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     People are often at a loss to say exactly what genre The Invertebrates represent. Pop, blues, rai, r&b, surf, jazz, gospel, country, folk, funk, punk, you name it, they've tried it. Conceived as a multimedia performance group, during the summer of 1980, in the fevered imaginations of three disparate artist/intellectuals, The Invertebrates were born publicly later that year in a San Francisco living room. Since then they've lived in basements, garages, warehouses, and spare rooms, and played in theaters, performance spaces, nightclubs, bars, gymnasiums, rent parties, street fairs, pagan rituals, a hotel ballroom, and even a college cafeteria (and they were paid for it, no less!). It's no surprise that The Invertebrates are now known as "one of the Bay Area's oldest continuously operating unknown bands". The initial shows of fall 1980 depended on numerous film, slide, and overhead projectors. Much of the music was improvised as background to the visuals, though a few loose songs were also a part of the act. But then the songs began to tighten and grow in number. Pretty soon the musical side came to dominate. An EP, "Eat 'em While They're Young", was released in 1981, followed in 1984 by an LP, "Let's Have Fun" (we still have a few hundred in the garage, so let us know if you'd like one). For a few years in the early 80's we also managed Club Foot, an art/punk hole-in-the-wall out at Third and 22nd Streets. From the beginning we've undergone innumerable personnel changes while generally consisting of a core of from three to ten women and men at any given time, along with an ever-varying group of occasional players. As of 1999 well over two dozen people have been involved.Throughout it all we've been more of a club than a band, and since 1989, though we've continued to perform live, we've only done free shows or benefits.

     We've also continued to record since 1984, in a myriad of different formats and studios; in 1996 we released an hour-long CD called "Rubber Soul Train". A really good album usually has a unifying concept, an ordering principle, whether it be overt as in the case of an opera or a song cycle, or covert as expressed in its 'style', the instrumentation and arrangements, recording methods, genres. The concept behind "Rubber Soul Train" is the basic gnostic theme, chaos, alienation, and ultimately redemption. The entire album is available in both MP3 and RealAudio files on this website, and you can also read the lyrics for these and all the other songs we've recorded (unless they're instrumentals or written by someone outside of the group). We've also provided an attempt at a complete list of all the people (we hope! if you're not listed let us know) who've played in or with The Invertebrates, along with links to their websites or emails. There is also a gallery of selected pamphlets, posters and band or personal photos, and updates on the progress of our recently completed album, "Garagezilla".
 
 

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