The Swirling Eddies

The Swirling Eddies
Origin	California, United States
Genres	Rock
Years active	1988–present
Labels	Frontline, Stunt
Members
Camarillo Eddy Berger Roy Al Picky Swelly Newt York Newt York Judy Ism Derry Air Gene Pool Arthur Fhardy Spot Hort Elvison Prickly Disco

The Swirling Eddies are a band that began as an anonymous spinoff from the band Daniel Amos, along with new drummer David Raven.

Career

For each Swirling Eddies release, band members adopted pseudonyms for the liner notes; "Camarillo Eddy" (Terry Scott Taylor), "Berger Roy Al" (Tim Chandler), "Gene Pool" (Greg Flesch), "Arthur Fhardy" (Rob Watson), "Spot" (Jerry Chamberlain), and "Hort Elvison" (David Raven). These pseudonyms were dropped for their third album, "Zoom Daddy". Over the years new Eddies appeared on the bands albums including "Prickly Disco" (Gene Eugene), Picky Swelly, Newt York Newt York, Derry Air, and Judy Ism. "Guest Eddies," a term used for musicians that contributed musically to one of the bands projects also made appearances on nearly every album. The list of "Guest Eddies" includes Buckeye Jazzbo, Miracle Babe, Mary Baker Eddy, Jeb McSwaggart, Mike Roe, and Eddie DeGarmo. As early as 1991, Taylor saw the Eddies as an ever-evolving and ever-growing family of like minded musicians. At that time, in an interview with Harvest Rock Syndicate, Taylor explained that the plan was to "(open) the Eddies up to even more artists, sort of make the Eddies this conglomerate of different people that I've always wanted to work with, and have a lot of song-writing teams involved and different lead singers. Just make it this mass of people, that sort of fluctuates and changes."

Other characters, and pseudonyms associated with the band over the years include the fictional manager Morty Allen, jr., Sweaty & Bloated Management, Lounge Singer Nick Deletchi, Presty Gomez, Rockabye Sweetheart, Lenny Wagonmaster, Wildfire Friz the Shasta Man, Blue Joe Roundabout, the Silky Smooth Scrubby Muffin, The Grimmace Groove Dough Boy, The Hot Trottin' Dictator, Simeon Krease, and Coco the Talking Guitar.

The band released its debut album on Alarma Records in 1988 entitled Let's Spin!. Outdoor Elvis, released in 1989, featured the band's first two radio singles, "Driving in England" and "Hide the Beer, the Pastor's Here!". The title track included lines such as: "It's said he croons when the moon's above, singing tenderly 'Hunk of Burning Love.'" The band's documentary video, Spittle and Phlegm was released the following year.

The Eddies' stage shows are rare and unusual, to say the least. Since the band was formed in the late 1980s, they have only performed about six or seven live concerts. In 1990, the band performed at The Cornerstone Festival in drag, belting out covers like "I Am Woman, Hear Me Roar", The Animals' "We've Got To Get Out Of This Place", The Beatles' "I Want to Hold Your Hand", and Louis Armstrong's "What a Wonderful World".

In 2004, the band began to work on their first album of original, new material in ten years entitled The midget, the speck and the molecule. The first new song to surface, a rough mix of "Giants in the Land," was made available in March 2007 exclusively to people that preordered the album before it was finished. The recording sessions ended in May 2007 and the album was released on July 23, 2007

Discography

Albums

• Let's Spin!, 1988 album
• Outdoor Elvis, 1989 album
• Zoom Daddy, 1994 album
• The Berry Vest of The Swirling Eddies, Best of album featured a bonus track on the tape version only reversing the usual convention of the time of putting bonus tracks on the CD only, 1995 Compilation
• Sacred Cows, 1996 album
• The midget, the speck and the molecule, 2007 album

Special and limited editions

• Swirling Mellow, Released numerous times between 1988 and 2008

Videography

• Spittle & Phlegm, 1990 VHS documentary
• Spittle and Phlegm, 2002 DVD documentary (Reissue)

External links

• The Swirling Eddies at www.DanielAmos.com
• The Swirling Eddies Discography
• The Swirling Eddies at Myspace.com