Flowers of Discipline
Flowers of Discipline was a Melodic Hardcore band from Harrisonburg, VA. Th… Read Full Bio ↴Flowers of Discipline was a Melodic Hardcore band from Harrisonburg, VA. They were Steve Slaubaugh on Vocals, Dave Park (unrest, eggs, The Undecided) on Bass, Phil Krauth (unrest, tone) on Drums and Mike Cluff (The Undecided) on Guitar & Background Vocals.
FoD was part of a very small punk scene surrounding James Madison University in Harrisonburg, VA. (They jokingly called JMU "Boston University" since no matter where you went, someone was playing Boston from their dorm room. Not a good place for a punk scene!) The college was a snapshot of the Reagan '80s, where most students majored in business, lived to party, and listened to Prince. The "scene" -- if you could call it a scene -- was a small cadre of people who simply didn't fit into the larger picture. The shows were typically at a now-defunct shitkicker country bar called the "Mystic Den."
At first, Dave Park and Mike Cluff were a group called The Undecided (which recorded an LP at Dischord's favorite studio Inner Ear). After their breakup, and a few mis-starts they started FoD in 1985 or so once someone introduced them to Phil Krauth, a core member of Unrest. As you can tell from their sound, they were heavily influenced by DC harDCore and other underground bands of the time (Minutemen, Husker Du, Butthole Surfers, early REM). But they were also closet fans of late 60's psychedelic music and snuck in punked-up covers of the Doors, Pink Floyd, Seeds, etc. Dave wrote most of the songs.
Their shows were hard, fast, loud, tight, short -- and empty. (They were unpopular enough that they were the OPENING ACT at their last Harrisonburg show.
Their first studio recording (Morphology's "End of the Rope,") was part of a compilation to benefit a soon-to-be-created independent campus radio station. Because Phil was a part of TeenBeat Records, Mark Robinson gave them money to record an EP. They found a small studio in rural VA that specialized in Gospel music. The recording engineers treated them as if they had three heads. Time was of the essence; Steve was tired and sick with a sore throat, and they didn't have much time blocked out. They did single-take recordings of the main tunes, and were done so quickly that we had time to record a no-practice improv (the "1/2 Song" aka "Untitled") where Dave and Phil switched parts, and Steve picked up a triangle and made beeps on his digital watch. As a joke, they instructed TeenBeat to press one side of the EP at 45 rpm, the other at 33 1/3. (Even better, "Chances" sounded pretty good when it was accidentally played at 33 1/3.)
By the time the 7" was released, Dave and Mike had completed theirfinal year of college. They played their last show at DC Space in DC opening for Happy Go Licky, a re-tooled version of Rites of Spring. (Guy was very gracious to them, and Mike remembers Ian sitting behind his amp. No pressure there!)
Afterward, Mike went on grad school in psychology (where he never really found people he clicked with musically), and Dave joined Unrest with Phil and made some jaw-dropping music.
Releases:
"How to Give Your Child A Superior Mind" 7" (Teenbeat Records, TEEN #009) in 1986.
Also, the song "Sight" was re-released on the "Wakefield vol.3: Superstars on Forty-Five" Compilation CD (Teenbeat Records, TEEN #161)
FoD was part of a very small punk scene surrounding James Madison University in Harrisonburg, VA. (They jokingly called JMU "Boston University" since no matter where you went, someone was playing Boston from their dorm room. Not a good place for a punk scene!) The college was a snapshot of the Reagan '80s, where most students majored in business, lived to party, and listened to Prince. The "scene" -- if you could call it a scene -- was a small cadre of people who simply didn't fit into the larger picture. The shows were typically at a now-defunct shitkicker country bar called the "Mystic Den."
At first, Dave Park and Mike Cluff were a group called The Undecided (which recorded an LP at Dischord's favorite studio Inner Ear). After their breakup, and a few mis-starts they started FoD in 1985 or so once someone introduced them to Phil Krauth, a core member of Unrest. As you can tell from their sound, they were heavily influenced by DC harDCore and other underground bands of the time (Minutemen, Husker Du, Butthole Surfers, early REM). But they were also closet fans of late 60's psychedelic music and snuck in punked-up covers of the Doors, Pink Floyd, Seeds, etc. Dave wrote most of the songs.
Their shows were hard, fast, loud, tight, short -- and empty. (They were unpopular enough that they were the OPENING ACT at their last Harrisonburg show.
Their first studio recording (Morphology's "End of the Rope,") was part of a compilation to benefit a soon-to-be-created independent campus radio station. Because Phil was a part of TeenBeat Records, Mark Robinson gave them money to record an EP. They found a small studio in rural VA that specialized in Gospel music. The recording engineers treated them as if they had three heads. Time was of the essence; Steve was tired and sick with a sore throat, and they didn't have much time blocked out. They did single-take recordings of the main tunes, and were done so quickly that we had time to record a no-practice improv (the "1/2 Song" aka "Untitled") where Dave and Phil switched parts, and Steve picked up a triangle and made beeps on his digital watch. As a joke, they instructed TeenBeat to press one side of the EP at 45 rpm, the other at 33 1/3. (Even better, "Chances" sounded pretty good when it was accidentally played at 33 1/3.)
By the time the 7" was released, Dave and Mike had completed theirfinal year of college. They played their last show at DC Space in DC opening for Happy Go Licky, a re-tooled version of Rites of Spring. (Guy was very gracious to them, and Mike remembers Ian sitting behind his amp. No pressure there!)
Afterward, Mike went on grad school in psychology (where he never really found people he clicked with musically), and Dave joined Unrest with Phil and made some jaw-dropping music.
Releases:
"How to Give Your Child A Superior Mind" 7" (Teenbeat Records, TEEN #009) in 1986.
Also, the song "Sight" was re-released on the "Wakefield vol.3: Superstars on Forty-Five" Compilation CD (Teenbeat Records, TEEN #161)
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