Since I was widely known as "Mumbles" back in the late 1960's and 70's, I should probably explain.
Back in high school (the '60's) I was pretty much an outcast. There were a lot of outcasts and semi-outcasts, the dregs of school society, or so the "jocks" (sports stars) and "frats" (kids bound for the college fraternity) would have you believe. We were generally ostracized, sneered at, hazed, put down, and otherwise made to feel uncomfortable and inferior to the other kids. We hung out on the edges of the social groupings, congregating with our kind because we were all pretty much discouraged from being anywhere else. Sitting down at one of the "popular" tables in the lunch room was practically guaranteed to bring on repercussions, ranging from derogatory comments to physical abuse, and possibly eggs being thrown at one's parents' house, or the sudden detonation of one's mailbox in the middle of the night, accompanied by a roaring and fast-disappearing engine sound and loud laughter (for which our parents typically blamed us). High school was not fun for us.
But, as we numbered among us the nonconformists, the brightest and least bright, the class clowns, etc. we actually related to each other a good bit, and those of us with a humorous streak tended to make light of our plight, and have a few laughs in spite of the oppression. One of the Martian Entropy Band's roadies, Flook (his last name), and I were in the same grade, and frequently bounced off one another, figuratively, in the hubbub of school. Tom was a class clown and eccentric, as was I. I had started playing rock and roll at age 15, and, having played violin since 5 and grown up in a musical family, I always played lead guitar (an instrument I started teaching myself at age 12 - more on that another time). Flook had become a primary roadie for one or more of the bands I transitioned through in high school, and we had become friends.
A couple of other guys who seemed to have the possibilities of being in the frat crowd, but never quite fit in and so wound up hanging out in the halls with us, were Bob Fischer, Richard Moser, and Steve Wild. (are the spellings OK?) Since I was playing in a band, which was cool (but not enough to make me "popular" -- and I didn't want to be popular by then, anyway), and Flook was associated with the band, we had a certain "cool" among our crowd of outcasts. Bob Fisher and his friends, also aspiring class clowns, engaged us in a good bit of banter over time, bragging of THEIR rock band and its exploits.
At some point they came up with the name for their imaginary band, "Mumbles and the Monotones", which we all thought was pretty funny, and they would usually brag that their band had performed in Tokyo the previous weekend, or given Bob Dylan and the members of The Who their autographs, or things like that. They were pretty funny, and it was good for a lot of laughs between classes. I think they did jam on guitar and drums in their parents' basements or somewhere, and I may have even jammed with them once. I don't recall them ever playing any gigs ...
If I remember rightly, not long after that my band, the Outkasts, was breaking up. We'd been discouraged not to win anything better than honorable mention at the last battle of the bands, weren't getting the number of gigs we wanted, and were not getting along too well. Most of the band reformed with a new drummer and bass player, and Flook as prime roadie, but we couldn't come up with a good name for the band. We struggled for weeks, until finally I, or Flook, or someone suggested "Hey! What about Mumbles and the Monotones?" We all had a good laugh about it, but it stuck, and the band played sporadic gigs under that name for perhaps a year.
After months of playing together, however, we still hadn't figured out who Mumbles was. I was finding myself doing more and more of the bookings, the musical arrangements, and other band work, while most of the rest of the band were slacking off on such duties, expecting to show up for practice or a gig, do as little as possible, and then leave with their girlfriends as soon as possible. This began to wear thin for me, and my resentment gradually built, and then one day, when discussing a prospective gig with a promoter, I was asked again "Who is Mumbles, anyway?" Somewhere in my feelings of discomfort with the rest of the band rose the thought that, as long as I was doing most of the work, I might as well be Mumbles, and I spontaneously took the nickname for my own.
The band didn't last all that long after that, but the nickname stuck around, even though I've never been given to mumbling. The funny thing is that, even 25 or 30 years later, I still on a rare occasion run into someone in Ann Arbor who stops me on the sidewalk with "Hey!! Mumbles-baby!! What's happenin', man?" It's always good for a laugh.
By the way, the gig that probably caused me to take on the nickname was a battle of the bands at Dexter High School, in Dexter, Michigan, a town of probably 3500 in 1967 or so. We were crazy kids playing whatever we liked, stuff by The Who, the Rolling Stones, and other bands popular at the time, with no "concept" or congruent approach to our performances or music -- not likely to win a battle of the bands, in any case.
I had set up the gig, and we were pretty stoked to play. In our usual irreverent fashion, we were dressed to be cool, and I was wearing a vest made of an army shirt with the sleeves torn off, as many girl scout and riflery medals and protest buttons on it as we could find, and a mink collar my girlfriend at the time had sewn on it. This being the Viet Nam era, and us having hair as long as the high schools would allow (but NOT over the ear, or we would be sent home), the judges (old farts) took a dim view of us. In fact, they were so offended by the army vest with mink collar that they disqualified us from the competition sometime after we performed.
The band members were mad as hell, but could do nothing about it. They didn't hold it against me at all, fortunately, but blamed the small-town stick-up-the-bu++s on the judging panel. In fact, somebody, maybe the bass player and one of the roadies, stole the school auditorium's public address amplifier, which they later ditched in a country swamp in a fit of paranoia. In any case, as usual, the band members split with their girlfriends soon after the end of the affair, and my girlfriend and I were left to take down our PA system and load the amplifiers, speakers, mic stands, etc. into whatever vehicle we had for moving it, and haul it all back to the practice house, an exhausting job that really pissed me off. I believe it was soon after that that I took the nickname Mumbles, and here, on the Martian Entropy Band fan-site, it is revived again to my amazement.
More stories of things related to the Martian Entropy Band to come! Enjoy!