Balto Band Bash 2014: You're With the Band!

Or: Bravo, Balto Weirdos!

[Note: This is a salvaged draft of an earlier post (June 9, 2014 to be exact), most of which was lost in the Blogosphere thanks to Blogger's deficiencies, which are too many to go into; but now, like a moth drawn to the flame, I go cautiously once more into the fray...]

It was a trip down Memory Lane - not to mention The Marble Bar, Oddfellows Hall, Maxwells, Spirits, the 8x10, and so on and so on...

(May 24, 2014) - Tonight's the night! I made the Double-A List (thanks Bob, thanks Mindi!) of invitees to a private party called Band Bash 2014: "You're With the Band!" (Mission Statement: "We are paying tribute to our friends, families and others who have suffered through the hardships of repititous rehearsals, frightening feedback and decor-destroying equipment. This party is for you!") at Heritage Parkville Gardens Hall in the Parkville Shopping Center.

It was an offer no one could refuse: free hot and cold buffet (the cinnamon cake desert alone was worth the price of admission - if there was one!), free beer and wine, and free musical performances by a lineup of luminous local legends. History may have relegated them to being rumors in their own time and legends in their own rooms, but on this night in this room, they were beheld as rock avatars in the collective minds of everyone there with two ears and a taste for good, smart music.

Yes, in the age of Smart Food, Smart Drinks, Smart TVs and Smart Phones (not to mention Smart Asses, who are mostly found at comic book conventions and nightly on Fox News), there is such a thing as Smart Music, and it was made on this night by three bands with, as they say in Kentucky horse-breeding country, impeccable best-in-class "bloodlines": the bossa nova-and-a-more-a Trio Novo (keyboardist Bob Tiefenwerth, bassist Paul Rieger, and drummer Tim Taormino)...

"Kick out the jams, mofos!: MC Rod Misey introduces Trio Novo

...venerable rock vets OHO (featuring guitarist Jay Grabowski and drummer Dave Reeve, with guest vocals on a Kinks cover courtesy of Dave "Steptoe T. Magnificent" Wilcox), and the "progressive rock for the contemporary absurdist" stylings of Buck Subtle & The Little Planets (keyboard-vocalist mastermind Mark O'Connor, his singer-guitarist wife Mary Lis, sax player Mindi Siegel (with her signature "Coltrane on the Moon" sound), and a former Da Moronics rhythm section of bassist Charles Freeman and drummer Jaimie Wilson, Sr.).

Buck Subtle & The Little Planets

Mary Lis and Chuck Freeman of The Little Planets

Jamie Wilson & Mindi Siegel

Saxy Mindi Siegel toots her own horn while savy Mark O'Connor sings

Monkey To Man: Jamie Wilson's drumming has really evolved from Da Moronics days

Buck Subtle's set was highlighted by "Pluto's Not a Planet Anymore" (renamed "Poor Pluto" and appearing with seven more tracks on their new CD Lowdown, recorded at Baltimore's Invisible Sound recording studio and available from CD Baby, CD Universe and Amazon.com)...

Buck Subtle gives listeners the "Lowdown" (2014)

...and O'Connor's homage to Moby Grape singer-songwriter-drummer Don Stevenson's infamous middle finger salute on the cover of Moby Grape's 1967 debut album (which was airbrushed off on subsequent reissues).

Don Stevenson makes a point for Moby Grape

Basically, most of the musicians gathered in Parkville on this night could trace their roots to the "OHO-GOHOG Revue," a multi-tentacled assortment of like-minded bands including the original OHO (named after the initials of O'Connor, bassist Steve Heck & guitarist Joe O'Sullivan, with guitarist Jay Grabowski & drummer Jeff Grabowski bookmarking them as GOHOG), Dark Side, Trixy & The Testones, Food For Worms, Klangfarb, U.S.E. (United States of Existence - a neo-psych group featuring Trio Novo's Paul Rieger and Bob Tiefenwerth and former Ebeneezer & The Bludgeons singer Dennis Davison), Little Hans, and BLAMMO (Beleaguered League of Artists Meeting Mass Opposition).

