Comments

From: atomcoyote@aol.com (Hunter Kinsey)

I'm glad I got to catch you in Albuquerque at the Dingo. The cd I bought is great. Can't wait to pick up the new ones. Good luck and safe touring.

From: julie.grabczyk@mail.mei.com (Julie Grabczyk)

I really like your album "Food For Other Fish"! I work for WMSE a college radio station out of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. I found your album at the station and have been playing a lot of it. Also found you guys on a compilation CD called Beyond the Beach. Excellent tunes! ...keep making great music!

From: tubesox@well.com (Windy Chien - Aquarius Records in noe valley)

Hi guys,
want you to know that *many* people have been asking for your new (2nd) cd.

From: sandy_angelos@tpl-sf.ccmail.compuserve.com (Sandy Angelos)

Dear Mermen-
I never noticed it before but Jim's head DOES closely resemble an 8-ball. The systematic interplay is brilliant. p.s. Annette agrees.

From: spry@crl.com (Eric Spry)

Mermen always did attract the computer geeky type of crowd!

From: wabbott@townshend.corp.megatest.com (William Abbott)

Your live shows on KFJC have been really, really, good. The mermen cd is a hit here and i get alot of questions about how i got ahold of the next cd. The world is a better place because you are here.

From: rrai@scuacc.scu.edu (Rajinder Rai)

Tell Jim I said hi and that I want to bite him.....love, Raji

From: ackerj@applelink.apple.com (Jim Acker)

I have followed Mermen music for some time now and really enjoy it. I'll go so far as to say you guys may just be the new BeeGee's of the nineties.

From: rickyb@igc.apc.org (Rick Barnes)

I traveled from the suburbs to San Francisco Sunday to go and view all the new and wonderful offerings for 1995 at the New Car & Reverb Show at the Moscone Center. My Jeep (is ready for replacement and I was searching for a practical and economical car.) Of course THIS one will have a killer stereo installed as soon as I drive off the lot. No more KNX-Los Angeles talk shows on the way to Tahoe......There is a reason I mention this. While looking at the Chrysler/Plymouth display I heard a familiar guitar riff. Hmm. Wandering over to the Mitsubishi-Infinity premium sound display I was very surprised to hear MY BLACK BAG coming from the speakers. It seems that somebody thought the Food-For-Other-Fish CD was a good way to show off the souped up sound system. Kind of weird in a way...

From: root@127.0.0.1 (Anonyruss)

Finish this place, you ocean-dwelling dinks.

From: germco@aol.com (Jim Smith a.k.a. "The Germ")

You guys are incredible 5 cities/3 states in 5 days, good luck nice to see you on the net.

From: dgoldman@medior.com (David Goldman)

You guys are the best band in the area. Keep it up. Please make more CDs.

From: rgod@lamar.colostate.edu (Ronald Godzinski)

I used to see your shows (in S.F.) quite often, although, now I am landlocked in Colorado. Good tunes are a necessary part of my being as they help to keep my sanity here. They also remind me what surfing was like (i.e., Linda Mar, Ocean Beach).

From: wabbott@townshend.corp.megatest.com (William Abbott)

Dear Mermen,

"Your art touches me".

I totally dig what you guys are doing, and I can't wait for the new CD to come out! Of the 8 or 9 copies of Food For Other Fish I've bought, 'mine' is out on loan and I'll only get it back when the guy gets one of his own. All the others are in the hands of happy people who really dig 'em. Most of the people I know got totally into the disk by the end of the first track. If not, then My Black Bag and Honeybomb make believers out of them. People with more refined tastes I start out with "Ocean Beach", then the hard stuff. :-)

Its really amazing to listen to the development between the Krill Slippin' tape and the Food For Other Fish cd. If I may say so, kind of like the difference between The Allman Joys doing blues covers and Live At Fillmore East. Krill Slippin is a cool tune, and the heart is really there on the tape, but the freedom and confidence you show on the live Phil Dirt tapes and the cd only comes after playing the material inside out.

The ensemble playing you guys do is just wonderful. Its SO musical. The end of Ocean Beach, with the little rim accents that Martyn plays, is a real stand-out. So is the seemingly endless, fluid line of the basic melody in The Drift. It's astounding to hear Ocean Beach and The Drift on Krill Slippin, played with 'straight' surf time, and less up-front bass. This really helped me understand the structure of what I was hearing on the cd.

And I *love* the interpolations on the Live Phil Dirt cassette-particularly the Bernstein America amid the Dick Dale (Penetration) stuff. Have you ever considered giving arrangements of Krill Slippin, Ocean Beach or Honeybomb to the Kronos Quartet? I was down at Natural Bridge(s) the other day and listening to the real surf was not quite as tight as you guys...

"Music can name the un-nameable, and communicate the un-knowable." (Leonard Bernstein)

And there you have it!

From: never@sirius.com (Rita Evans)

We liked the stuff you had on there(homepage) - nice use of the medium.

