#10 excerpted from “THE GET QUICK FILES: CHOOSE YOUR OWN CONJECTURE” as remembered by Mark Question
THE CODA CODEX
2000 - 2009
The first thing you have to understand about the early 2000s is that nothing was real. Not the wars. Not the presidents. Not the Internet. Especially not the bands.
But The Get Quick? They were too real, man. So real they stopped making sense.
We were all distracted — headfirst into the millennium with broken blood vessels in our eyes and brand new iPods in our pockets — and somewhere between Napster and 9/11, Mitchell Joy and Erjk Vanderwolf slipped back in through the cracks. Not as prophets. Not as has-beens. More like cursed surveyors of the communal psyche. Mapping out the emotional ruins of the 20th century in four-minute blasts of platinum glam dread.
2000 to 2010 was the band’s shiny chrome attack drone phase. On the surface, the songs had hooks. You could dance to them. You could play them on the radio — hell, some of them even charted in Finland. But underneath the riffs, the breakdowns, the synth stabs and glitzy fuzz licks, there was something else:
A buried structure. A codex. A time-sensitive warning encoded into the disc.
This was modern rock laced with weaponized symbolism. Bridge sections that aligned with known occult geometries. Phrases that kept appearing — on back album covers, fan tattoos, hacked CIA documents. Catchy choruses that implanted false memories in the listener.
Erjk Vanderwolf had clearly gone full myth-merchant by this point. Hitting black market smuggling ports as he piloted the band upriver into the heart of darkness. He wasn’t just writing lyrics — he was conjuring a meta-narrative that bled backwards and forward through time, stitching together the band’s early work with what was now unmistakably the grand arc of some audio mythos. Every album folded into the last. Recurring figures emerged. And the group’s meta-world began to pulse and breathe and dance with life.
Mitchell Joy? He had become a rock kingpin, more music thaumaturge than bandleader. His drumming was still pure oil-on-fire, but his rock n roll live-fast-die-young everything-in-the-moment mentality was now tempered by a certain wizened timelessness around the eyes. He wore stolen slept-in tuxedos and stared through camera lenses like he was trying to burn the negatives. His interviews, when they weren’t spiraling riddles, were confessions. Mad, sacred, heartbreaking.
The core unit was tight: Erjk, Joy, and Colonel Boran — who had by now developed a quantum percussion rig that reportedly responded to “emotional temperature” in the studio.
They pulled in old allies too. Dr Watson returned with his signature haunted-clinic synths. Jamie Mahon lent high-friction bass and derelict charm. Riko Litts flickered in and out on the electrical grid, always bringing some new incompatible format with him (a warped mini-disc, a corrupted A-DAT, a ancient Mesopotamian reed pipe blessed by an IBM mainframe).
The albums? They were everywhere. And nowhere.
And yes — the conspiracies came back. In a flurry of fury. A cult in Seattle claimed Boran’s Emberplex predicted the 2004 tsunami. A Vatican archivist suggested The Pale Antenna contained references to a “Black Pope” known only to two secret cardinals. A file labeled "Q-Protocol: Evol Manifest" briefly appeared on Wikileaks before being replaced with a distorted .wav of someone whispering “do not decode” in eleven dead languages.
By 2010, TGQ weren’t just an historical Classic Rock group still kicking up histrionics. They were an entire field of study. College courses cropped up. Every seat taken. Secret Discord servers exchanged spreadsheets mapping lyrical motifs. Psychogeographers decoded anything into everything, from drums recorded in sealed fallout shelters to ransacked crypt reverb to choirs arranged in haunted boathouses. Someone mailed me a live cockroach with the words “LISTEN SIDEWAYS” etched into its carapace. I sent it to the lab for nuclear decay measurements immediately.
Turns out I was wrong, the cockroach was not alive.
It was a bot.
So what was this all about? What did it all mean?
Nothing. Everything. Like always, I suppose.
Pop culture prophets told us the future would be sleek. Perfect. Linear. But it wasn’t. It was looping and broken and darkly melodic. And The Get Quick? They were the ones who heard it coming.
And they played it loud.
May 2000
Arrête! C’est ici l’empire de la mort!
Darling Hines, Ninjalation #8
Geoff Chaplin, a part-time theatrical rigger with a penchant for spelunking through the darkest recesses of the world’s forgotten arteries, has become an unofficial explorer of what many would call madness. His current obsession — Paris’ legendary catacombs — stretches far beyond the thrill of subterranean exploration. This labyrinthine cryptic abyss, home to the skeletal remains of six million Parisians, holds secrets — some say, whispers — that might just break the surface of what we know of reality itself.
