Humungous

See also Humongous as that's the proper spelling.

Louisville's answer to The Red Krayola. Brilliant. Joyful. Fun as fuck.

A brief, Most likely grammatically incorrect history of the Humongous band

Humongous played in front of an audience for the first time Sept. 2nd 2000. We played as a bluegrass band with traditional bluegrass instrumentation. The line up during this phase was:

Matt Fisher (ex-Union)-acoustic guitars/vocals/stand-up bass + Jess Myers violin/vocals + Jamie Pickerill - (BUS HUS)Mandolin/vocals + Matt Pickerill (ex-Union, Ex-Gold Jacket Club,BUS HUS)- Acoustic guitars/vocals/stand-up bass + Eric Young (ex-Bodyhammer,etc.) - acoustic guitars

This phase went on for about a year during which we managed to play many shows and record a full length record that was never released.

Also I should note other musicians who played with us at various times during this phase:

Cory Petri - Banjo/acoustic guitar/vocals + Elizabeth Vennable - Banjo/acoustic guitar/vocals + Julie Fisher - vocals + Alicia witaker - vocals + Eric Bookstrom - Washboard/accordion

Sometime in 2001 we decided that we would make electric music. This reduced our line up to:

Jess Myers - electric bass + Jamie Pickerill - Drums/electric guitar + Matt Pickerill - electric Guitar/drums

We played one show with this line up and decided that for our next live show we should have pre-recorded bass and drum tracks to play along with. The result was our heavy reggae influenced dub phase. With this we introduced synthesizers, conga drums, and a tape deck to the mix. We started playing our own songs mostly with this new phase, whereas in the previous bluegrass Phase we played only 4 original songs. We documented this phase with an e.p. titled "Girl Party"

The next phase saw the removal of the pre-recorded bass and drum tracks from our live shows. The core group at this time consisted of:

Jess Myers - Coronet/violin/vocals + Jamie Pickerill - Drums/vocals/synths +Matt Pickerill - Guitar/vocals + Erin Reed - Synths/vocals

This was the most ,uh, "focused" version of Humongous so far. Collectively, we wrote our "most well known songs" "Panty boy", "Hook-up the keyboard", "Flat and Smooth", "If P had W", "Intervention", etc., etc. We managed to travel via recreational vehicle to play 3 nights in Nashville w/Verktum and Dave Cloud! We almost opened for the Frogs and recorded a full length album at the L.A.V.A. house titled "Hello Frog".

A few other musicians helped us out at various times during this phase.

Jason Schooling - Drums/Synths + Eric Clark - Slide guitar + Cory Petri - Electric guitar

Sometime in 2004, Humongous took a break for four years for reasons of college and careers. Although someone told me recently they heard the reason they took off was because the thought of George W. Bush holding office for another four years was too depressing to carry on...to which they would return upon possibility of a new president. Funny.

Anyhow, the four core members(Jess,Jamie,Erin,Matt) are currently practicing and looking forward to playing shows, writing and recording.

in closing the Red Krayola reference is accurate. critic Alex Lindhardt wrote(About Red Krayola)"It's a band that has no idea how to play its instruments. In fact, they don't even know what instruments are, or if the guitarist has the ability to remain conscious long enough to play whatever it is a 'note' might be."

(Insert sound of laughter here).