Stalefish, the Damned Thing and Lunatic Picnic

RICK de YAMPERT
ENTERTAINMENT WRITER

When Stalefish stepped into the ring at the old Hard Rock Cafe in Orlando, the Daytona alt-rock scene was like a hyper, euphoric chain smoker lighting up beside an open gas tank.

The year was 1996. Stalefish and other local bands -- Skif Dank, the Doomed Clowns, Lunatic Picnic, Penny Dreadful, Corn (not Korn) -- were packing such local clubs as the Other Place, the Combat Zone, 600 North and 701 South.

Indeed, Florida seemed ready to explode like the next Seattle, as Stalefish discovered when they traveled up and down the east coast and played gigs with such fledgling bands as Marilyn Manson and the Spooky Kids, and Limp Bizkit.

After six years on the Daytona scene, after changing lead singers and morphing from alt-rock to a heavier, more aggressive sound, Stalefish had landed on the radar of an Atlantic Records rep. The rep set up a showcase with Stalefish and an Orlando band called Mighty Joe Plum.

Only one band would be signed.

"We had a 50-50 shot at coming away with a record deal," Stalefish drummer Dave Kiel says today. "We performed very well. Unfortunately -- I don't know. Mighty Joe Plum had a sound that went along with what was happening on the radio at the time."
Losing out on the record deal "took the wind out of our sails," Kiel says. Soon after Stalefish disbanded. The breakup "was almost like losing a family member. I sold my drums. I honestly felt I wasn't going to play music ever again."

But Kiel, guitarist Tim Triplett, now an Arizona resident, and singer Dennis Adelinis, now a Gainesville resident, will play a reunion concert Saturday at the Bank[RdeY: Fliers for the concert list the venue only as the Bank.] in Daytona Beach.

The show also will mark the release of the band's entire recorded output on a two-disc, 36-track set for $5 -- including "Cave," the song that so impressed that Atlantic Records suit.

"A lot of bands are always behind the curve," says Kiel, who today plays drums with the hardcore band Fortitude when he's not working at a Daytona Beach screen printing company. "I think Stalefish was a bit ahead of it. Today 'Reflect' (the band's 1996 album) sounds like the alternative stuff that came around on radio a few years later."

"We had a really good run," Triplett says by phone from his Flagstaff, Ariz., home. "We all had different angles of what we
like in music and brought to the table. I was studying jazz at UCF. Our bassist was a rap fanatic. Dave likes everything, from Neil Diamond to Metallica."

And the Daytona music scene had a good run in the '90s. Clubs would book "three to four bands that sounded different from each other, and the place would be packed," Kiel says. "People would watch every band. Everybody was friends and it was all about the music.

"The Daytona scene in the early '90s to mid '90s was incredible. I really don't know what to attribute it to, but it's gone. People can come into this town and have no idea how rich this musical scene once was. I was very fortunate to be a part of it. I miss those times."
This weekend isn't the first Stalefish reunion. Former Stalefish bassist Mike Aronson convinced Kiel, Triplett and Adelinis to do a reunion gig in December 2001. However, that concert became a memorial when Aronson took his own life one month before the show.

Stalefish played a second reunion show in December 2002.

A few years ago, Kiel created a Stalefish MySpace page "just as something to put up and see if anybody would remember," he says. "I was quite shocked at the amount of people who still remember Stalefish and held Stalefish in some high regard musically. I was very surprised, and honored and humbled.

"No matter how large or small, we made a little bit of an impact here in the Daytona music scene."