The self-styled Cataphiles — (literally meaning “erotic embracers of the underground”) — are drawn to the vastness of the tunnels, their decay, and their disturbing stillness. It is said that beneath the cobblestones of Paris lies a universe of forgotten things, things that perhaps want to remain forgotten.
But for Chaplin, the real allure is something else: the music.
“You’re not supposed to hear it,” he murmurs to the fellow cataphiles in hushed tones, his eyes wild with the frenzied knowledge of someone on the verge of unraveling something both sacred and profane. “It’s like they don’t want you to know, but it’s there. Echoing. A melody, but not just any melody. That melody.”
Open to the public on a regular basis since 1867, The Catacombs, form (arguably) the world’s most famous underground ossuary. When the overflowing cemeteries began infecting surrounding neighborhoods (first with flies and odors, and then disease) a plan was hatched to move the excess remains to the abandoned quarries near the Place Denfert-Rochereau. Before the city expansion of 1860, this vast network of subterranean limestone mines and caverns was located just outside the gates of Paris.
The loose bones (of an estimated 6 million Parisians) were arranged and tightly stacked — a gruesome job for some unlucky league of bone-layers. There are tibias and femurs stacked five feet high, with rows of skulls — or sometimes the skulls are arranged in the shape of a heart or a cross. A certain sense of the absurd, and perhaps futility, seemed to have accompanied the job.
No known map of the entire system exists, but Geoff Chaplin has set out to explore and record as much as he can. Since March of ’95 he has spent over 100 hours underground, logging some 120 miles of the complex passageways. He has seen many strange things in his explorations — but this curiously recurring auditory experience tops the list.
What began as the faintest hum on his first venture through the quarries beneath Paris’ heart became, over time, a series of strange, inexplicable signs. Music — undeniably familiar, yet curiously out of place — filled the strangely un-stale air. At first, it seemed to belong to another world, a shadowed echo from the past. But soon, Chaplin realized that the music wasn’t just an hallucination —
It was the sound of The Get Quick.
Yes, you read that correctly. Amidst the bones, the rusting pipes, and the echo of centuries-long decay, Chaplin — along with several fellow explorers — has encountered a phantom transmission: the unmistakable, thumping rhythm, modulating synthesis, the otherworldly pulse that only The Get Quick could have produced.
“It’s always there,” Chaplin trembles. “Each time I venture further, I get closer to the source. It’s weird. Weird. Like the catacombs are alive, resonating with them. It’s as if their music never left. As if it was always here, hidden in the walls, in the echoes of the dead.”
The problem is, no one — not even Chaplin — can pinpoint where it’s coming from. The music shifts, morphs, almost as though it knows it is being pursued. As if it’s playing a game with the seekers. Sometimes, it’s faint and distant, like the echo of a forgotten tune. Other times, it surges forth like the beat of a ghostly drum, quickly receding, always just out of reach.
“It’s not a recording,” Chaplin insists. “It feels too... real. Too physical.” He pauses, swallowing hard. “Like it’s being played... somewhere down there. But by who? And why? Is it the ghosts of the dead? Or something else entirely?”
This, of course, has led to a surge of wild speculation. As Chaplin continues to map the underground tunnels of Paris, whispers of the music have spread through the cataphile community like wildfire. Some say it’s the band — The Get Quick themselves, somehow trapped in the labyrinth, communicating through the very walls that once housed the dead. Others think it’s a spectral resonance — a lingering artifact of the band’s past, projecting itself through the ether into these sacred spaces.
Perhaps, some speculate, it’s not just The Get Quick. Perhaps it’s them all — the spirits of those who once walked the earth in defiance of fate, conjuring their sounds in a realm beyond time.
Featured in Les Misérables and The Phantom Of The Opera, the catacombs have long been a potent character in the imaginations of Parisians. And they’ve seen their share of drama in reality as well — Robespierre dumped his victims in the underground chambers; in one gallery Communards assassinated a group of Monarchists; and, most famously, during WWII the French Resistance used the tunnels to elude the Nazis encamped above.
Although the entire system is popularly referred to as “the catacombs” the cemetery actually occupies only a fraction of the original quarries. In fact the subterranean mazes of Paris are so extensive that they are virtually impossible to secure, despite the best efforts of maintenance workers and police patrols. In addition to an estimated 200 miles of catacomb tunnels, there are 1,300 miles of sewer system and 125 miles of Métro tracks — all of which crisscross and interconnect. Access to this subterranean honeycomb can be found in utility systems, church crypts, and the basements of hospitals, lycées and universities.
As Geoff Chaplin and his fellow brave cataphiles dive deeper into the abyss, there’s a growing sense that the music is more than just a sound. It’s an invitation. A challenge. A siren call leading them further into the depths of the unknown.
