"Choking-On-Yr-Own-Fleghm Friday"

That's soon to be registered trademark, bub.

Cuz it is indeed Friday and because by this time tomorow I'll have pushed yet another year into my 30's and because I've got a bottle of tequila cold chilling in the freezer, today's post will be a handful of looks at the strangest "rock" "band" known to mankind, Caroliner.

"Caroliner, a black light augmented, go to hell and pump thunder band, was formed in 1983 in order to portray the cabin fever and ergot poisoned hallucinations of early America, namely the 1800s." (Via Cake & Polka Parade.) "Caroliner has created its own bizarre universe combining monstrous fantasy creatures with early American music and folklore -- not Uncle Remus and "Yankee Doodle Dandy," but the sick, hopeless lives chronicled in the incredible Wisconsin Death Trip book[...] In other words: cabin fever, sunstroke, poisonous grain = hallucinations. Not in a "peace, my brother!" Grateful Dead sense, but in a mentally "at the end of your rope" way[...]" (Via the mighty Mark Prindle.)
"If all of this sounds strange, imagine what it looks like. Surreal sculptural scenery of indeterminate function saturates the Caroliner stage. Often it's even difficult to determine where the scenery ends and the band members begin, as the performers' unwieldy costumes are cut from the same creative cloth as the props. Bathed in black light, the Caroliner handiwork basks in all of its Day-Glo glory. And, perhaps most amazing of all, Caroliner recreates the rickety tunesmithery of its 10 albums. It's not a noisefest, but a carefully composed collection of abstract expressionist folk songs from an alternate universe." (Via The Metro Times.)
"[...]Caroliner is not an impenetrable noise band. They are willfully DIFFICULT, and at first listen do come across as lo-fi irritants using their instruments incorrectly, but if you take each song as an individual unit and hand each one to your ears on a silver platter of respect and attention, your intelligence and quest for novelty (meaning "newness," not "Dr. Demento-style joke music") will be handsomely rewarded in actual silver coins that pop out of the record at regular intervals. In its darkest heart, the debut Caroliner album is a snazzy goodtime folk/blues/rock record by a group of people who clearly had no interest at all in being a successful folk/blues/rock band. They haven't "deconstructed" the genre[...]they've made it as sloppy as possible and buried it in varied glops of disconcerting noise, leaving you (the listener) feeling as if you're experiencing schizophrenic aural hallucinations while trying to listen to a backwoods family of half-retarded inbreds play their homemade boogie for you." (Via Mark Prindle's review of 1987's Read End Hernia Puppet Show.)
If all that whets yr whistle, here's some Caroliner magic via YouTube:

(All Photos Used Without Permission But With Oh-So-Much Love)