The Brotherhood of the Brickish Banner Brothers.
I once had a great tape I listened to on regular rotation for six months. It was a Pennsylvania band called The Brotherhood of the Brick, or the Banner Brothers, depending which side you take in the extremely controversial history of the group. Max and Senrab wrote some really interesting Lovecraftian-influenced tunes, including my favorite, of which name I am sorely forgetten, that employed an early disk-piano with the disc inserted updside down.
The sound has been with me for years, that backwards-disk piano sound. Plaintive singing, great lyrics.
Wait, wait. There was also — TURTOX!! OMG!! TURTOX STANDS ALONE!!
I wonder if anyone has a copy out there? Can we get some Brotherhood postings, please? Anyone?
Brickish Brickonian Brickheadius Brickmen emerge from your slumber!! One of your fans Calls!! Digitize and Post if you are a Brick!
bybrickius
o yeah, more masonic-lite nostalgia. Besides, Senrab is xtian now, and that is the old Dispensation, Mr. Coachroach Corpse.
Scottish Rite in Sac-town, man: I wager they’d let you in. Bring in a Cubensis handbook too!
Comment on September 15, 2006 @ 5:36 pm
I, for one, would enjoy hearing it. Born-again Pennsylvanian Xtians for H.P. Lovecraft does seem like an interesting theme.
Comment on September 15, 2006 @ 6:39 pm
I’ll look but I may not find. For now, let me see if I can recall the lyrics:
——–
666 serpents sailing
all over Earth’s surface
the sirens wailing
the eyesight of millions
suddenly failing
as Turtox… split the night!
Cities were ruptured and villages torn
survivors turned victims
had no time to mourn
The terror above had released its scorn
It chose to destroy
having no need to fight
every eye shall see him
every ear shall hear him
not a one will get near him
Turtox… will stand alone
Descending in fury
the demon landed
resounding defeat
the earth was handed
Seeing that man
was duely reprimanded
Turtox victory… was complete!
Now only silence
shrouded the Earth
Humanity eliminated
no chance for rebirth
In man’s space was a mindless dearth
Turtox… will stand alone
every eye shall see him
every ear shall hear him
not a one will get near him
Turtox… will stand alone
Comment on September 15, 2006 @ 6:58 pm
“… he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him …”
(Rev 1:7)
Comment on September 15, 2006 @ 7:41 pm
Max, you have an amazing memory. See if you can reconstruct Byronius’ favorite from the fragments I can remeber:
Banner Brother
Banner Brother
Banner Brother
I’m goin’ down
Go, gowin’ down
Gowin’ down to see a Banner Brother
(bunch o’ stuff I can’t quite recall)
I’m goin’ to see
goin’ to see
A Banner Brother
A Banner Brother
A Banner Brother
Comment on September 15, 2006 @ 7:47 pm
Mp3′s!! I want mp3′s!!!
And it’s not sentimental, BWC. It’s DEADLY SERIOUS.
Comment on September 15, 2006 @ 8:04 pm
Gumbus goo
what will we do
when we can’t get together
to change the weather?
Comment on September 15, 2006 @ 8:07 pm
he’s on up there to the north
we’re all down here to the south
we’re goin’ to see….
goin to see…
a Banner Brother
Comment on September 15, 2006 @ 8:30 pm
‘Gumbus goo’?
Comment on September 15, 2006 @ 9:17 pm
Now, technically, is this Banner Brothers, or Brotherhood of the Brick, or Brotherhood of the Brick doing a Banner Brother cover? Am I miscalling the band?
Comment on September 15, 2006 @ 9:18 pm
Aw yeah the Gomerius Goo. Most righteous Gomery groove! But can’t hold a candle to the maestros of Cockroach Corpse……actually I do recall “take mee.. to green fields”…sort of cool…like elton john meets, er,….oh I don’t know……tori anus…er amos.
