Friday, March 4, 2011


If you listen closely to some the song "a bundle of sticks" on the s/t record from Southern California's STICKFIGURECAROUSEL, you will hear parts reminiscent of the song "those who were" by Excessive Force. The reason for that is because two dudes played on both recordings.
Stickfigurecarousel was formed when Justin McMahon and Joe Addeo decided to leave Excessive Force to start something more fulfilling. They recruited Sean Brummel on bass and Dan Sena on guitar, who were both playing in the band Palefire.
The musical direction was more melodic and discordant than most of what was being played in southern California at the time. It was more akin to Threadbare and Unbroken, but still had that "heavy" feel. Chad Stroup was soon recruited to take vocal duties. Mixing raspy screams with clean vocals was not anything groundbreaking, but again was a breath of new air into the chug-filled mess that was hardcore in 1996. Chad was a big part of the San Diego hardcore scene, and had to travel by train to practice with the band. A few short excursions throughout California were done, but the band never toured.

Joe Addeo left and was replaced by Keith Divel, who had also played in Excessive Force, but was known as more of an "emo" kid, playing in a local band called Derailed.
The band put out a s/t record on Nothing Left records before friend Steve Aoki decided to start putting out music by his friends, and released a 7" and eventually a split with the German band Linsay.

A 7" was also released on Schema and a song appeared on the As The Sun Sets southern California hardcore comp.

Stick Figure Carousel - che cafe from keith divel on Vimeo.


The band had a tough time keeping things together for one reason or another, and eventually just decided to call it quits. Dan Sena went on to play in Bullet Train to Vegas. Chad, Justin and Sean formed The Dynamic Seven, who put out a 7" on Indecision Records before continuing on to other projects.
Both Dan Sena and Keith Divel started careers as DJs.
Every song the band recorded was given to me by Chad, including a recording of the band's last show at the Che Cafe.
STICKFIGURECAROUSEL

7 comments:

XsnypaX said...

band was way ahead of their time. always loved them.

ralf said...

awesome band. i still listen to their first 7" every couple of months. one of my all time faves.

It_Follows said...

Love it Jav. thanks for such a good and big post.
Keith from stickfigure/roswell project actually told me he has everything from both bands, but guy has a private profile. whomp whomp!

Anonymous said...

hey jav--
thanks for posting this up...the spreading of the stickfigure "gospel" is much appreciated...haha.

if anyone has mp3's of the dynamic seven 7" they can hook me up with, it would be much appreciated since i have no method of uploading my vinyl and it's the only record of my bands that i don't have mp3's of.

in the meantime, here's some mp3's of the band i was in circa 1999/2000: happy dagger. this was basically me singing for the latest incarnation of the sd vegan edge band the set-up, but the style eventually goes in a much different, experimental direction. some of these kids went on to be in over my dead body, some girls, and all leather. here is the one 7" we released (i have a few of these sitting around my house that i will basically give away for the cost of shipping if anyone wants one), plus the (much better and more adventurous) unreleased 2nd 7". enjoy...

s/t 7"
http://www.mediafire.com/?s13ah6h1akr6k34
unreleased 7"
http://www.mediafire.com/?q5dmln4yu565ai6

-chad

Unknown said...

hey now.. Did you just say i was known as being an EMO KID!?!? hahaha..... too funny Jav.. great write-up tho.. To add to what you wrote, I ended up joining up to play guitar for San Diego punk rawk outfit SWINDLE and played on their final cd ..THIS IS NOT A TEST.... and the band i drummed for in-between was called DERAIL. you can dload our shit here..
CD - Picturesque http://www.mediafire.com/?njmolygtmbw
EP - Recyclable http://www.mediafire.com/?5z48klrrb3yf8ns

thanks, and good work Jav..
oh and thanks for the HAPPY DAGGER shit Chad, i misplaced my other version.

divel

Darth.Vegan said...

Would it be possible to get an MP3 upload of the Dynamic Seven 7"? I actuall have the 7" but my turntable is broken atm and I wanted to covert it to MP3

sabeth said...

This is great, I have most of the 7"s but haven't had a chance to listen to them in years. Super underrated band. Thanks!