Best of Baltimore's Buried (1980)

Their output over the years dominates the two Best of Baltimore's Buried records (the 1980 LP Best of Baltimore's Buried and 2003's Best of Baltimore Buried, Vol. 2 CD), which, far from sounding dated, hold up well compared to current professional recording standrads - damned well, in fact!

Best of Baltimore's Buried Bands, Vol. 2 (2003)

Note that the "Great OHO Schism" eventually split the band into Jay Grabowski and Mark O'Connor camps, with Grabowski carrying on the brand name and O'Connor branching off into new, Not OHO (NOHO?) ensembles like Blammo and now Buck Subtle & The Little Planets.

In a just world where the cream always rises to the top, Outrageous, OHO, Food For Worms, or Blammo would have been not just the Best of Baltimore but recognized as among the best in the world at what they do: creating funny, melodic, danceable rock songs, with the added heft of actually being thought-provoking (that's what you get with a bunch of artists and Philosophy majors - it's almost a categorical imperative!).

Remember, these were the pre-Punk days when "Prog" wasn't just another four-letter curse word (one described by The Rock Snob's Dictionary as "the single most deplored genre of postwar pop music, inhabited by young musicians who, entranced by the eclecticism, elaborate arrangements, and ostentatious filigrees of the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper era, distorted their enthusiasm into a seventies morass of eternal song suites with multiple time signatures, ponderous space-cadet or medievalist lyrics, ridiculous capes and headpieces...and an overall wretched bigness of sound, staging, and hair") but a sign of intelligence like Roxy Music, Eno, or Van Der Graf Generator. Always self-effacing, Mark O'Connor would later write "Prog Man" for Blammo, which both celebrated and lampooned the Prog Rock Era: "I'm a Prog Man, with my synthesizer/I'm a Prog Man, I'm your tranquilizer.")

Probably what held the GOHOG pack back is the fact that they were just a bunch of ordinary looking guys more concerned with making music than projecting image, unlike the majority of today's hair-today-gone-tomorrow flash-in-the-pans and glammd-up American Idol prima donnas.

Gyro J. Scope in FFW's "It Needs a Haircut" music video

And, other than "singing human lightning rod"  Gyro J. Scope (Ed Barker) - whose OHO-inspired Outrageous may have been the best (albeit outrageously short-lived and unheralded) local prog rock group to emerge from the '70s and whose "Who Am I? Where Am I?" is the hands-down highlight of the Best of Baltimore Buried LP (narrowly eclipsing OHO's "We'll Be Famous When We're Dead") -  there was no truly charismatic frontman leading these various lineups. (Gyro would go on to play with both Food For Worms and Blammo.)

Listen to Outrageous play "Who Am I? Where Am I?"




These well-schooled rockers weren't concerned with window dressing and they never took themselves that seriously - they were funny, clever, and self-deprecating. Indeed, Food For Worms - with O'Connor, Grabowski, Barker, and Reeve all contributing songs - may very well have been Baltimore's answer to 10cc, another too-clever-for-their-own-good band blessed with multiple songwriters but without that shining star frontman or easy-to-peg identity.

The folks at Hyped 2 Death Records (a great singles compilation resource) called FFW's sound "good guitar-and-wheezy keyboards Human Switchboard Velvet Monkeys garagewave" and sell copies of the group's 1981 single "I Don't Wanna Be President/Another Crack in the Jaw" at the rare collectible price of $19!

Food For Worms 1981 single: Collectible "Garage-wave"

But I prefer the band's own characterization of their sound as "Gothic Pop, Slavic Funk & Balkan Bop at its best!"

Food For Worms: Gothic Pop, Slavic Funk & Balkan Bop at its best!

Food For Worms was notable also for being one of the few local bands to not only make a video, but to have it air on MTV, back in the days when the fledgling 24/7 cable TV network actually played (and was desperate for)  music videos. In fact, my girlfriend Amy Linthicum and her friend Liz Crain had cameos in the crypt-rocking video for 1983's "It Needs A Haircut, (about a long-haired corpse getting a posthumous makeover) as shown below.

Watch "It Needs a Haircut."