Now the book of Rev.: str8 up lovecraft there
Comment on September 15, 2006 @ 9:24 pm
Actually, there’s quite a keen intellectual/romantic edge to the Banner/Brickhood — ‘you know you don’t really fall in love unless you’re seventeen’ — I found the music to be an unself-conscious window into the Pennsylvania teenage nerd soul. Perhaps you don’t really write your soul unless you’re thirteen. If art is the art of soul revealment, then it had power beyond its craft. I found it strangely appealing, catchy without kitsch, rock-and-roll fantasy to the hilt — I’m a sucker for that stuff. Wonder why.
But I actually did listen to it, over and over, for a long period of time. I want to hear it again.
There’s a film — Senrab and Max at the controls of their spaceship —
Revelations.
Comment on September 15, 2006 @ 9:47 pm
“If art is the art of soul revealment”
Alas, it’s not—as a Bach fugue, a Charlie Parker solo, or a Macbeth reveals.
That said, I don’t recall any of the music, so I reserve judgement. Bar…er..Senrab could play a pretty mean Sir Elton type of thang if I recall correctly.
Comment on September 15, 2006 @ 9:55 pm
In response to number 10, you are indeed mislabeling the band. The Brotherhood of the Brick was a secret society based with exactly nine members and one freaky physics teacher, Snuffy Smith, at Greensburg-Salem H.S. in Greensburg, PA. There was a central core of Senrab, Brickner, and Max. A golden brick with two large holes in it was the groups devotional icon.
The group was secret until the time that we decided we would like to be photographed for the school yearbook. This was, of course, against school policy, as all photographed groups had to have a constitution on file approved by the executive council and have one member of the faculty as a sponsor. We had none of these things and the pictures were to be taken in 48 hours. We therefor wrote a complete constitution for a “philosophy” club, presented our cause at the next day’s meeting of the executive council, and recruited Snuffy as our sponsor (that was the easy part). With minutes to go we appeared for the photo session, each member of the group proudly holding a golden brick- including Snuffy- and posed in a pyramidal formation for our classic shot which actually exists somewhere.
The Banner Brothers was the name for the musical endeavors of the core three members, most of the work recorded in Detroit after Brickner moved there (“he went off… off to the north…”)
Maximum Truthbringer Wyvern,
Historian Emeritus, Brotherhood of the Brick
Comment on September 15, 2006 @ 9:55 pm
'Alas, it’s not—as a Bach fugue, a Charlie Parker solo, or a Macbeth reveals.' Oh, but au contraire, Master Chitlin. I would contend that all three examples serve perfectly. Bach — transported by religious fervor, desperately trying to write music that could express the merest flavor of his devotion. A soul frenzy. Charlie Parker — quieting his internal voices with heroin, so that he could blow his spirit into and through his horn, craft first mastered, and then abandoned for zen. Shakespeare — all right. Not the best example, but — the three Weird Sisters, toying with him, guiding him to his worst self not as a lesson for growth, but as perfect doom — William feeling his encroaching mortality, frightened of the formlessness of the Spiritual Chasm, constructs a death-rehearsal scene in which male and female portions of his psyche tumble through his worst fears. It would not be so gripping, and so attractive, if it were not soul revealment. The Chitlin has achieved soul revealment — deny it not –
Comment on September 15, 2006 @ 10:08 pm
And Steven Brickner — was it not?
Ah, yes. The missing brick. Who is lost still. Mysterious.
Comment on September 15, 2006 @ 10:09 pm
You’ve got your Google choices –
About SAF- Steve Brickner, AAF, AIFD, PFCISteven R. Brickner, AAF, AIFD, PFCI The Flower Cart, Inc. 115 South 8th Street Chesterton, IN 46304 Daytime: (219) 926-8615 Fax: (219) 921-0418 …
Or –
[PDF] PHARMACEUTICAL SCIENCES SEMINAR Steven J. Brickner, Ph.D.File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat – View as HTML
Steven J. Brickner, Ph.D. Pfizer Inc. Groton, Connecticut. “The Discovery and Development of Zyvox®, the. First Approved Oxazolidinone Antibacterial …
Hmmm. Flower Boy Or Germ Boy. Which would it be…..
