Ed Volker has been churning out lots of newly recorded material under his nom de plume of Zeke Fishhead since disbanding the Radiators last year. His latest release, Payroll of Bones, is just out. All 12 original songs were written by Volker and recorded under the “pretensions” of Zeke Fishhead between April and August of 2012.
Ed Volker (keys) with the Radiators in 2009 flies solo as Zeke Fishhead.
This particular set of songs is dedicated to the late bassist/vocalist Becky Kury, who was in the Rhapsodizers with Volker, as well as “the whole sick krewe.” According to Zeke Fishhead, this is why:
“Becky has been a rare but very significant presence in my dreams (since her death in the early ’80s)…’the whole sick crew’ is a phrase taken up by a select group of partying ne’er-do-wells in T. Pynchon’s novel V and was picked up by our own crowd of degenerates around Luigi’s in the ’70s. It became a reference phrase for all the hardcore… it became overshadowed around Luigi’s by the phrase ‘the Lakefront Losers’… the 1st song on Payroll, ‘Miss Firecracker,’ refers to ‘the tears of the whole sick crew.'”
The songs “Get Drunk” and “Vagabonds” are fleshed out versions of songs Zeke wrote in 1983. “Get Drunk” was first performed at the 1983 MOMS Ball.
Payroll of Bones as well as the entire Zeke Fishhead catalog can be downloaded from LiveDownloads.com. Hard copies are available at Louisiana Music Factory.
Here’s a clip of Zeke cutting up with a few pals at the Music Factory:
