Stick Men (punk band)

Content sourced from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Stick Men were a Philadelphia-based punk rock, no wave, funk band active from 1980 to 1983. Fronted by guitarist Peter L. Baker and keyboardist B.A.L. Stack, the group formed from Baker’s art and music circles and went through several lineup changes before settling on a core group with Chuck Mattern Jr. on vocals and horns, Bill Bradfield on bass, and Jim Meneses on drums. They released This is the Master Brew in 1982 and Get on Board the Stick Men in 1983. Their sound mixed danceable funk and disco with art-rock time changes and frenetic punk, drawing comparisons to James Chance and the Contortions and The Minutemen. They played gigs with major acts of the era, including The Contortions and Johnny Thunders.

Before Stick Men, Baker worked in avant-garde art and music, merging different projects into the band. After extensive touring in the Northeast and Midwest, the group disbanded. Peter L. Baker died in 1994. In 2001, Cuneiform Records released a retrospective CD called Insatiable, collecting most of the studio recordings plus live material, though it excludes some tracks featuring drummer Disco Fred Abrams. Jim Meneses and Bill Bradfield remained musically active—Meneses tours worldwide in free improvisation, and Bradfield lives in San Luis Obispo, California, where he jams with local musicians.