“At one point I began to decipher the melody — although the music was repetitive, it also seemed to be morphing or constantly, subtly modulating. This may have been due in part to the refraction of the sound in the tunnels, I don’t know for sure. But I vaguely recognized the tune. It was very much like something I had heard somewhere before. I knew it — I just couldn’t put my finger on it. It seemed to be a different version of a song I’d known in the past. The feel of it was very distinct.”
Unfortunately Geoff was eventually forced to abandon his search for the source and return to the surface.
“Weeks later, out of nowhere, it just came to me in a flash,” says Geoff, “it was the music of The Get Quick. Though I was never a huge fan of rock music, I knew some of their songs — more, it turned out, than I realized at first. Their sound had always seemed distinct to me from other bands. Yes, it was a Get Quick song, I was sure of it. I spent days scouring music stores and friends’ record collections, but I couldn’t seem to figure out which specific track it was.”
Then, several trips to the underground later, it happened again.
“It was like a cold chill passed through my body,” Geoff recalled, “When I heard the music again. The melody, the song, was different, but I knew that the source was the same. The pulsating percussion, an organ or a synthesizer and a guitar — it was the same sound. And I got the impression that it was NOT a recording. I searched madly for them, but I was running low on water and had to call it a night before I got too deep into uncharted territory.”
What waits for them at the heart of the catacombs — the real source of the music — is anyone’s guess.
All that’s certain is that they’ll continue searching. And perhaps, one day, they’ll find it — whatever “it” may be.
Until then, Paris’ catacombs remain a playground for the insatiable and the unstable, the place where the past and future collide in a dance of death, melody, and madness.
“I can’t explain it, but it is very eerie and unnerving,” Geoff explains. “I am obsessed with discovering the source, whatever it may be.”
Speculations in the Parisian cataphile community are growing and now many trips are being organized with the sole goal of tracking and discovering the source of the sounds.
“There have been many theories, and a lot of wild speculation,” Geoff reiterates, “But we won’t know for sure what’s behind this strange mystery until we discover the source of the music.”
And knowing what we know about the catacombs, we may never know.
May 2000
TGQ On The Cold Tip
Alsop Ostermann, Venture Boys
In the frigid expanse of the Arctic, where the wind howls like the last gasps of a dying world, The Get Quick have set up camp in a place that might as well be the edge of human civilization itself. The Svalbard archipelago, nestled precariously between Norway and the North Pole, could not be a more fitting location for their latest descent into isolation. Known by the Norse as the "cold edge of the world," Svalbard is an environment so harsh that even time itself seems to freeze here, suspended in the unrelenting grip of perpetual pale daylight.
The band has found themselves in the forsaken Russian settlement of Pyramiden on Spitsbergen, a desolate industrial ghost town — once a coal mining hub, now nothing more than a decaying monument to forgotten ambitions. The skeletal remains of Soviet-era architecture loom like a forgotten army of stone and iron, their once-gleaming surfaces dulled by years of Arctic storms. It is here, at the far reaches of the known world, that The Get Quick are preparing their next sonic invocation, under the harsh light of an endless polar day.
S. True Smith, ever the instigator of their wild expeditions, secured permission from Russian authorities to camp in the abandoned town for four weeks. They’ve brought with them not just the usual gear, but a new unique mobile recording unit — an anachronistic apparatus conjured up by Col Boran and Dr Watson designed with the capabilities of capturing the ethereal music that The Get Quick are wont to conjure in such extraordinary settings specifically in mind. These abandoned structures are populated with the ghosts of past lives: furniture left in mid-use, tools strewn about as though the workers simply vanished. There’s an almost sacrilegious beauty in it, as if the place is frozen in the moments of its own death.
The group packed enough food and supplies to last three months as the nearest settlement, Svalbard’s capital of Longyearbyen, lies over 50 kilometers to the south, with Cold War-era snowmobiles as the only means of transport.
When asked why they chose such a harsh and remote locale in which to work, Erjk Vanderwolf responded, “Why, to add to the Nordic Gene Bank of course.” — apparently referencing the store of frozen seeds secured in an abandoned Svalbardian coal mine since 1984, presumably with the intention of preserving plant-life from extinction in the event of a global catastrophe. Vanderwolf’s response was as inscrutable as ever, leaving one to wonder whether The Get Quick see themselves as some kind of repository for the endangered frequencies of a dying world. A cultural gene bank, perhaps, or the last survivors of an abandoned soundscape.
Pyramiden, with its rusted machinery and hollowed-out buildings, is the perfect setting for a band that has always reveled in the intersections of desolation and creation, of entropy and transcendence. There are no distractions here — save for the fierce howling of the wind and the eerie, never-setting sun. The snowmobiles, it seems, are the only means of escape should they need or choose to leave. But escape, in this world, is for the weak. The Get Quick are here to dig in, and dig deeper, to work their dark alchemy under the shadow of the world’s end.
