Gumball

Gumball were the highest-profile occupation of indie gadabout Don Fleming, already a veteran of several bands, a guest collaborator for many more, and a significant producer who -- ironically -- helped shepherd alternative rock into its major-label boom years. As Gumball's singer, guitarist, and primary songwriter, Fleming's record-collector obsession with pop culture and pop music, from the Monkees to the Damned to Sonic Youth, reached full fruition. Snatches of '60s guitar riffs sat next to '80s guitar noise, and '70s punk rubbed shoulders with '70s schlock metal; all of it proved his knack for treating the worst pop music as serious rock, while dirtying respectable indie sonic tricks with (true to the band's name) sugary-sweet bubblegum pop. Gumball enjoyed a two-album stay on major label Columbia, and earned some notoriety as owners of perhaps the largest collection of eight-track tapes in the country. However, they never broke through to a wider audience, and Fleming returned to his myriad other pursuits. Prior to forming Gumball in 1990, Fleming had been a member of the Washington, D.C.-based Velvet Monkeys, where he first worked with Gumball drummer Jay Spiegel. Following the Velvet Monkeys' initial breakup in the mid-'80s, Fleming and Spiegel played behind Jad Fair in Half Japanese on a semiregular basis, and wound up relocating to New York City. There they fell in with producer/Shimmy Disc label head Kramer, who joined them on bass to form B.A.L.L., a unit specializing in ironic deconstructions of classic rock numbers. After several albums, B.A.L.L. fell victim to a contentious breakup in 1990, and Fleming and Spiegel put together a one-off, all-star version of the Velvet Monkeys that included Dinosaur Jr.'s J Mascis, Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore, and Pussy...