Comment on September 15, 2006 @ 10:15 pm
There’s an element of personality, or of “soul” (whatever you mean by that–don’t forget Uncle Meat) to great Ahht, perhaps, but that does not serve to define it completely; that’s a bit too subjective, methinks. I mean, Drifty does Talent Nite in Downtown Sac, and sings something in A -minor and “reveals” her soul: is it good, simply because of some expressive quality? I think not.
Bach does not merely express his soul (or some souls are more equal than others), he creates a sort of sonic architecture, patterns, complex forms, innovative cadences and intervals and voicings which are quite beyond the Drifty drones at Tony’s Pizzeria. Bird, while a bit more expressive and capricious than a Bach, does a similar thing.
Emotion-based Ahht becomes rather boring, like say Bobby Dylan unfortunately becomes boring, at least musically. Technique, velocity, and complexity of form, etc. to me are more interesting than mere expressiveness. I’d rather listen to even say Liberace doing some Chopin schlock than Dylan, man. Dig? Liberace, however nauseating, died for your sins.
And in terms of Lit. I think Shakespeare the person (whoever he was, or they were) is very far removed from his writing.
Comment on September 15, 2006 @ 10:22 pm
That said, it’s all good; or at least a portion of it izz. I do recall that the Penn. boyz were from around George Romero Land, and that fact deserves some respect of some sort; Night of the Living Dead (Viva NOTLD!) sort of an American cinematic monument. NOTLD every day. Indeed lots of yankees and New Englanders have that sort of gothic, flesh-devouring zombie quality about ‘em. Heh.
Comment on September 15, 2006 @ 10:43 pm
I dig the Liberace. But Uncle Meat transcends his humble name. Chemicals that dream. Compounds that seek silence to release patterns that will affect other compounds. Communication is more than bits and bytes. Logos is more than words. Why is it that man does not live by bread alone?
He must also have wine, music, love — more than the Meat needs. Says the Sentimentalist.
I cannot imagine Shakespeare far from his words. As I read him now, heading into Hamlet, I feel his breath in them. I sense his weirdness, so close — he is in me now.
Uhhhh. All right, a tad weird there. But –
Yeah, well, Dylan. When I talked about art exceeding craft, I meant more like the Ramones, or the Sex Pistols.
Comment on September 15, 2006 @ 11:15 pm
It's interesting that Max took the name Turtox from a Pennsylvania chemical manufacturing firm. Fast forward, and the corporate monstrosity spews its poison into the air, destroying mankind — Peak Oil and corporatism being the death of us, Turtox stands alone.
'not a one will get near him'.
'the eyesight of millions suddenly failing'
Indeed.
Comment on September 16, 2006 @ 12:01 am
Turtox was pure pop, as was “The Ill Fated Gazebo” and the the somewhat more experimental “Textbook Song.” We took a step toward epic with “Gas Flats” but didn’t fully reach it until “Screaming God/Man Lover”… a classic!
Senrab in those days was an amazing real time storyteller and Godman was the zenith of his craft. It basically came down to Senrab, a guitar, and a story pulled straight from the mouth of the gods while Brick and I essentially decorated it with sound effects.
Comment on September 16, 2006 @ 6:40 am
Max – I remembered last night that you took possession of the ‘Banner Brothers’ cassette during a visit to my Gunn Road house, circa 1999. I was heartbroken; you were insistent.
You must find it. Send it to me. I’ll do all the work. Please.
Comment on September 16, 2006 @ 9:38 am
I think aldous might have it. He, by the way, is claiming overload of schoolwork for his negligence in attending to NW duties. Talk about misplaced priorities!
Comment on September 16, 2006 @ 9:40 am
Aw yeah, Brotherhood of the B. Shriners mutha-f-n rock! Precious bodily fluids. That sort of exclusionist, young engineer club wouldn’t fly in the Cali edu-gulag now, however: even a chess club thought to be a branch of the Klan by most Soccer Mommy educrats. You’d have to admit femmes and the Peoples, La raza, bruthas, queeers, semi-blind handicapped somalian lesbians and such….