Their upcoming album, tentatively titled TIME WILL BE OURS, will undoubtedly echo the vast, oppressive silence of the Arctic. A frozen testament to isolation, both physical and psychological. In these frozen halls, in the middle of nowhere, the band is crafting their next vision of reality, their next soundtrack to the unraveling of civilization. It is said that music made in the most desolate of places can carry a certain weight — a resonant urgency that can shatter even the most frozen of hearts.
And so, as they move from room to room, recording in the eerie, abandoned silence, one can only wonder: is this album a manifesto for the end times? A cry of defiance in the face of a cold, indifferent universe? Or is it simply the next chapter in a never-ending journey to transcend, to twist sound and time into something new, something that speaks only to those brave enough to seek it out — or those foolish enough to listen?
Time, after all, waits for no one.
* * * * * *
October 2000
TGQ Recording In Oregon
Poppy Ott, The Monkey’s Paw
The Get Quick have invaded the Shanghai Tunnels, a labyrinthine network of subterranean passages that once ferried goods, souls, and sins between Portland’s Old Town and its lawless heart. The tunnels, steeped in haunted hardcore history and hints of the unnatural, are now the latest shrine for The Get Quick’s aural alchemy.
“There are many interesting acoustical possibilities down here,” remarked Mitchell Joy, attempting to explain the band’s seeming obsession with all things (literally and figuratively) underground. He gestures absently toward the cables strewn across the damp, cobblestone floor. The walls, slick with moss and forgotten dreams, hum with an energy that feels like the city’s pulse — a beat that belongs to another time, another world.
“We’re trying to capture that... spirit.”
Buzzsaw guitars are bouncing off the walls of subterranean Prohibition-era speakeasies while bombastic bass and drums echo down the long dark tunnels once used to transport the drugged victims of a ruthless kidnapping ring.
It’s estimated that upwards of 1500 people were shanghaied out of Portland every year at the turn of the 19th century. Sold to unscrupulous captains docked along the waterfront, the victims often awoke miles out at sea with no other option but to serve a term of forced slavery aboard the ship.
The Shanghai Tunnels — those dark arteries of Portland’s past — once echoing with the desperate footfalls of those enslaved by greed and vice, are now filled with the buzz of electric guitars, the sinister thump of bass, and the all-encompassing cacophony of drums that reverberate through forgotten speakeasies down shadowy passageways. It’s as though the tunnels themselves were alive, swallowing each note as soon as it leaves the speakers, blending it into the very sinews of spacial memory. The Get Quick don’t merely record in these spaces. They absorb them. And... are absorbed by them.
"Somewhere beneath these tunnels,” explains Erjk Vanderwolf, slinking into the shadows, “they say you can hear the voices... all embedded in the brick and dust... Our raw material.”
In a weird parallel, only two weeks ago the band was in Harve, Montana, tracking songs in that city’s subterranean spider-web of passages.
In 1904, after a fire consumed most of Harve, connecting tunnels were constructed around the basements and cellars as a means of keeping business alive until the above ground town could be rebuilt in brick. These extensive and secretive passages — built mostly by Chinese who had settled in Harve after the construction of the railroad — were useful for all kinds of seedy backdoor activity, from the run-of-the-mill bordello to an illegal brewery and a thriving opium market.
And yes, it’s an exercise in cinematic headphone music that borders on the unhinged. Maybe they’re method musicians, as Stewart Kendrick claims, or perhaps something else entirely — audio-necrophiles who dip their fingers into the muck of human history to conjure the spectral echoes of forgotten mob wars, buried sins, and unspoken horrors.
“Brando was a method actor,” Kendrick explains as he adjusts a series of blinking knobs on a console. “Maybe we’re method musicians. This is the only way to really get the sound right, you know?”
“But that’s like saying David Bowie’s music would’ve been better if he’d actually recorded it on Mars,” I argue.
“Are you saying he didn’t?” Kendrick demanded.
Foolishly, I start to reply, but before I can formulate my words, the music kicks back in — louder, faster, its edges sharp with the resonance of distortion and fury. For a moment, I lose track of time. The lines between musician, listener, and space begin to dissolve. Maybe we're all shanghaied here — trapped in the echo of a musical ghost ship bound for destinations unknown...
March 2002
Winchester House Evicts TGQ
Buz Sawyer, Tugboat Annie
In what can only be described as a bizarre and slightly unsettling chapter in The Get Quick's ongoing odyssey, the band’s month-long residency at the notorious Winchester Mystery House has been abruptly cut short. After just one week in the eerie labyrinth of the San Jose mansion, The Get Quick were shown the door by the estate’s administration, leaving behind a trail of questions, speculation, and, according to some, a few lingering spirits.