The FFW tradition of smart and smart-ass rock carried over into O'Connor's next musical venture, Blammo (whose ranks included Gyro J. Scope and Bob Tiefenwerth), as witnessed in his amusing anthem "Sweet Home Balt-amore" - another in a long line of songs about his hometown (e.g., "Horrible Place" about the then-new downtown showcase Harborplace and "Fun In Nicaragua" with its topical lines during the Iran-Contra Scandal about a certain Orioles pitcher: "Dennis Martinez, your home is where the heat is!").

Listen to Blammo play "Sweet Home Balt-amore."




If I've said it once, I've said it a million times: along with Randall Peck (Boatniks) and David Cawley (Berserk, Garage Sale), Mark O'Connor is one of the few area artists whose songs make me laugh out loud.

What a treat this night was! It was like going to a wedding reception except the band(s) didn't suck and the DJ wasn't obnoxious (indeed, the evening's MC was none other than former WCVT psych-rock jock Rod "The Mod" Misey!). And this wedding, marking the marriage of classic '70s-on-up Local Prog Rock to Baltimore Weirdos (AARP Edition), was thrown and paid for by the largesse of Paul Rieger, Esq.

Host Paul Rieger (Trio Novo) and MC Rod Misey

Apparently Mr. Rieger is doing quite well, thankyou, as a lawyer! As Bob Tiefenwerth remarked later to me, "You see, you should have stayed in law school!" (Bob's right about that - as he was when he also told Mark O'Connor that he never should have sold his Mellotron, as later lamented in the Blammo song "You Never Should have Sold Your Mellotron"! O'Connor's Mellotron melancholia also surfaced in another Blammo song, the Gyro J. Scope-sung "Prog Man": "I'm a Prog Man/I would never sell my Mellotron!" Both songs are available on Best of Baltimore's Buried, Vol, 2.) By the way, Tiefenwerth's impressive art was also on display this night, along with other paintings and art by Connell Byrne, Maureen Nolan, and David Wilcox.

I thoroughly enjoyed Paul's latest collaboration with Bob, but I hope that someday he might coax Dennis Davison back to Charm City so that he and Bob could once again don their love beads and Nehru jackets and revive, if only for one night, their trippy cult '90s neo-psych band United States of Existence.

Listen to U.S.E. play "Anything Goes" with The Association.




Before we arrived, Amy remarked that she wouldn't know anyone there except for Mark O'Connor and Dave Wilcox (The Alcoholics, Problems Pets, Grand Poobah Subway, Chelsea Graveyard & the Screams At Midnight, et al), but the minute we walked in she was immediately greeted by her good friend Mark Silvestri! (This being Smalltimore, Mark's brother Matt is good friends with Paul Reiger's wife and...there ya go!) And I ran into my old pals Alexandra Doumani and Jay Ludwig (Jay and I were in The Boatniks, whose ranks also included Katie Katatonic, Randall Peck, and Rick and Stephanie Eeney).

The Boatniks: Tom Warner, Randall Peck, Jay Ludwig, Katie Katatonic

It was a great night to catch up with countless old friends of both symbiotic camps - musicians and fans - alike. Folks like "Mrs. Steptoe" Alice Wilcox, the always affable Chuck Gross (The Beaters) (who in the midst of all the music couldn't stop raving about Svengooli and Me TV's Saturday night lineup), and my long-time-no-see college pal Mary "Myrtle May" Crivello, who grew up in Hamilton and thus was well-aquainted with the GOHOG Revue, especially Outrageous and the many Mark O'Connor ensembles from the '70s and '80s. Myrt reminisced about hanging out with the Barker boys during Outrageous practices in Hamilton, and I promised her I'd make her a copy of the four-song Outrageous suite appearing on Best of Baltimore's Buried Bands, Vol. 2.

Mary "Myrt" Crivello & Tom Warner reunite

Speaking of which, I think I stumbled onto Gyro's Outrageously obscure web site, Fastelder.com ("Electric Music for the Wilted Mind"), where one can listen to all four Outrageous songs on that CD sampler - "A Letter From Kevin," "Faggy Goats at the Neck of the Woods," "Madman Serenade," and "The Laughing Man" - as well as capsule reviews of them.

