The Wesley Willis Fiasco
- Soundtrack
The Wesley Willis Fiasco was a punk band fronted by schizophrenic
singer/songwriter Wesley Willis. Based in
Wicker Park, Chicago, Illinois, the group was formed in the early
1990's. Besides Willis, the other members were bassist/guitarist Dale Meiners,
guitarist Pat Barnard, bassist
Dave Nooks, and drummer
Brandon Murphy. The Wesley Willis
Fiasco recorded and released their first and only album
"Spookydisharmoniousconflicthellride" on the Unity Label Group in 1992.
(Various live albums are solely available as bootlegs.) The band toured
with such groups as Sublime,
Lordz of Brooklyn, and
Rocket from the Crypt. Moreover,
The Wesley Willis Fiasco covered the song "Girls on Film" for a 1997
tribute album for the group Duran Duran. The
band eventually broke up while on tour in Ohio in 1996 because of
conflicts with the group's shows and Willis's solo keyboard shows.
Following the break up of the group, Willis went on to pursue a solo
career before dying of leukemia at age 40 in 2003, Nooks got married
and was a member of the Chicago punk band The Symptoms for a while,
Meiners went on to build custom furniture, Murphy briefly played with
the group The Jesus Lizard and got a
job working for an indie record label in Chicago, and Barnard moved to
Lake Tahoe, where he sadly died in a drowning accident at age 27.