No Marching Parades aka Brad Post #6

Ah, to be a young idealistic folky again. So before he was shouting about the ills of the world with Act of Faith, 18 year old Robert W. Fuller was singing about happier times in a little outfit from Duluth called No Marching Parades. With his trusty notebook in hand, he sang with sensitivity and belted ‘em out straight from the heart; his 17 year old pal Robert M. Frey by his side strumming away all the hate in the world.

Managed by a young and ambitious Angelos Petrakopoulos, No Marching Parades released one demo cassette, “9:00 am - 3:00 pm”, featuring ten original songs. It all was recorded in only a couple hours by Alan Vining on August 16, 1990 at Dwarf Studios in Chamblee.



They played out often at open-mic nights at the Freight Room in Decatur as well as a handful of times at Limerick Junction in the Virginia Highlands. The boys were not of drinking age and in order to perform at the Limerick Junction they had to promise management that they would not try to order any alcohol, nor could they let their ages be known. They also opened once for Fun Mud at the Avondale Towne Cinema.

Though I never heard the tape until just recently, I knew of it and always had heard jokes about Rob Fuller’s infamous red cowboy boots. If I had heard their demo back then I would’ve made fun of it (as well as Mr. Fuller) and chalked it off as wimpy shit. Now that I ain’t so mega punk anymore I can really appreciate this with its great song structures and musicianship. I’ve listened to it at least five times since transferring it to the computer. That fucker Mr. Fuller has one helluva voice with tons of range.

Rob and Rob were always around the Petrakopoulos residence and young Chuck was a huge fan of them. I give him major props for being open minded enough even back then to recognize this as a local masterpiece. To this day he can (and happily will) start to sing any song from the tape.

So the below images are all the records that Angelos kept as band manager. EVERYTHING was documented from the costs of recording to printing to tape duplication. My personal fave being the sheet where they made a list of "People who will buy tapes". Of course mom is on there!
































































































































































































So after a year or so the boys hung it up and AOF came knocking on Rob's door. Or vice versa as you will soon find out in my AOF post. A big thanks to Chuck for letting me dig in the files that his brother Angelos kept meticulously organized for all these years. And I thought I saved everything...