Six Degrees (or Fewer) of Brian Fleschute

Brian Fleschute (second from right) in Pat Sajak Assassins

Who in the St. Louis music scene doesn’t know Brian Fleschute? That’s a rhetorical question. Anyone who’s been around for the last decade has almost certainly come into contact with one of his bands. I played with Brian in Buttercup, Pat Sajak Assassins, and for a little bit in Key Grip. He’s currently serving as guitar player of Zantigo and playing bass in They Need Machines to Fly (the original name of Buttercup.) Both are supergroups of sorts, pulling members from R6 Implant, Sisser, Cave of Swords, Golden Curls, and Intracentral, and both have Matt Winkeler, who played drums in Buttercup and Shut-In. For at least the last 15 years or so, you could probably describe any of Fleschute’s bands as supergroups. Key Grip was a revolving door of many musicians from the south city scene, and Pat Sajak Assassins (“PSA”) gets the special honor of counting Syrhea Conaway as a member.

I’ve always thought one of the interesting things about Brian is that while others have their own playing styles, they largely adapt to the situations they’re in – adjusting their playing, equipment, and technique to fit and mesh with their bandmates. Brian, however, has a certain gravity or mass to his style that is almost instantly, almost always recognizable. That’s not to say that he lacks adaptability. I think that it’s more indicative of a confidence or sureness of self. These are somewhat nebulous concepts, so I’ll use myself as an example. I’ve been a guitar player almost exclusively for much of my time in bands. With the exception of my current group, Future/Modern, I’ve only done a little bit of dabbling with synthesizers and vocals. In one band I tapped more into my jazz fusion enthusiasm; in another, I was a little more atonal, King Crimson-esque; in all of them I played mostly loud and heavy and put a lot of emphasis on atmospheric, soundscape-y stuff. It’s not unthinkable that someone could pick me out of each band, but I was very cognizant to punctuate the general sound and musical direction. Call it 75% adaptation and 25% my style. Brian is the opposite of this. He informs the sound of his groups to a point that his style of playing is one of the more predominant aspects, and therefore, always identifiable as a Brian Fleschute-involved group.

There’s an energy and edge to his playing that seems to promote a sense of urgency. “I get bored really fast; if something goes on for too long, I can’t do it. I’m always trying to fill in the blanks,” says Fleschute.

Still, his musical output is quite varied. PSA early on earned a reputation for playing in the math-rock sandbox. I recall when I joined, I had the very pressing thought, “I have to brush up on my music theory.” Later iterations of the band would blow apart any reasonable attempt at classification. Buttercup had a lot of punk energy to it, if not methodology. Pillow Talk and New Dad (which included Dave Todd of Subtropolis) had a similar punk rock-like urgency but less noise-y. But they’ve always sort of fit loosely into one of two musical ideas. “I’ve always had an experimental band and a more straightforward rock band,” Fleschute explains.

This of course, is ignoring the general chaotic mess that was/is (it’s never really clear the active status of the band) Key Grip. Key Grip was born out of a show we were invited to play in my PSA days with Rats and People Motion Picture Orchestra. They asked if we would like to do an improv set to an old silent short film. We jumped on it, had a great time, and decided to do more of these. During the next several years (or a couple decades,) people would cycle in and out of this group including Eric Hall, Tory Starbuck, and almost every member of PSA.

What follows is a comprehensive list of bands Brian Fleschute has been in. Here’s a thought experiment. Let’s call it Six Degrees of Brian Fleschute. The activity is to take your own musical sphere of influence, be it bands you’ve played in, friends who have played in bands you like, or your favorite band from the south city scene, and find how many people are between you. I’ll start (ignoring my own time playing with him): one of my favorite local groups is Subtropolis; Dave Todd plays in Subtropolis and played in New Dad with Brian Fleschute. In fact, should you require more than three steps, I would be astounded. Let’s do another: Matt Basler is in Middle Class Fashion with Brad Vaughn, who was in A Bit Shifty with me, who was in PSA and Buttercup with Brian Fleschute. I feel like there’s probably a shorter version of that…

In more or less chronological order (in St. Louis, there are others):

Attica

Anything but That

The Great Fumunda

Soccermoms

Stiffneck Roy

(The) Pat Sajak Assassins

Nerve Parade

AXO

New Dad

Pillow Talk 

Key Grip

Buttercup

ZANTIGO!

They Need Machines to Fly?

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