I love the description of "Faggy Goats": ""A decade before Spinal Tap did Stonehenge with dwarves, Gyro J. Scope wrote this masterpiece about elves, bowling (again, ahead of the curve) and Goats of an alternative persuasion" with what may be the first bass solo run through a Fuzz box and ending vocals inspired by Ethel Merman. A masterpiece indeed! And the chicken solo in "Madman Serenade" is wonderful as well!

"Be kind in your evaluation," Gyro asks on the fast Elder web site.  "This was the 70's. The effects available at the time came in two flavors - Fuzz & Wah...Double tracking was done with two tracks" and "Loops were pieces of tape splice together, and a flanger was somebody's thumb on the rim of a tape reel (hence the name!)"

All the more's the glory that Outrageous, like its other like-minded "avante-fringe" peers in the GOHOG Revue, made such fantastic sounds over the years - sounds that were recalled and celebrated anew this very night.

But I digress...back to the party!

In summary: Thanks Paul and thanks all ye bands for an evening bash that was a bona fide smash!

Kraig Krixer, R.I.P. (1951-2011)

Kraig Krixer (right) with Accused frontman Dave Cawkwell

According to CBS/WJZ news reports, Baltimore musician Kraig Krixer and his friend and roomate John Gurkis were found dead, and somewhat decomposed, inside Krixer's condo at the Red Fox Farm Condos in Nottingham (Perry Hall), Maryland, on January 21, 2011. After the bodies were discovered, the fire department tested for carbon monoxide to see if that could be the cause of the two men’s death, but that came up negative. Krixer was 59; Gurlis was 58.

“Right now, we’re investigating as a suspicious death. The bodies have been taken to the medical examiner’s office and the outcome of the investigation will be pending the autopsy,” said Lt. Rob McCullough.

It's all pretty shocking to me. I remember Kraig "Trixy" Krixer from my days hanging out in the late '70s at Baltimore's Marble Bar on W. Franklin Street, where Kraig played with "New Wave" bands like The Accused, smoked those skinny brown More cigarettes (like Kojak), and was a fret-shredding guitar hero.


The Accused's 4-track EP


The Accused opened for Adam Ant

Krixer also played with such late '60s and '70s/'80s bands as Orange Wedge, Black Foot Smoke, OHO , Poobah, Weaszel (where he was billed as Fritz von Krizler on "Attack guitar"), Razor (with his brother Cris Krixer on bass), Blue Car (with former Aux vocalist Charlie Klingenstein and future Berserk & Garage Sale bassist Dave Cawley), Riff, Mission/When Thunder Comes (where he re-teamed with The Accused's Dave Cawkwell) and Trixy & The Testones. The latter, an OHO- and Dark Side-associated musical ensemble, released a single in 1978 that included punked-up covers of The Gong Show host Chuck Barris' "Palisades Park" and the Dave Clark Five's "Bits and Pieces."


Kraig "Trixy" Krixer (third from right)


Back sleeve of Trixy & The Testones 45, which thanks "the city of Baltimore for allowing its most talented citizens the luxury of remaining anonymous"!

Trixy & The Testones also recorded "a punky yet Spectoresque" version of "Then She Kissed Me" that appeared on The Best of Baltimore's Buried LP (Balto-Weird Records, 1979).


"The Best of Baltimore's Buried" LP

They also performed a number of times as part of "The Gohog Review," playing short sets at such Maryland venues such as the Marble Bar in downtown Baltimore and The Oddfellows Hall in Towson throughout 1979-80, often sharing the bill with Dark Side and The Weaszels.


Trixy & The Testones. From right: Jay Grabowski, Kraig Krixer, Mark O'Connor (aka "Vic DeMize," seated), David Jarkowski ("David Wylde," in aviator shades, standing behind O'Connor)

Aside from Krixer, the Testones were usually Jeff (drums/perc) and Jay Graboski--rhythm guitar & backing vocals (aka Jeff Jamm and Johnny Love respectively), David Wylde (bass, vocals), Vic DeMize (keys, synthesizer), Steve Simcoe on sax (aka Shemp Averagio) with guests Bill Phelan on 12-string electric guitar on "Then She Kissed Me" and, of course, Bob Tiefenwerth (Lao Lewd), who played glockenspeil on "Palisades Park."

