My earliest memory of Zen Frisbee is tied to an image: the album cover for I'm As Mad As Foust, hanging in School Kids Records. It stopped me cold. The design was so arresting—this grayscale portrait of an African American man framed by beautiful clouds, and on his forehead, instead of a hat, a nude male torso. At the time, I had no idea it was a local band. I just remember thinking that whoever had an album cover like that had to be operating on another level creatively.
It was probably the summer of 1995, right before I became a junior at UNC, when I really started connecting that artwork to the Chapel Hill music world. Not long after, I went to one of the Cat’s Cradle shows called The $2 Bill. I went to a few of them, and it was such a great concept: you paid two bucks and got to see eight local bands—bands you’d never normally take a chance on. It felt like a smart innovation from Frank Heath, the Cradle’s owner, because in one night you could get an instant education in what was happening around you. That day I saw DogSawGod and Zen Frisbee, and also Whiskeytown, who later went on to huge success. It really was a chance to catch rising stars and actually feel like you were inside the scene.
Zen Frisbee completely blew everybody away. Their energy was unreal. I can still see Kevin Dixon taking his white Fender Stratocaster and sliding it across the floor—early in the set, without any apparent care of detuning or damaging it. It was so confident and reckless that I remember thinking, "This band must be rich," because who treats gear like that unless they can easily replace it? Of course, I later learned the reality was basically the opposite: they were living somewhere between borderline poverty and actual poverty.
After that, I was obsessed. I went back to School Kids Records to get the album, back when you could ask to listen to CDs inside the store. I remember deciding to skip the first track and jumping to the second one, “Ren Ren.” It starts slow, but then there’s this incredible explosion of sound, and that was it—I was instantly hooked. I bought the album and played it incessantly. It honestly became my favorite album, and I still think it holds up as a terrific record. Even recently I shared it with my friend Jonathan, and he was blown away by the musicianship.
To me, their sound has this timeless sense of melody, and their lyrics are uniquely their own. On top of that, there’s a scrappy Chapel Hill vibe that gives it legitimacy—like it’s not trying to be anything other than exactly what it is, right there in the moment.
Over time I actually did meet some of them, and every time it felt like meeting local royalty. I remember seeing Brian Walker, the lead singer, at Cat’s Cradle shows and being incredibly nervous, barely able to make conversation. Later, when I interned at Hi Frequency Music Marketing, I came up with a flimsy excuse to interview Kevin Dixon and his comic book partner Eric Knisley about their comic Mickey Death. I genuinely loved the comic, and it just reinforced for me that Kevin was one of those rare people who’s multi-talented—an amazing musician and an excellent artist. I was enough of a fan that I even sent them fan letters. At one point, with Disney in the news for acquiring a company, I wrote pretending to be a Disney executive saying their band had been acquired, and they wrote back playing along with the joke.
I still have the letters, all the Mickey Death comics, and even several ticket stubs from their shows.
Looking back, I feel lucky that I got to witness even part of that 1990s Chapel Hill scene. I recently read Tom Maxwell’s book about it, and it really underscored how special that time was. I also ended up becoming friends with some of the musicians. I became friends with Chuck Garrison, who sometimes played with Zen Frisbee, but also played with Billy Sugarfix and Evil Wiener. And I became an art friend of Laird Dixon. Laird invited me over to his apartment, which someone once described as looking like the inside of a birthday cake. The place smelled like resin because he made resin casts of chess pieces as a side business—or maybe his only business; I genuinely don’t know how he made money. I’d go over and we’d sketch together.
More than anything, when I think about all of this now, I feel a real nostalgia. I’ve talked with Josh Starmer about it—Josh and I were at that age in Chapel Hill where these musicians who had reached a certain level of fame felt almost like older brothers or mentors. We missed the peak of the scene by a few years, but it still feels like we were guided by them.