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Friends and fans alike are wondering about the current status of the Cubby Creatures, and rumors concerning
the band's existence (or nonexistence, as the case may be) have begun to circulate. The reasons for this are
many: The Cubby Creatures have not officially played a live show since February of 2006. And though their
song "Last Chance" was included on the most recent Embryo compilation, Embryo 4: Homemade Music by Bay
Area Musicians, released in October 2006, the band did not perform at the Embryo 4 release show
(although three Cubby Creatures did play at the show along with Greg Turner of the Chantigs, calling
themselves "Cubby Effluvium," and performing one Cubby Creatures song, marking the last time a Cubby
Creatures song has been played live.) Also, even though the Catholic Church recently changed its doctrine
on Limbo, doing away with the concept, the already-recorded Cubby Creatures rock opera Jesus Christ,
You're Crazy yet resides in that indeterminate state, still unmixed and unmastered, untouched by Cubby
hands since 2005. So what has happened to the Cubby Creatures? One piece of gossip alleges that they could not agree upon an ending to their latest rock operetta, the tentatively titled Adam Foibleman; the ensuing tension at rehearsals resulting in the breakup of the band and the eventual cessation altogether of communication between band members. Another rumor asserts that they are once again being held hostage by the Yuddles at the Council's golf supply store on York Street in San Francisco. An additional story circulating has the Cubby Creatures leaving the City by the Bay in search of Lo Chang master Dildeaux, from whom they seek satori and inner peace. The truth, we have learned here at the SF Cubby Office, is (D), none of the above. To bring to light the details concerning the current status of the Cubby Creatures, I sent an email to current and former members of the band, asking them what the present status of the Cubby Creatures is, whether the band still exists, whether the public will ever hear from the Cubby Creatures again, whether the band's unfinished projects will ever be revisited, and what of the Cubby itself. My attempt was to clarify, but the answers I received only further mystify. For instance, Emily Limon (née Emily Davis), Cubby Creatures violinist who has been recently performing locally with experimental art troupe That Hideous Strength, responded by saying she thinks the band does still exist, explaining: "I mean, we're not dead, we're just not playing together, and not necessarily identifying ourselves as Cubby Creatures any more." She suggested that the individual Cubby Creatures were busy doing their own respective things right now and even hinted at some other mysterious activities with the members "going deep underground -- undercover, if you will," which she says is "not bad," and is "in fact possibly good because that can open up more possibilities for other things that might someday need the Cubby for something." Huh? Jason Gonzales, Cubby Creatures drummer since 1998, who has been busy touring with his other more lucrative band Thee More Shallows, stated outright that he considers the Cubby Creatures to be "broken up." He did, though, suggest that there's always the possibility of a reunion "because The Cubby (which more or less cannot not exist once it has come into being unless pure evil overtakes us all) has in its edicts to never say never. That means that while we may find ourselves doing things other than the Cubby Creatures right now, there is always a chance that we will be overcome with painful nostalgia in our old age (or should I say very old age) and want to get back together to experience the magic again, kind of like running into an old lover drunk at someone's anniversary party and realizing there is nothing real to hold you back except your clothes." Bill Fisher, one-time Cubby Creatures keyboardist who took over lead guitar and vocals after Cubby Creatures cofounder Jol left the band in 2002, has recently become a father, an endeavor reported to be somewhat time-consuming. He claimed nevertheless to have independently interviewed a couple former members of the Cubby Creatures about the subject of the band's existence. Perhaps representing the inner uncertainty Fisher himself faces, one of the respondents to Fisher's inquiries, a self-described "former Cubby Creature," allegedly told Fisher that the Cubby Creatures no longer exist, their unfinished projects will never be completed, and nothing is going on with the Cubby, while the other respondent claimed "the unreleased Cubby Creature recordings will come out in a box set retrospective available for Xmas 2007," along with "the collected episodes of CubbyVision on DVD, and the Cubby book." This "former member of the band known as the Cubby Creatures," according to Fisher, waxed esoteric by saying "the White Lady of Yuddle shall finally be vanquished, and the Yudrog shall be caged for a thousand years, after which time it must be loosed, for a little while" and then went on to recite a lengthy poem about the nature of the Cubby. Karl Soehnlein, former Cubby Creature clarinetist who left the band in 2003 to pursue his writing career and has since published the book You Can Say You Knew Me When, described the current status of the Cubby Creatures as akin to a hibernation period "in a dark cave under a bank of snow, like a bunch of bears in Winter, except with global warming," so "the snow's a bit mushy these days." He also emphasized some other Cubby projects: "I understand that there's a Missalette in the works, and plans for another after that...in fact, just last night I sat down with our issue '111'--where everything submitted was 111 words--and was warmed to the cockles. And I thought that for Missalette 20 we might revisit that theme. I'd been talking about a 'greatest hits' Missalette, but I'm thinking about possibly editing another one based on word count. Maybe '200 words' works for the 20th issue." Jol, who left the band in 2002 when he moved to New York where he still lives, perhaps put the Cubby Creatures quandary most precisely with his remark, "It is all in the perception of each observer." And such is life. As for me, a Cubby Creature cofounder and the bassist for the band for ten years, it seems the Cubby Creatures can never really break up because at any moment one of us, or all of us, or some of us, or anyone at all, really, could decide to make some music and claim it to be Cubby Creatures music. And then we would still exist and we would, therefore, never have not existed. And besides, I’ve made it my life’s goal to release the nearly finished Jesus Christ, You’re Crazy album because it contains my favorite Cubby Creatures songs and it would be a damn shame if the album never saw the light of day. We will only really be granted an answer to the question of the Cubby Creatures existence in time. And perhaps the band's existence is not only dependent upon the perception of the individual members of the band, but really on any person who happens to think about the Cubby Creatures. And perhaps ultimately, the existence of the Cubby Creatures is not up to any one person or any group of people, but to the Cubby itself. |