From: swartzwelder@wvusa.u92.wvu.edu (Rich Swartzwelder)

...let me say that "Food For Other Fish" is quite wonderful. I work at a college station (WWVU-FM in Morgantown, WV) where "Food" has been in heavy rotation and the response has been very positive. Thanks, and keep up the good work.

From: ackerj@applelink.apple.com (Jim Acker)

Things seem to just work better around here when the Mermen are cranking on the stereo.

From: julie.grabczyk@mail.mei.com (Julie Grabczyk)

I have been getting a lot of calls when ever I play something off the CD. People sure do like your stuff. Even some of the other DJ's are asking me about it.

From: dsillers@aol.com (Doug Sillers)

Thanks for the incredible tunes.

From: stackscull@aol.com (Richard Scullin)

My friend, Lucio, sent me your "Food for Other Fish." I love it. Your sound heaves and swells: some times it is a dizzying undertow, other times it is possessed by little mischievous creatures dancing on the edge of a wave, a cymbal, a fretboard and a speaker cone. I look forward to hearing more. Do you ever play the East coast(land of few waves and many stink eyes)?

From: devon1@applelink.apple.com (Mark Devon)

About a half hour ago I went home for lunch and had the following conversation with my 5-year old: (me) "Hey Chris, remember that festival we went to down in Santa Cruz last year (KPIG Fat Fry) where the Austin Lounge Lizards and those other bands were playing? You want to go to that with me?" He looks up from his Super Mario Bros. and says: "No, I hate the Austin Lounge Lizards. I wanna see The Mermen." I swear to God this is a true story.

From: 7777896@compusevr.com (Rich Linchner)

Topic: Praise

Hey I've have seen you guys before and you suck real bad you cant even play a good show look down at your feet in shame fucking fags

From: penerik@aol.com (Penelope Weyman)

HIGH ! PRAISE ! Wow ! Thanks for the CD. I'm speechless...

From: lytle@rain.org (michael kresky skater4life)

hey guys just down here in santa barbara thinkin how ruler you guys are but the only problem is is that my kook house mates stole my tape of yours you know the one of the phil dirt radio intyerview but johnny lytle is making me a repete surf has been great lately campus piontis rad go go mermen go go mermen come back to santa barbara you kooks

From: falcon@iuma.com (jon r. luini)

...listened to the advance tape, it knocks my socks off.

From: aspho@aol.com (Erik Gilbert)

The home page looks GREAT !!

From: Newton333@aol.com (Laurence Hadfield)

Puuuuhleeeze don't forget the haunted house CD, as soon as its out I need it, you see I lent my "food for..." CD to the certain someone for her opinion on it, with the ulterior motive of letting your music work it's magic and driving her madly in love with me consumed with the desire to dance with me to your music!!!so I don't have a fix.. I'm going through withdrawals---- I need to open a black bag and find a honeybomb inside!!!! Wordily,

From: rhettl@earth.goddard.edu (Rhett L.- WGDR 91.1FM, Goddard College, Plainfield, VT)

we play you like there is no tomorrow......We can't wait to promote you up here in Vermont. Also we would love for you to do a live studio performance and interview. But then again I suppose we are not the only ones. Please keep us posted.

From: gdtf36a@prodigy.com.(Lawrence Thompson)

Hi! my name's dave and I have a zine called Lentil Boy. I was hoping to do a feature on San Francisco's surf music... So I would reallyreallyreally like your support. could I do an interview? I'll review your albums, whatever. um.....please get back to me and I hope this wasn't too much trouble..... Dave.

From: newton333@aol.com(Lawrence Hadfield)

Anyway the girl who had the CD has reconciled with her boyfriend so bummer. I guess the good ones are taken, besides she didn't have time to listen to your work so she gets a major strike against her. Persistence tempered with patience is the key!! I must re-iterate--Your music is beyond belief so in synch so right it makes me just wannna dance, and I ain't no dancer. Yumyum. well for a closing thought or two I will jot down a liitle rhyme I did whilst being bored at work, and after being denied by aformentioned girl.. enjoy

Swimming in the mighty ocean,
Caught a whirlpool, felt it's motion.
Hesitated for a second,
Then I felt the bottom beckon.
Around and down,
in it's flow.
Now I realize,
undertow.
With a reflex, I do fight.
Fight the current, with my might.
It's too strong,
much too fast.
Not much longer,
I will last.
Now I sink below the surface,
swirled about with no purpose.
I grow weak,
I must yield.
To the pull,
I have kneeled.
Deeper down, losing hope.
Cannot drown, I must cope.
Hold on tight.


Hold your breath.
Let it out,
certain death.
The end is near, I can tell
Have no fear, of this hell
Pressure's building, must be deep
Closer still, to my sleep.
Then at last, the spin grows fleeting.
Spun out fast,
Merman greeting.
At the bottom
I am free
death has lost
it's claim on me
To the surface,
up he motions
Thankful keeper of the oceans.