"Palisades Park" charted in the top 15 singles both at radio KFJC in Los Altos Hills, CA and WIRC in Buffalo, NY, and was favorably reviewed by rock music journalists. A sampling is included below:

"Trixy & the Testones have released an intense version of the old Chuck Barris hit, 'Palisades Park'. It is rock in its most primitive incarnation. 'Where The Action Is' carried to a frenzied extreme. The 45, both sides in total, comes to over two hundred seconds of aural stimulation." --Patti Rosenberg (City Paper)

"As far as Trixy and the Testones go, their only bow to the past is in the mix, which sounds vaguely like Phil Spector working out of a phone booth. I won't go as far as to say that the performance reminds me of the Gong Show, but the wacky enthusiasm is the same. Is this a good single? Well, don't go looking for it on Casey Casem's American Top Forty, but don't dismiss it either. It's fun, tight and rocky, and neatly avoids the obvious traps of pretense and camp. Probably the best local party record I've heard."--J.D. Considine (Baltimore News-American)

"I always wished the Ramones would pick up on this song, and failing that, these boys have done a credible job with just the sort of arrangement I had in my head (and even once tried to work out on guitar!). Better produced, it might sound like a hit."--Greg Shaw (Bomp! Issue #21)

"Forget the Ramones comparisons, this high-energy romp is influenced but beyond. The arrangement is Sixties sublime, Trixy's delivery is hysterical, and you will not believe the pace. Two minutes of pure teen fun, no harmful additives. --(Unicorn Times, August 1979)

"And from Towson, Maryland, Trixy & the Testones pulverize 'Palisades Park' to interesting effect."--(New York Rocker, April-May 1979)

The Ramones references are interesting because apparently Joey Ramone himself was a fan! OHO (and Dark Side, Food for Worms, and various other "Gohog" bands) guitarist Jay Grabowski, who maintains the OHO music web site (ohomusic.com, which is probably the best source for information about Krixer's musical career), writes that Krixer became a huge Ramones fan sometime around 1975:

Shortly thereafter, Trixy (aka Fagen de Razor - a pen name he assumed during a brief stint as a writer for the Port City News) became a huge Ramones fan and I suspect patterned The Testones loosely upon their band model and strictly upon their approach to arrangement (with a tip of the hat to Phil Spector) and the execution of their material; what with the rapid, crunching 1/8 note guitar down strokes, snotty/nasal vocals and racing tunes often ending under the 2-minute mark (note that the Testones' version of "Palisades Park" clocks in at 1:58).

I do not, however, recall how Trixy made Johnny Ramone's acquaintance but the late band leader/guitarist did send Kraig a postcard after he was serviced with and had apparently listened to our recording of "Palisades Park." It reads as follows: "I liked the record alot (sic). Palisades Park came out really good. We always had wanted to do that song but never did." - Johnny Ramone. (The Ramones eventually did record a version of this Chuck Barris' tune made popular in 1962 by Freddie "Boom-Boom" Cannon, releasing it 27 years later on their 1989 LP, Brain Drain, & 10 years after the Testones' 45 rpm, 7" version.)

Grabowski also recalls how he and OHO first came to be associated with Kraig Krixer:

I first became aware of Kraig Krixer's existence as lead guitarist for local Baltimore band, Orange Wedge, in the early 70s. By 1973 Wedge had dispensed with the "Orange," Joe Farce took over as sole guitarist and Kraig switched teams over to OHO contemporaries, the glam-rock band Poobah, assuming a transexual persona and taking the moniker of "Trixy the Space Queen," ala Ziggy (Bowie) and Roxy Music. Most Poobah members went by similarly androgynous stage names (e.g. Crystal Chandelier, Steptoe the Magnificent). Our acquaintance furthered when Kraig & I found ourselves working in the same bureau at SSA during the mid-to-late 70s, where and when the idea of the Testones project arose, was incubated, then spawned.

