These Magnificent Tapeworms

These Magnificent Tapeworms won't lie to you-- when they first started playing together over a year ago, they were awful. "We used to really blow," admits bassist and vocalist Dan Staggs. "People will still come to our shows and say, 'Oh, last time you guys sucked!'"
But a year makes all the difference. After a year of finding their voice and greasing their gears, the Tapeworms self-released their first CD, Sliced Meats and Other Delights, in May, and toured extensively through the Southeast. The whole experience has left a mark on the young band, which includes Alex Ryderski and Joe Davolt.
On Thursday, September 17 These Magnificent Tapeworms will perform at Booby's with Milwaukee's Crappy Dracula.
Recorded by Max Sentencey of Broken Bricks, Sliced Meats and Other Delights is a competent collection showcasing a band that can comfortably perform some songs that fit rather well in a traditional surf context ("Skidmarks") while skewering the normal rock dogma with tracks that mutate into a realm of utter kinkiness ("Not Calling" and a cover of the Sonics' "The Witch" that is even more lewd-sounding than the original) or unbridled madness ("Girls," "Seem Thong," and "Libertad"). It is those two latter tracks, the final two on Sliced Meats, that display the greatest strengths of the Tapeworms. "Libertad" in particular, like many great closing tracks, perfectly encompasses the recording as a whole with vocalist and guitarist Ryderski's sleazy screams and the slight surf sandiness that turns into a psychedelic treat, etching the Tapeworms into three psycho-surf astronauts bound for space.
"'Libertad' was weird for me," says drummer, vocalist, and resident transvestite Joe Davolt. "It was a song they played before I joined the band. For some reason we had never worked it into the set the whole time I was in the band before we went in to record [Sliced Meats]. The last two practices we ran through it and I still didn't know it. It was a very new song for me. I think the take on the album is fucking awesome, and I think it's gotten even better since we've been playing live."
"I think after we recorded [Sliced Meats & Other Delights], we really hit our stride," says Staggs. In promotion for the new recording, the band played fourteen shows throughout the southeast. Including shows in Athens, Georgia, and Memphis, Tennessee, the Tapeworms felt like they came into their own, and they want to share the wealth with other local bands.
"A lot of Carbondale bands that tour the Midwest should challenge themselves to expand because there's so much fun to be had in the Southeast," says Staggs. "We chose not to tour through the broken-in Midwest loop."
These Magnificent Tapeworms drove the four-thousand-plus miles in an old 1981 Bonneville, added a quart of oil every one-hundred miles, listened to some golden oldies, and had adventures that sound as if they belong in the world of These Magnificent Tapeworms' music-- public displays of hobo affection, naked women armed with soy milk, and an attack of the killer karaoke clubs.
Described by a bartender at their Athens show as "Dick Dale on crack," These Magnificent Tapeworms are three proud punks who love surf music but strive to pervert the form, substituting surfboards and suntans for strong drinks, lewd stories, and cheap thrills.
"The garage roots-rock mixed with punk and surf is territory we can all three be comfortable in together," says Staggs. "We all listen to a lot of everything, but we have diversion points and [this sound is] a good middle ground for us. We want to add our secret sauce to [surf]. But when you break it down, we're pretty crass. We're really like the lowest common denominator!"
These Magnificent Tapeworms hope to start recording a new CD sometime soon, this time with recording duties delegated to Zeke Sayer, who heads Athens, Georgia's garage rockers the Humms, which will require another tour.
"I want to keep touring the southeast," says Staggs. "It's a lot of fun. - Carbondale Nightlife