried that if I got out of the trailer that would be it for me.  So I stayed inside and took to licking the walls for the moisture that would condense at night.  Occasionally some member of the band would open the door to get an instrument or something and I would hiss at them until they closed it.  Eventually they stopped opening the door.

I’ll show them!  I’ll stay in Fat Riker until things got right again!

March 22, 1998

Big Daddy Hartford jawing at you mugs now.  I noticed that palooka Franky had been writing in here and thought it would rate to finish up the story for the future posterities and whatnots.  Yesterday, after driving around for two days without opening the trailer, we heard him go dormy and the fellas felt we should investigate.

Inside, we found him collapsed on the floor in a state of severe dehydration.  I thought he might be grifting us, but he seemed to be delirious and kept yelling about crinkle fries.  The shmuck didn’t move much.

We dropped him off at the nearest hospital and high-tailed it out of there.  It was a real clean sneak!  When we had time, we took stock of the trailer and found two interesting discoveries.  One was this notebook.  The other was that Franky had apparently been defecating in Tom’s saxophone.

We’ll have to replace it real swift like.  We’ve got a gig in Flagstaff and there’s swinging to be done!

Milwaukee Arts & Times – September 7, 1991

An Interview with Fat Riker

Raymond Johnson

Fat Riker is a five piece rock group that has northern Milwaukee talking, but not in a good way.  In fact, if I were asked to sum up the conversation surrounding the band, it would have to be something along the lines of “Fat Riker, go far far away and never even consider coming back.  Not even if you accidently leave your wallet – just call us and we will mail it to you. So, you know, you don’t come back for it. Because we don’t want you to come back.”

The group crept into the local music scene like a friendless college freshman slipping into his old high school’s prom the year after he graduated; an awkwardly unwelcome presence that puts everyone on edge.  When my editor dropped the assignment to interview Sam “Plinky” Greer, the group’s singer and lead bassist (they field upwards of three for any given show), I was both excited and dreadful.  There is something wrong with these men who call themselves Fat Riker, and while I was hungry to find out what their deal was, I was also nervous to be seen in any kind of proximity to them.

I sat down with Plinky over some fries at the Northridge Mall food court while he was between shows. He is a tired looking man; rail thin and with dark eyes that stare somewhere in the mid-distance.  He affects a faux-British accident perhaps a third of the time; likely only when he remembers.  His tight zebra-stripe pants and permed hair have seen better days.

Q: Thank you for meeting with me.  To begin, can we get a rundown of who plays with you in Fat Riker?

Sam Greer: Oh yeah, of course.  Naturally, there’s me.  The heart and soul of Fat Riker.  I speak from the heart about the soul, yeah?  With my bass and my voice.  My bass is my heart and my voice is my soul.  And that’s why I do what I do, yeah?

Q: Of course.  And what of the other members?

SG: Wankers, all of them.  I hate them.  I wish they weren’t necessary, but no one takes a one-voice, one-bass show seriously.  I tried. Did you hear about my solo shows in Akron?

Q: Uhm, no.

SG: Unfortunate for you mate! I took music to places it ain’t never been before!

Q: I’m sure you did.  You and Fat Riker play here in the Northridge Mall food court, right?

SG: Yes, we play from 9am – 9pm every day.

Q: A twelve hour show every day?

SG: Well, we gotta take breaks some times, don’t we? But yeah, apart from breaks, a twelve hour show every day.  Except on Sundays, mall hours are shorter.  They’re only from 10 – 4.  Six hours.  Our day off.

Q: Please explain this setup to our readers who are unfamiliar with your place here.

SG: Well, Northridge used to have a Chinese food place here in the foodcourt, yeah?  But the health inspector closed it down and nothing had moved into its spot for a while. We stopped in here on our way up to Fond Du Lac for a show and we had an idea.  What if we set up a permanent home for Fat Riker, here in the food court?  So we talked to the mall manager and worked out a deal.

Q: And what was that deal?

SG: Well, we’d take over the spot where the Chinese place used to be and play all day long.  And since we’re playing, the mall doesn’t need to run the intercom music anymore does it?  So the mall saves money.  We get to half of whatever we reduce the mall’s electric bill by.

Q: I suppose that makes a kind of sense.  Still, I’m surprised you have enough material to fill a twelve hour show.

SG: Oh, we only got five songs.  Well, five and a half if you count that thing Steve’s working on, but I don’t.  So we usually loop those five songs in random order for most of the day.

Q: Doesn’t that get old for the people in the food court?

SG: Oh yeah, they hate it.  Sometimes, when they’re getting really upset, we’ll sort of egg ‘em on by playing “Bleeper and the Sleeper” over and over which is probably the worst song we have.  We’re real provocative you see.

Q: I have heard reports of violence against the band being fairly common.  You might want to take it easy on the customers – I know a lot of people had their hearts set on an Orange Julius opening up where you guys are playing now.

SG: Forget ‘em! Fat Riker is here to stay. Them blokes what kicked in the drum set is the real problem here.  Ever since then, Greg’s had to drum on upside down trash cans which definitely don’t help with acoustics let me tell you.

Q: So what’s the plan for the future of Fat Riker?

SG: We keep hoping for a snow day or a bomb threat or something to close down the mall for the day.  If we had that kind of time, we could write some new songs and visit the doctor and whatnot.  Apparently, sleeping on the floor of the food court every night has done a number on our spines.  Not to mention all the ammonia-based floor cleaner we inhale.

Apart from that, when we get our first check from the mall we’ll probably replace Greg’s drums and get an apartment.  That should be pretty soon I guess.

Q: And how much do you expect that to be?

SG: Hard to say.  It’s minus the rent on the food court area and that’s about a grand.  I’m guessing not running the intercom is probably saving somewhere between five hundred and two thousand dollars a day, yeah?  Electricity ain’t cheap you know.

Q: I’m – I’m not sure how accurate those figures are.  Have you ever paid an electric bill?

SG: I have not.

Q: Thank you for your time.

About two weeks after I conducted this interview, Fat Riker disappeared from their position in Northridge.  I phoned the mall manager and he explained to me that the group could not pay the $984 dollar bill for use of their area in the food court and defaulted on their contract.

As the contract was between the Northidge Mall and the band Fat Riker, not the individual members, the shopping center seized control of all property, real and intellectual, owned by the group.  This included the rights to five and a half songs, a notebook, the name “Fat Riker” and a set of kicked-in drums.

The mall is currently deliberating what to do with the assets, including a possible auction for the creative rights.

Sam Greer and the rest of the band left no forwarding address.