Kraig additionally played blistering guitar on both the 1979 and the 1985 versions of The Weaszels' "I'm Still Wild," the former a track on the 1st Baltimore's Buried LP (opere citato above), the latter on their Whack 'n' Wild CD, independently released in 1992. The BBB version provoked one rabid DJ/fan to compose a 5 page, hand-written paean to the song/band that I intend to transkey to this journal when it's time to address the KZMU question posed regarding The Weaszels . Suffice it to say at this point that we had never before or since received such enthusiastic praise from anyone. Another advantage of dealing with this list of questions, where we have the chance to tell the untold stories of the incidental musical one-offs of and tangents to our "career," is this opportunity to root through our archives, artifacts and testimonials, urging nebulous memories to re-surface to a more clearly conscious level, then relate them in this forum.

In 1979 Kraig formed the band Razor & I was invited to play as the 2nd guitarist on a track later included on the 1st Best of Baltimore's Buried LP. In Spring 1985 Kraig guested as lead guitarist on "Ethiopa" & "Change In the Wind" showing up either together or individually on the following OHO releases: Audition (1989), OHO (1990), UP (2003), The Oriency Anthology (2004) & Bricolage (2008). (David always felt Kraig's guitar soloing to be his strong suit, his ideation being that Trixy dance in from stage right, across the proscenium over to stage left licks a blazin', then fading out of view behind the curtain while wailing his final bended note.) "Wind" ranked OHO among 4 finalists in Musician Magazine's "Best Unsigned Band Contest" in 1986 (for which we were awarded a pricey JBL sound system), providing enough momentum to carry the band two years hence to late Summer 1988 when we were chosen as finalists for that year's Yamaha Soundcheck Competition

One of my favorite Grabowski recollections about Kraig Krixer is the one about the video Grabowski's band Food for Worms made for a song called "It Needs a Haircut." I am tangentially involved in this story, because the song was inspired by a conversation I had with Food for Worms keyboardist Mark O'Connor about my barber, this guy named Charles, who used to groom corpses for funeral viewings. I was fascinated when Charles told me how he once cleaned up a long-haired biker dude so that he'd look like choir boy when viewed by his mom in the casket! As Grabowski recalls, the song was orginally included on The 98 Rock Album before being made into a video for MTV:

"It Needs a Haircut," built around a catchy David Reeve instrumental hook/riff and based on a true story overheard by another band member about a corpse that required the attention of a hair stylist, was our contribution to this LP. "Haircut" made the final cut as the closer for the album's music program and every song received a substantial amount of airplay on 98 Rock, WIYY-FM, and for a significant period of time...All this was during the MTV "music video" heyday and David insisted that our band invest in making a video. Bratt Studio engineer, Bill Pratt, had received some national exposure on that cable network with a video by his band at the time, The Gents. Finalists in the MTV "Basement Tape" competition, the Gents were bold enough to have had their ambitious video shot on film stock with its classy "look", easily making it to the last round of the competition.

We hired a video producer, picked a tune ("Haircut" of course--it was under 3 minutes--less filming and editing time/expense), created a storyboard and rented some costumes and cheap props. The most expensive prop we purchased for $80 from an undertaker who had converted a coffin-like cadaver transporter into a more convincing coffin substitute by staining it and affixing budget line casket handles. (We eventually gave this to Trixy & The Testones guitarist, Kraig Krixer, who somewhat coveted it and upon delivery to his home put it to practical use for towel and linen storage.)

According to Grabowski, OHO's "Change in the Wind" (which featured Krixer on guitar) was also featured as incidental soundtrack music in 1998's Edge of 17, an independent film that was an unexpected hit at that year's Sundance Film Festival and was listed as being among the "100 Best Gay & Lesbian Features" ever in the 2003 edition of the Facets Movie Lovers Guide. It also placed in the final 3 of the "Music for Film and TV" category of the 2003 Independent Music Awards sponsored by The Musician's Atlas. "Kraig certainly contributed to all of this and the time is nigh to give him his propers," Grabowski wrote on the ohomusic site. "Thanks, Kraig."