For the uninitiated, the Winchester Mystery House is not just any ordinary mansion built by riches amassed from the bloodshed of the Civil War — it is a sprawling, bewildering structure known for its architectural oddities and paranormal lore. The home was the creation of Sarah Winchester, widow of the inventor of the infamous repeating rifle. Following the death of her husband and daughter, Sarah became obsessed with appeasing vengeful spirits she believed were haunting her family’s legacy. Under the belief that construction must continue without pause to appease these spirits, she ordered a never-ending expansion of the house, resulting in a sprawling mansion filled with hallways leading to nowhere, staircases that descend into ceilings, and doors that open to solid walls.
For The Get Quick, the house was chosen as the perfect location to record new material for their upcoming album. The isolated and strange nature of the place seemed to fit perfectly with their creative process — a space where time itself seems to warp and bend. But the band’s residency didn’t last long. According to Mitchell Joy, the expulsion was less a supernatural intervention and more of a financial decision.
“Yeah, we rented it out for a month,” Joy confirms with a shrug. “I think they [The Winchester Estate Council] judged the flat rental fee against the income they would’ve normally generated from tourists and decided it wasn’t in their immediate interest to have us there. But they didn’t really take into account the added attention our collaboration would’ve sparked. It could’ve brought in a whole new crowd, you know?”
But, as S. True Smith explains, the logistics were complicated. “They don’t exactly need our help in attracting tourist dollars. We didn’t have an iron-clad contract. We were dealing mainly with one sympathetic individual who unfortunately had to answer to a board of fickle businessmen — and those guys, they only care about the bottom line.”
The band members, while clearly disappointed by the abrupt eviction, had mixed feelings about the experience itself. “The place was incredible,” says Colonel Boran, with a weary sigh. “But it was a nightmare to work in. There was no logic to the layout at all. It was a constant state of flux, just like the house’s history — with additions and alterations happening every day. There’s a literal maze of hallways, stairways that lead nowhere, and doors that open into walls... You could spend a lifetime there and still get lost.”
Riko Litts, ever the keen observer, also noted some eerie oddities that might have contributed to the house’s unsettling atmosphere. “I noticed a chandelier that had been modified to add a thirteenth light. There were thirteen bathrooms, thirteen holes in the sink drains, and thirteen panes of glass in most windows. Even the palm trees lining the driveway — there were thirteen of them. I’m not superstitious, but, uh,” he laughs, “I wasn’t exactly heartbroken to leave that place behind.”
“I couldn’t wait to put it in my rearview,” Joy nods.
Despite the eerie coincidences and the unexpected eviction, the band has moved on to other, more grounded recording spaces. As for The Get Quick's time in the Winchester House, it remains a strange, fleeting chapter — one that may forever live in the shadowy corners of their mythos, but without the ghostly melodies they hoped to find within its walls.
* * * * * *
April 2002
The Get Quick Attend VA State
Michael Shayne, Black Trinity
After the aborted Winchester sessions, The Get Quick have reportedly uprooted to Moundsville WV, site of the West Virginia State Penitentiary, in order to complete the recording of their new album.
The castellated sandstone Penitentiary is an imposing Gothic structure, complete with turrets and battlements. Built by a prison labor force, the Penitentiary opened in 1876, housing a population of two hundred and fifty male inmates, many of who had contributed to the prison’s construction.
“There’s more than enough room to set up all the equipment and experiment with the spatial aspects,” said Colonel Boran. “I think we’ll be achieving some interesting sounds and capturing the atmosphere of this place.”
“The Winchester house was really strange — in an intellectual kind of way,” explains Riko Litts, “But this place is very creepy. It hits you right in the gut.”
Over the years the walls of the prison saw eighty-five inmates hanged — nine more were electrocuted.
“The original electric chair is still here,” says Mitchell Joy. “It was actually built by one of the inmates. Can you believe that? We wired it up with cables, hung a microphone over it, and told Erjk that we wanted him to cut his vocals sitting in the chair.”
“I’m a huge fan of Charles Laughton’s film THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER, starring Robert Mitchum,” explains the deadpan Vanderwolf. “That led me to seek out the book by Davis Grubb, who, it turns out, was a native of Moundsville. The prison is featured in the story and the action unfolds along the country here.”
So this will not be the first time the West Virginia State Penitentiary has played muse to the creative arts ...
Since the prison closed its doors in 1995 the Moundsville Department of Economic Development have organized tours as well as a haunted-house style attraction for the Halloween season. Criminal justice companies also use the facility to train security guards and prison staff with mock-riot drills.
