A Hunger Artist.

After a pretty stressful five-week full US tour (with an extra week or so at the beginning for me, Eric and Chuck while PROMIS was out with The Faeries) and due to some miscommunication, lack of communication, and generally poor social skills--Dear Diary I Seem to Be Dead decided to call it quits. I got tagged at some point as the reason for the split, and Chuck, Dave, and Steve started A Hunger Artist and asked Eric to play bass. He wasn't into it, although he did end up filling in on guitar for Dave on their tour with Rat in a Bucket and playing third guitar on a show or two. Instead of Eric they got Greg Stein (Gathered Here / Hatchback). That was probably a better move because Greg is an incredible bass player with a very tight style that fit in more with what they were doing here--which is basically a continuation of the last couple of songs Chuck wrote in Dear Diary, departing a bit from the large City of Caterpillar influence and taking on more of a later days Majority Rule or Neurosis sound. A lot less straight forward, a lot jammier, and a little bit more dynamic with the vocals.

About a year after the Dear Diary break up and just a few weeks before the first A Hunger Artist show, we had finally squashed all the pent up hard feelings we had toward each other. There was some talk of adding me and Eric into this band, but after a failed practice and some reluctance from the new guy, we just dropped the idea.

I was supposed to go out on the one A Hunger Artist tour with Rat in a Bucket, but I bailed at the last minute. It's probably a really good thing that I didn't go because there were a bunch of flakey promoters who made the trip somewhat frustrating at times and whom I certainly would not have been able to bite my tongue around. There was supposed to be one more tour out to the west coast the summer of 2005 right before Hurricane Katrina, but I think Chuck couldn't pull through with getting a van, so they ended up canceling. And after the storm, folks were moving all over the place, so they ended up disbanding.

Luckily, A Hunger Artist ended up on plenty of great shows in New Orleans while they were together, mostly at my old house The End of Banks. Aside from that space, they played a few shows at the old Howlin Wolf space (now the Republic), the infamous Dixie Taverne, (now Lookers) and even a house show up in Baton Rouge. They played shows with the Wrangler Brutes, Requiem, the Spectacle, Holy Mountain, Cobra Noir, Magrudergrind, La Chance, Haram, Mare, Skitsystem, Flowers in the Attic, This Scares Me, and a ton more. Some true New Orleans classics.

Unreleased LP:
Backwards
Zero
Light a Torch
See Through
Blood on the Walls
Countdown
From Point B

Dissatisfied with the Proceedings (demo):
See Through
Shallow Water
Collapse

Above is an image of the shirts they had. I think Chuck drew the design--which I guess is supposed to be the Hunger Artist at court. Steven Springer silk screened these.

While Chuck was living in Sterling, Virginia, he played in Pizza, and I think he also had something going with the Taylor brothers for a bit. When he moved back to New Orleans, he started the Lovey Dovies with Little James; he's since left that band and has something a little more punk rock / Recess Records with Eric Martinez and Adam Bebee (both from Rougarou) called Opposable Thumbs. Greg is still recording bands here and there with Capstan Studios, though he doesn't have much of a home base these days. Steve has been playing with the newest incarnation of Chopsley (though shows are few and far between); both he and Dave lend their services to Secret Passage which is a solo project from Scott Francioni (Chopsley / Head Pro).