Jay Grabowski worked with Krixer at the Social Security Administration facility in Woodlawn from the mid-1970s until Kraig retired from SSA in the early 00's due to health issues. In a November 2009 "What's Up" update to the ohomusic web site, Grabowski's wrote "[Kraig Krixer] currently lives quietly and simply in Perry Hall, a northeast Baltimore suburb, with his collection of unique electric guitars that includes a coveted white John Thurston-made "tear drop," a Vox inspired guitar, modeled after the one Rolling Stone Brian Jones played during the 2nd British Invasion in 1964."

Jaguar Bytes, a former bartender at the Marble Bar, had the following recollections of Kraig Krixer:

A cute little guy with black hair. The pretty boy type. Always wore a black leather jacket... not that that helps much considering that we all did!

His brother Kris was about the same height (maybe 5'8"ish) with white blonde hair. He too always wore a leather jacket except he eventually had this thing where he was always buying all sorts of different colors. Originally, he always wore a black one but eventually you'd never know if he'd be wearing his red one, his white one or some other variety.

The two were both very close and lived together on Elm Ave. in Hampden. Both smoked those More cigarettes and played guitar though Kraig was more active on the music front. Kris often hung out with this guy you may know named Carl. (Forget his last name right now.) A very good looking tall and slender guy with perfect dark hair. Between the 3 of them, they had that typical rock star pretty boy look down that often made its presence at the Marble. The kind of guys who would wear girls jeans and tops and get away with it without looking like they were in drag. They pulled it off well and we all ate it up like we did with all the other peculiarities at any of the local cool scenes.

Another guy that Kraig often hung out with was Charlie Klingenstein (some last name like that). Another good looking guy with dark hair. Had the Bryan Ferry thing down. The two of them were in a band called Blue Car for a short time and played the Marble on occasion. Maybe in '81 or '82.

Not sure what else I can say that might jog your memory. If I run across any clear pictures, I'll try to post them here.

Though I haven't seen either for years, for some odd reason, I had been thinking about both of them a lot lately. Sorry that I will never again get to see Kraig. He will be missed.

As Jaguar Bytes observes, not only did both Kraig and his brother Cris have that "rock star pretty boy look" down, but I recall that Cris Krixer used to work at Noxell Corporation in Hunt Valley and would always bring make-up and Noxzema skin care accessories to the Marble Bar to give as gifts to the young ladies, which made him extremely popular with the X Chromosome Set. (C'mon, what woman can resist getting swag bags of Cover Girl, Max Factor, and Olay products?) Cris used to wear a shiny red leather jacket just like the kind The Romantics wore on their first album. And I remember that when you called the Krixer brothers' phone number, the answering machine message said something to the effect of "Sorry to miss your call, but Kraig and Cris are out on another mission..."

By the way, a number of Kraig Krixer's bands (Orange Wedge, Razor, Trixy & The Testones, OHO) get mentioned in Joe Vaccarino's book Baltimore Sounds: An Illustrated Encyclopedia of Baltimore Area Pop Musicians, Bands & Recordings 1950-1980 (MJAM Press, 2004).



*** KRIXER UPDATE (1/31/2011) ***

Subsequent to this post, Dave Cawkwell (Accused, Mission, When Thunder Comes) replied:

Nice tribute about Kraig. You missed the several years that Kraig was with Mission/When Thunder Comes where he recorded his only full length album with us called The Last Detail. The song "Dreaming" charted #1 on several college radio stations. Kraig was also on most of the second album cuts called When Thunder Comes which we sold the name Mission to get the funds to finish the album. These 2 records Kraig and I both thought showed his very best work. We also opened for The Ventures, Hot Tuna and Lords of the New Church where Stiv Bator was really impressed with Kraig. Look up on itunes (WTC)and find a song called "Make the Man" and hear the greatest lead from Kraig that will soar and break your heart at the same time.

Thanks Dave!

Related Links:

• "2 Men Found Dead In Perry Hall Home" (Suzanne Collins, WJZ News)


• "Court Records Show Criminal Hisrory of Two Men Found Dead" (Perry Hall Patch)


• The Accused (MySpace)


• Oho Music


• Trixy & The Testones 45 (Hive45)


• Collector Scum(collectorscum.com) - lists Accused, Trixy, Dark Side, other Balto bands


• Baltimore Sounds by Joe Vaccarino


• Best of Baltimore's Buried LP (Discogs)