“The members of the Moundsville Civic Committee were very accommodating in allowing us to rent the facility,” explains S. True Smith. “Very reasonable. And I think everything is going well. The band seem quite excited in this setting and are hopeful about imbuing some of this dark ambience in the tracks.”
August 2002
TGQ Get Fired Up
Maud Silver, Submarine Cache
Centralia, Pennsylvania, population: 11. Once a blue-collar borough blooming with over 1,000 souls, it’s now little more than a cautionary tale shrouded in sulfur and scorched brick. A coal seam fire — ignited sometime in 1962 by either bureaucratic folly or occult sabotage, depending on who you ask — has been burning beneath the town ever since, seething like a hellmouth with no bottom.
Now, for reasons that border on the inexplicable, The Get Quick have descended on Centralia like a glam-plated virus. Their arrival — complete with camera crews, art directors in mirrored goggles, and a horde of datajunkie superfans in post-military fatigues — has effectively tripled the local population overnight.
Their mission? To shoot a series of promotional visuals for their upcoming album, KICKS, amid the fog-shrouded crypts, hazard zones, and scorched-out boulevards. A fitting locale, some say, for a band whose last tour left two members missing and a third babbling in tongues from a neurological ward in Essen.
“Centralia has a quality of… negative space,” said Erjk Vanderwolf through a filtered voice modulator. “The architecture of absence. It’s perfect for this phase of our work.”
But danger simmers beneath the ash. Carbon monoxide blooms make breathing an act of faith. The soil yawns open without warning. One tech reportedly fell into a sinkhole that spat cinders and fragments of VHS tape. And now the authorities — state troopers in rebreather masks, and Homeland Surveillance drones — have issued cease-and-desist notices backed by heavy fines. Their warnings crackle with electromagnetic interference.
Locals are divided. A handful of remaining residents (many living in heavily modified trailers ringed with copper wiring and bug-zapper wards) are cautiously optimistic. “Maybe this’ll put us on the map again,” offered one woman behind smoked glass. Others mutter about ritual desecration, about “stirring up what ought to be left sleeping.” One elderly man claimed he saw a chanting Dr Watson kiss the mouth of a vent shaft.
Regardless, the fire rages on. The subterranean vein of coal — a blackened artery stretching eight miles — continues to burn, unceasing. Scientists say it could last another 250 years. The Get Quick, however, plan to be gone by Tuesday.
Unless, of course, the town swallows them first.
* * * * * *
October 2003
OG TGQ Reunite, One “Nite” Only
Calvin Sprague, Candid Camera Kid
Last night, The Get Quick did the impossible: they turned back time, if only for a few hours. Coco LeBree rejoined his former bandmates onstage for a pair of smokily nostalgic sets at The Bottom Line, in a gig billed as a tribute to their earliest residency at the long-gone but legend-haunted Nite Owl Café.
In the crowd: aging scenesters, collectors in soft leather gloves, at least one former cult leader, and a handful of die-hard TGQ obsessives who’d slept outside the venue for two nights, murmuring lyrics in their sleep.
LeBree, ever the baroque oddity, has been back in the news thanks to his relentless promotion of medical leeches. Yes, you read that correctly. The same man who once refused to fly because “it makes the blood bubble” now insists that parasitic annelids hold the secret to a better, cleaner, longer life.
“They release a divine enzyme,” LeBree explained from a pale leather divan backstage, “which purifies and optimizes the blood. It stimulates circulation. You feel electric, like old bronze struck by lightning.”
LeBree has reportedly been undergoing this therapy for over a decade, often in custom-built isolation tanks or by moonlight near natural springs. Whether it works is up for debate — but the man did wear a sleeveless silk tunic last night without shame or sag.
The Nite Owl Café, once nestled near MacDougal and 6th, was the kind of joint that survived on coffee, back room deals, and dreams of record contracts. In the early '60s, it played host to folk and blues acts; by ’65, it was booking fuzz-tone rockers and proto-psych astronauts. While they were stars in Great Britain and well regarded in Europe — stateside, The Get Quick were just another struggling band back then, packing all their gear (and most of their bad decisions) into a single room at the nearby Albert Hotel, where the elevator never worked and the walls were rumored to sweat blood during storms.
Regulars from that era recall cramped sets, blown amps, and a waitress named Sally who always danced — and who is, according to obsessive fans, the muse behind no fewer than three songs, including “Afternoons on Jupiter Street” and the unreleased “Sally (Blue Door, Black Rain).”
Now, decades later, the artifacts of that era are fetching serious money. LeBree’s classic 1971 Thunderbird bass just sold for a cool £23,000 at auction, to a collector described only as “a Swiss industrialist with a shrine to obsolete American hardware.”
