The Bands!! Nixon Pupils, pt 2

The group began to branch out from their Hideaway, Minot AFB NCO Club & Beer Barrel shows and started playing in such exotic locales as Grand Forks, Fargo and Bishop Ryan High School Prom(3), and appeared in the Braniff produced award winning documentary about a bike-trick team, “Quest for Style,” featuring a video for their song “Perfect.”

Somehow, between bail, blackouts, brawls and broads, the boys managed to scrape enough money together to attempt a second endeavor in the studio. Along with Braniff, the Pupils signed on Tag Snyder and Tri-Art Studio House Engineer Dave Swenson to track the bands first full-length recording in the Spring of 1989. Fraught with Jones’ addiction to alternative films, Bart’s chronic “self-gratification” problem and Dave’s unwillingness to get naked to record, the trio persevered and released their self-titled LP later that summer. Ignored by local radio at first, the album’s first single “You’re My Girl” happened to make its way on K-Hit 97’s Top-Ten at Ten series. Through the effort of multiple calls to the station by each member of the band using a different voice, the song climbed its way up each successive night until it hit number one. It remained there for two weeks until it was knocked-off by Dean and the Badlands Express’ version of “I’ve Been to Paradise (but I’ve Never to Me).”

Hounded by bill collectors, paternity suits and bail bondsmen, Johnny, Dave & Bart, along with Wes, fled to Minneapolis, thus ending the first act of the Nixon Pupils’ sordid existence.

References: (1) Wes earned the moniker Wolfchild (among others) for his growling and hissing at nubile young groupies as they would come into the hotel rooms to “party” with the band. This usually either scarred and/or disgusted the young lasses so much, that it would completely ruin Bart’s chances to get any action. (2)This meeting with Braniff begins a career-long collaboration between the band and Brent. (3)The Pupils were fired from the Ryan High School Prom when Johnny was caught drinking out back. Bart assumed the band was in breach of contract and would not be paid. The two got into a fist-fight on stage whereas a police officer broke up the mêlée. As it ended up, the band was paid in full.


	Continued from page 1 Spurred on by their triumphant conquest and the increasing gambling debt that soundman Wes “Wolfchild” Bellman(1) was incurring, the Pupils continued to play shows around the area keeping one step ahead of the angry loan sharks, burned drug dealers, police and enormous bar tabs. As the months went on Johnny, Dave & Bart enlisted the help of local recording engineer/producer Brent Braniff(2), and went into to the studio to lay-down tracks for their EP “Love and Politics.” Released in the summer of 1988, the album was a commercial and critical failure, even by Minot standards. However, the recording’s last track “Margaret Thatcher’s Lobotomy Party” seemed to strike a nerve at the band’s live shows and soon became the set closer, sometimes including Anna Ganje’s Nixon’s Vixons providing backing vocals and drink service for the band. Nixon Pupils MBT-2010
	The group began to branch out from their Hideaway, Minot AFB NCO Club & Beer Barrel shows and started playing in such exotic locales as Grand Forks, Fargo and Bishop Ryan High School Prom(3), and appeared in the Braniff produced award winning documentary about a bike-trick team, “Quest for Style,” featuring a video for their song “Perfect.” Somehow, between bail, blackouts, brawls and broads, the boys managed to scrape enough money together to attempt a second endeavor in the studio. Along with Braniff, the Pupils signed on Tag Snyder and Tri-Art Studio House Engineer Dave Swenson to track the bands first full-length recording in the Spring of 1989. Fraught with Jones’ addiction to alternative films, Bart’s chronic “self-gratification” problem and Dave’s unwillingness to get naked to record, the trio persevered and released their self-titled LP later that summer. Ignored by local radio at first, the album’s first single “You’re My Girl” happened to make its way on K-Hit 97’s Top-Ten at Ten series. Through the effort of multiple calls to the station by each member of the band using a different voice, the song climbed its way up each successive night until it hit number one. It remained there for two weeks until it was knocked-off by Dean and the Badlands Express’ version of “I’ve Been to Paradise (but I’ve Never to Me).” Hounded by bill collectors, paternity suits and bail bondsmen, Johnny, Dave & Bart, along with Wes, fled to Minneapolis, thus ending the first act of the Nixon Pupils’ sordid existence. References: (1) Wes earned the moniker Wolfchild (among others) for his growling and hissing at nubile young groupies as they would come into the hotel rooms to “party” with the band. This usually either scarred and/or disgusted the young lasses so much, that it would completely ruin Bart’s chances to get any action. (2)This meeting with Braniff begins a career-long collaboration between the band and Brent. (3)The Pupils were fired from the Ryan High School Prom when Johnny was caught drinking out back. Bart assumed the band was in breach of contract and would not be paid. The two got into a fist-fight on stage whereas a police officer broke up the mêlée. As it ended up, the band was paid in full.