Jim Findlay

KDHX

Jim Findlay

When you "know",... just saying "Jim Findlay" (gym fin' lee) makes you chuckle. Primarily because of his career as the leader of the Colin Sphincter Band, but also because of his work in radio as one of the founders of the "Brain Sandwich" show on KDHX.

In the beginning his songs were mostly biting satire and social commentary although "Dog Days" (A Day in the Life of an Apartment Dog) proved to be a heartwarming fan favorite especially to dog owners. Tunes like "Have a Nice Day" made fun of to the silly Smiley Face fad when it was still in vogue, long before "Forrest Gump" took credit for starting it. Jim's work creating parodies for "The Comedy Network" on radio produced such clever takes as "Don't Worry, I'm Healthy" and "Heraldo" (a stab at early stoopid TV like Jerry Springer)

Jim's extensive catalog of songs starts back in the early 70's (circa 1972) and has grown in size and style since then. The first "Colin Sphincter Band" packed the house regularily with their earthy shall we say "organic" style and hilarious characters like the "Purple Demon" (the drummer who wore his amatuer wrestling outfit when playing drums, and who was also a race car driver and oh yeah an emergency room physician). After a while, it became evident that they should pack themselves up and move to California to make it big. As the years went by, the group dissolved for all the usual reasons.

Meanwhile, back in St. Louis, a few groups were still playing "Big T", "God Drives a Volvo", "Rat Stompin'", "Rose's Cafe'" and other songs they had heard before. Jim had heard through the grapevine that these guys called "Serapis" were playing his songs. In fact Jake's Leg was doing "Big T" too so there was a large contingient of "Dead Heads" that were hip to Findlay's work as well.

Eventually Jim moved back to St. Louis and little by little started playing again. "I wanted to see him so bad I told him I'd stand next to him and play bass" said Gene Carroll, of Serapis. "Actually I figured that way I would get in free to the gigs." (better than a front row seat too)

With a little help from some friends, (it didn't take much) Jim convinced Serapis to back him for a concert at Off Broadway in 1988. Jim introduced Geoff Seitz to the boys in Serapis to add a fiddle to the mix. The concert was a huge success. Starved Colin Sphinter fans finally got a fix that had been over 10 years coming. The SRO crowd inspired the group to plan a biannual reunion every year since.

The original spirit of the Colin Sphincter band carries on every week on Wednesday nights at the "Hump Day Hootnanny" at Jim's house.