Manwich came together in May of '86, and was the brain child of vocalist Lara Allen. Original line-up included Darius Smith on drums , Peter Aaron on bass and William Weber on guitar (the latter two went to future fame with The Chrome Cranks). With no rehearsal, their first gig happened at a dive bar in Cincinnati, Ohio. Their improv set consisted of an all out "volume war" between the "musicians" with Lara screaming in baby-talk over the noise. Needless to say, highly entertaining (....only to themselves). This line-up stayed together for one more show at an all ages event at a local dance hall.
After a few muddled gigs with a couple of different bass players, enter David Lewis to handle the 4 string chores. Dave rose to regional fame fronting bands such as The 11,000 Switches and Cointelpro. This configuration was quite prolific up until William dropped out sometime in the fall. David switched to guitar, and opened the door for Joel Stewart on bass. Also joining was Heather Prescott on a second drum set and Wendy Darst on the Farfisa organ. This ensemble played a few local rent-raising party's until William joined up with them again in Jan. of '87.
It was in this configuration that the band received it's most notoriety. They assembled at Group Effort Studio to record 7 songs, all of which had little foundation, allowing the band to improv. Probably their most attended show came as an opening for The Butthole Surfers. A scheduling conflict on the Buttholes side found them not showing up the night of the gig. Manwich played to a receptive crowd and took care of the ugly situation. The Buttholes rescheduled 2 evenings later and again Manwich was invited to open the show. The next couple months saw the group play a handful of shows in Cincinnati with occasional roadtrips to Muncie, IN.
The beginning of the summer they entered the studio (without Joel and Jeff....for reasons unknown), and recorded 3 songs. BPA bassist Tim Benz sat in replacement for Joel. Their second to last gig happened on July 4th opening for BPA. Their set was mainly made up on the spot, although no one in the band could hear what the other was doing. Their final appearance was on August 7 '87 at the historic Southgate house in Newport, KY. They were first up on a five band bill opening for Big Black's last tour. The next morning Lara left for Minneapolis.......
Just released... the 17 song "iT" CD
for info check out:
cacophony-cincinnati