But that was only one of many. LeBree was notorious for his Frankenstein approach to bass-building — stripping necks, splicing electronics, and attaching sacred charms inside the control cavities. Some were blessed. Some were cursed. All are now highly sought after.
Expect a flood of Franken-basses to hit the auction block this summer, each one a stitched-together relic of TGQ’s golden age — and a testament to Coco LeBree’s refusal to play by the book, or by the chord chart.
April 2004
Litts On The Road To Morocco
Yuri Dadd, The Megalomaniac Banditti
Riko Litts will give a rare solo performance this month amid the crumbling splendor of Chellah, a necropolis just outside the Ville Nouvelle of Rabat, Morocco. The concert, scheduled to take place at twilight, marks his first public appearance in over a year and is already drawing pilgrims, mystics, and old TGQ diehards from across North Africa and Europe.
Originally slated for the ruins of Alamut — the legendary fortress of Hassan-i Sabbah in northern Iran — the concert was relocated after what Litts’s camp cryptically referred to as “logistical discontinuities.” Chellah, with its layers of Roman stone, Almohad dynasty architecture, and Phoenician ghost traces, may prove even more resonant. Once a hub of ancient trade and ritual, the site now plays host to migrating storks, winding gardens, and the faint thrum of buried histories.
Litts is expected to perform a set of “inspired impressionistic improv,” on local instruments, along with a handful of reimagined works from his TGQ days. “The idea,” he told La Gazette Mystique, “is to conjure echoes, not replicas. Every ruin contains a forgotten frequency.” He will be accompanied by a small ensemble of Moroccan and European players, some of whom are said to be masters of gnawa trance, modular synthesis, and checkers.
Both audio and video documentation of the event is underway, though insiders suggest the final release may take an unconventional form — “possibly as a shadow broadcast,” one technician hinted, “or something encoded into wax cylinders.”
* * * * * *
March 2005
Wranglers Redux
Kitty Pride, Trouble Nantucket
The saga of AMERICAN WRANGLERS — that cursed, elusive feature film — seems to be inching towards fruition, though at a pace that can only be described as “cosmic.” First conceived in the mid-80s, the film has, like its subject matter, weathered a thousand false starts, bizarre tangents, and dark twists in its production timeline. But now, according to unconfirmed whispers from the Hollywood intelligentsia, the project appears to be edging towards actualization.
The screenplay is currently in a state of flux, with several iterations floating around in various states of completion. What’s clear is that the project has now evolved into something bigger, an expansion of the original series’ premise into a more contemporary, cinematic universe. Hollywood insiders are buzzing with the idea of re-launching AMERICAN WRANGLERS as a franchise, possibly a trilogy, with the goal of revamping the concept for the new generation’s thirst for meta-fiction and flying guts.
Mitchell Joy, Erjk Vanderwolf, Coco LeBree, and Christian Hait are all reportedly in talks to reprise their roles. And, as we hear it, the core of the story will focus on a reimagined version of the original pilot episode, “Hand of the Marked Man.” The plot will likely feature more urban action, high-tech espionage, and a deeper exploration of the mind-bending, counter-cultural themes that the series pioneered — all elements that will resonate in today’s climate of surveillance and existential dread.
However, the road to this cinematic resurrection has not been without its drama. Back in the mid-90s, The Get Quick’s notorious Svengali, S. True Smith, was reportedly on the verge of securing the film rights from the original creator, Gil Simons. But fate, in the form of the Bludstein brothers and their corporate titan status, intervened. The Bludsteins swept in like a corporate predator, securing the deal at a fraction of the cost that Smith was offering. Simons, whose relationship with The Get Quick has always been one of creative tension, agreed to the Bludstein deal under the condition that he would still have a hand in developing the project’s evolution. Now, whether this involvement will result in a faithful reimagining or yet another gory round of studio-mandated compromises remains to be seen.
And so, we wait. But there’s no shortage of intrigue. AMERICAN WRANGLERS may finally be on the horizon, or it may remain trapped in development hell, doomed to circle endlessly in the void of unfinished potential.
Only time will tell.
J
October 2006
TGQ In Training
Ivy Trask, Hex Xound
As the world anticipates word on the long-overdue AMERICAN WRANGLERS film adaptation, a curious development has arisen. Recent rumors suggest that members of The Get Quick — always a band that thrives in the unknown, the uncanny, and the completely unpredictable — have taken to intense physical training in preparation for the inevitable action sequences the film will require.
The band’s enigmatic frontman, Erjk Vanderwolf, has been spotted in Warsaw, entrenched in a rigorous regimen under the watchful eye of Polish fencing master and Olympic gold medalist Jerzy Pawlowski.
Why, you may ask, would a man whose previous fencing exploits have been confined to the grandiosity of courtly sword fights now turn to the grueling discipline of saber fencing? The answer, of course, is elusive. But as any member of The Get Quick will tell you, there are layers to every mystery. Perhaps it is not just for the film. Maybe it’s part of some larger, more metaphysical preparation — a rite of passage for something beyond cinema.
Meanwhile, Mitchell Joy, the band’s steadfast, kinetic time-keeper, has been spotted bouncing off the walls of Paris. Literally. Known for his frenetic mind and explosive energy, Joy has been immersing himself in a new form of physical meditation: l'art du déplacement, or “le parcours,” the art of urban gymnastics. In this high-stakes game of acrobatic obstacle courses, Joy is leaping, flipping, and vaulting over the cluttered landscape of the city, seeking a new kind of mastery — one that speaks not only to the body, but to the soul.
“Yes, I’m training as a ‘traceur,’” Joy admits, breathlessly, after a particularly strenuous session, “meaning, 'someone who moves from one point to another as quickly and efficiently as possible.’ But, to me, it’s also about overcoming obstacles. And maybe, just maybe, that’s what we’ll do — overcome the obstacles in the way of the film.”
Is this merely the whimsical pursuits of a drummer in the throes of pre-production madness? Or is it something deeper — some kind of cryptic message to the universe that The Get Quick will rise once again, unbowed by the forces of bureaucracy and Hollywood's soul-crushing machine?
For now, the answers remain as elusive as ever. But one thing is clear: whatever happens with AMERICAN WRANGLERS, it will be nothing short of an exercise in overcoming obstacles — physical, spiritual, and creative.
And as for the rest of us? We’re along for the ride.
* * * * * *
September 2007
GREEN LIGHT: Amerikan Wranglers
Hannah Van Doren, Hidden Hand
After decades adrift in the pop culture fog, AMERIKAN WRANGLERS may finally ride again.
Principal photography on the long-delayed feature film adaptation is now slated to begin later this year, after a near-mythic saga of development hell stretching back to the Ford administration. Sources close to the production claim full financial backing, a globe-spanning shoot, and a cast as eclectic and combustible as the source material demands.
If it really happens this time—and we’ve all been burned before—audiences could see Wranglers hit theaters as early as 2009. That would mark 34 years since Orson Welles’ legendary 1975 attempt (aborted after a disastrous shoot in Death Valley involving giant animatronic coyotes), and 43 years since the original cult TV series first aired in all its grainy glory.
Too late for the box office? Hardly. The recent action hero resurrections of Ford, Stallone, and Willis suggest there’s still juice in the old pulp muscle. And besides, Wranglers was always a creature out of time.
The film’s most vocal champions have been none other than The Get Quick’s own Mitchell Joy and Erjk Vanderwolf — longtime devotees of the series and rumored to have had minor cameos in a 1984 Yugoslavian bootleg version. Both have been seen lobbying for the project in Hollywood circles, securing endorsement deals and backing from mysterious financiers and at least two ex-members of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young.
Casting rumors abound: Josh Brolin and Samuel L. Jackson are said to be circling the project, while genre stalwarts Robert Davi and Robert Z’Dar are reportedly locked in to play the NSA Director and the President of the United States, respectively.
Speculation is swirling around the involvement of Edwige Uffizi, daughter of Get Quick associate Mae Voce. Now 26 and fresh from a breakout turn in the Euro-fantasy mini-series Sapphire Wolf, Uffizi is believed to play a central role in Pat J. Ballow’s tightly guarded screenplay, rumored to involve time fractals, mind-control leitmotifs, shooting the rodeo, and a sentient interstate highway system.
As of press time, the film is still without a director. Vanderwolf has publicly backed Frenchman Guillaume Nicloux, calling his La Tour de Glace “the only film since 1982 to smell of ozone and taste of blood.”
Whether Amerikan Wranglers will finally break its curse — or become yet another psychedelic casualty of post-modern nostalgia — remains to be seen. But for now, the boots are on, the hogs are saddled, and the digital tumbleweeds are rolling.
November 2007
Things That Matter To People Who Matter
— Philadelphia City Paper 11/13/07
CHARLES BRONSON kicks ass. Bronson did some movies in Hollywood, but had to go to Europe to be a box office hero — and of all the Bronson moves that Clint Eastwood ever copied, this was the most important. In fact, Sergio Leone wanted him for A Fist Full Of Dollars, but Bronson turned him down. Then Leone thought, maybe for A Few Dollars More? Bronson said no. Bronson even turned down the lead in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. He finally came around and starred in Leone’s 1968 epic masterpiece Once Upon a Time in the West, after which Leone called him “the greatest actor I have ever worked with.” Damn right, Sergio.
— Mitchell Joy, The Get Quick