The amazing post-punk/folk group Screaming Yellow Fungus has relased their debut recording Spores. Screaming Yellow Fungus was formed when the post-punk band Screaming Yellow combined forces with the retro beat group Fungus. Screaming Yellow axman and leader Timothy Yellow explains the merger this way: "I was in this lounge trying to talk to this blonde and she couldn't hear me over the band. I couldn't believe how loud their vocalist was, way louder than ours. And this guy wasn't even amped. It was just him yelling poetry and this other guy beating on these funny little drums. I told myself this guy would be perfect for our group. Finally they took a break, I got the blonde's phone number, and I went over to talk him into joining. He wouldn't do it without his side man, so I figured, who cares if he beats away on those stupid little things, nobody will hear him anyway, not when vocal man is yelling into a mic. So we all agreed to give it a try."
Charles Clayton, the bongo player for Fungus, describes their first gig together. "We rehearsed one time beforehand, and Peter [Poindexter] and I had some trepidation about the whole idea. We wanted to bring back the wonderful folky feel of the Beats, and Screaming Yellow was this obnoxious thrash band. But at our first performance, they had these very good looking groupies, knockouts all of them, and we were used to flat scrawny girls with stringy hair who didn't shave their pits, and Peter and I looked at each other and smiled, because we knew that this was the direction we needed to take our music."
Peter Poindexter, lead vocalist for the group, reflects on the difficulties in merging the two groups. "Tony was pretty upset at first about not being lead vocalist anymore. But his brothers really helped out with that. They told him he was only in the band because he was their brother, and he only got to sing because he couldn't play any instruments, and then when he started crying they wrote this song just for him — "Tony the Tiger", which has become our signature song in the clubs. It's the song that got us the record contract. The song really captures Tony — how he's always getting to fights but he's shy around girls, which they love of course. And we think "Don't Call Me Anthony" is going to be another big hit, since it captures the rage and alienation of youth so well. Now Tony is happier than ever because he isn't tied to the microphone anymore, but can roam around stage and really put on a good show."
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