For local band, wrongs can only make rights
Published June 11, 2008
Guitarist Jacob Kruger can’t escape the humor in using the “shit out of luck” metaphor to describe a band named Nascar Diarrhea — especially when it starts to rain. Even as he’s proven right, the band’s most thoughtful member breaks into a grin and continues to nurse the beer he carries in the fist not already folded around his miniature golf club.
“This is typical,” he says.
The same can is reflected in the hands of the band’s other three-quarters. They’re an appreciably motley crew: along with Jacob, there’s drummer Ted Sharp, a red-bearded conspiracy theorist who insists on prefacing every quote with whether or not it’s “on the record.” When he talks about the band, it is.
“All of our songs kind of suck equally, in a way,” Sharp says. “Compare them to Beethoven, Bob Dylan, Sonic Youth, and we’re pretty much the worst band in the world. I’m thinking on a macro scale, man. No matter how bad you are, your friends will come and see you, and we’ve proven that.”
Today finds the foursome, rounded out by sarcastic guitarist Alex Brand and smiley bassist Andy Beisser, dodging a rained-out go-kart course for miniature golf. In their free time from the job they all share at Slackers, the four argue the difference between “crick” and creek (Ted) and which member is most attractive (Ted by default). The name Nascar Diarrhea comes with the kind of back-story you’d expect from four guys who operate under the guise of gastro-intestinal discomfort.
“Every time I call my mom, she asks me if we’ve changed the band name,” Alex says. “She sounds genuinely disappointed every time I say no.”
Jacob sets down his drink to putt.
“(One of my friends) wanted to always be in a band called Nascar Diarrhea, and when I told him I was going to steal the name he made me go through three tests to actually take it from him, which included one where I put a cigarette but out on my palm," Jacob says. "We were once Cinnamon Blowtorch for a few days.”
The band began, sans Ted, in Alex’s garage, where the aluminum door reverberated along with the bass notes as sort of a makeshift drummer. After a long streak of what Alex refers to as “angry suburban moms,” Ted joined the band almost a year ago.
“We had the cops called on us how many times?” Alex asks.
The others shrug. When asked to assess how serious they are about the band on a scale of 1 to 10, the guys’ answers are telling even early on in their story: 11, 4, -4, 52.
“Which golf course works better as a metaphor for our ascension to fame?” Alex says.
Jacob’s joke is immediate: “The hard course,” just as Andy responds with “The short course.”
“Maybe for you. Asshole.”
Their earlier attempt to race go-karts at Perche Creek Raceway ended when the rain started, about the same time Alex’s car stopped twice and Ted’s seatbelt refused to release him. Despite the weather, the guys are a constant mix of jokes and metaphors it’s easy to imagine translating to the four hours of practice they put in at their StorageMart unit each week. Some are smoking and all but Andy are drinking as they make the rounds at the course’s miniature golf holes.
“It seems like anything goes here,” Alex says. “We’re playing miniature golf in Gomorrah.”
When they’re not mocking the straight sevens Ted scores or happily rehashing “the time Alex fought that German dude,” the members of Nascar Diarrhea play shows in downtown Columbia, a city they’ve come to appreciate for its music scene.
“This man and his wife from Arlington, Texas, came to the record store and they were like, ‘Can you tell me what music I should buy from your local section that’s indicative of your local music scene?’” Alex says. It’s hard to tell who guffaws behind him. “To assume that there’s one band that sounds like everyone else is really stupid.”
The guys are happier to assume there’s one band with a worse name than everyone else, and they are jokingly bitter about losing the honor to Black$mith in MOVE’s Best of Columbia issue.
“I don’t know if I can forgive that, honestly,” Alex says, laughing. “We were thinking of changing the ‘C’ in our name from a regular ‘C’ to the cent-sign ‘C.’ And we are going to beat up Velociraptors Can Open Doors. They can open doors, but can they box?”