Comment on September 16, 2006 @ 11:16 am
Did anyone understand 25, or am I just being my usual dense self?
The politiacl influences for the Banner Brothers were Moody Blues, Emerson Lake and Palmer, Triumvirat, Heinlein, Harry Harrison, and the John Birch Society!
(Max, who was the teacher for that contenpoorary history class we took in senior high? I seem to remeber we would have fabulous arguments with him, taking as far left a positon as possible and claim he was a John Bircher, even through I don’t think we knew anything more about it than that it was some sort of ultra-conserviteve organization)
Comment on September 16, 2006 @ 11:28 am
The Brotherhood of the Birch!
Yeah, you’re just being dense. Exclusionist clubs are generally frowned upon in public high schools, even if they are like Future Superconducting Techs of America or Young Geneticists or something. Of course the jocks and cheerleader types (multicultural now tho) still retain most of the campus power (even here in post-Columbine Ewe Ess Ay), and the college-bound nerds are, alas, still nerds (tho many asians among them now), and motor-head stoners and hicks mostly still stoners and hicks.
Columbine: now those boys were rollin’
Comment on September 16, 2006 @ 11:40 am
I recall that the motivation for getting our group picture taken was a poke at the cliques and in crowd that would have candid shots of each other taken while they clowned in the halls looking oh so cool, etc. Meanwhile the nerds would be excluded from these shots except for the obligatory A/V club group photo.
It doesn’t make up for the fact that some of them actually got to have sex sometimes. Grrr.
Senrab- No, I don’t remember the John Birch thing. Maybe it was at Pitt? I remember your commie friend there (Mike the commie?). Was he one of the ultra-leftists you were hanging with?
I don’t think I’d ever heard of the JBS when I was at GSHS. I was dense then as now.
Comment on September 16, 2006 @ 11:49 am
Aw yeah the young Trench Coat Mafia in da House!
Comment on September 16, 2006 @ 11:51 am
Really tho if Heinlein’s your educational model, best to have Jr. doing trig. exercises early on: Calc. and physics by like 14-15. And superb physical conditioning. Keep ‘em out of humanities crud: maybe a trumpet or percussion. Then ROTC applications: Coach Chitlins recommends squid officer corps or Phly boys; nicht on the grunts. Ten Hut!
Comment on September 16, 2006 @ 12:02 pm
Heinlein was my ethical hero rather than model, where models are attainable, heros are not.
Lazerus Long was a cranky, irratible old fart, a Christ image who was never quite able to get himself crucified, but certainly lived trying, and despised all things religious (but not spiritual).
Comment on September 17, 2006 @ 8:48 pm
And who slept with his mother on the car cushion while he himself as a child slumbered in the back. He also, as you recall, slept with the twin female clones of himself, and his computer. I wonder what Heinlein's attraction was to young 13 year-old boy nerds? Hmmm.
Comment on September 18, 2006 @ 9:18 am
I don’t remember the JBS connection with the BotB. Must’ve been a later association. I still have a copy of the original Constitution.
Comment on December 14, 2008 @ 12:48 pm
Holy Cow! Post it! Please! I gotta see!
Who are you, to be so mysteriously and instantly famous?
Comment on December 14, 2008 @ 6:17 pm
I simply refuse to believe that any such copy exists, or for that matter that the actual Jovian Android, himself an original member of the Brotherhood, would be posting on this blog. Unless it’s really you, J.A.? Naw!
Comment on December 14, 2008 @ 10:25 pm
What the hell? There’s no ‘Jovian Android’ mentioned anywhere in the seven hundred sixty-four pages of the ‘Brotherhood Of The Brick’ history. I just checked twice.
Maybe he’s in the Penguin edition?
WTF is going on!!!???!?!?!?!
PS: An Impostor.
He must suffer the fate described on page 474.
Comment on December 15, 2008 @ 12:43 am