Jane: “The last band I saw live was DIIV from New York. The Welders’ favorite bands-past, present, and future Quips Caroline, “I can’t wait to tell people I’m so old, my pants are in a history museum!” Louis Sound exhibit, which opened August 28. In the meantime, you can see The Welders’ instruments and stage clothes at the Missouri History Museum’s St. Today, there’s one last record in the works: an LP titled Our Own Oddities, with the four songs from the ’79 EP, live recordings, and various sundries gathered from “every dusty old cassette” they can find. “It was probably one of the largest crowds we ever played to,” Caroline says, “and we were actually appreciated!”
Then, in 2009, BDR Records reissued the band’s lost EP, and The Welders played a reunion show to a new audience. Instead, the label went bankrupt, and in 1981, the band hung up their Marx Brothers nicknames and instruments.įor 30 years, the world forgot about The Welders. Still, that didn’t stop The Welders from penning “Debutantes in Bondage” in response to the Runaways’ “Dead End Justice.” That song was recorded during The Welders’ first studio session, meant to culminate in a vinyl EP. Jane still has her autographed album, and Joan Jett and Lita Ford, she says, were very encouraging. “When we found out about their existence, we were simultaneously fascinated and disappointed.” The Welders actually met the Runaways in 1977 at a record store release at Northwest Plaza. “We formed before knowing of the Runaways,” Rusty says. Playing music as teen girls during the mid-’70s gave rise to comparisons with the Runaways. Stephanie sang Jane played drums and keyboards Caroline played bass Kelly and Julie played guitar. The Welders played their first gig in November 1976 at an all-ages club, Blueberry Jam, with borrowed instruments. “The only one that stuck was Rusty’s (Kelly), after Harpo’s character in A Night in Casablanca.” “Mine was Punchy, and Caroline’s was Captain Spaulding,” Jane says. They took the latter as a stage name and had Marx Brothers characters for first names. “My recollection is that we ultimately got down to ‘The Atrial Ventricular Nodes’ or ‘The Welders,’” says Stephanie.
#How many marx brothers were there series
Through a series of passed notes at McCluer North and Cross Keys Junior High, they landed on a band name. They had thought about starting a comedy troupe or a fanzine, but this was 1975-the year that the Sex Pistols broke. They’d bonded over a mutual love of the Marx Brothers, Monty Python, and The National Lampoon Radio Hour. In 1975, a year before influential all-women rock outfit The Runaways dropped their first record, a group of teenage girls in Florissant-sisters Jane and Caroline Fujimoto, Stephanie von Drasek, Julie Benz, and Kelly Draper-started a band.