Featprints (more Neon Park)

FEATPRINTS, P.O. Box 603, Mt. Airy, MD 21771
FeatPrints Fanzine Home Page

From FEATPRINTS #9 [Winter '93-'94 Issue] An Interview With BILL PAYNE by Featprints Publisher LINDA GIBBON (conducted prior to Shaun Murphy joining the band):

Linda Gibbon: And then there's the loss of Neon...

Bill Payne: Really sad. He is a very courageous guy. Plenty of times when I start feeling sorry for myself and think of Neon and the courage he had, he could barely hold the telephone or type with one finger.

But...it just showed the strength of his character. There were plenty of people who would give up, but he was working up to the very end. We had the chance to say our goodbyes. I'll miss him.

As long as there is Little Feat, there's gonna be a Neon Park cover. I'd like to see what he can contribute lyrically as well. I was honestly surprised by his talent in that respect, too.

To me, one of the added attractions of being with a band like Little Feat is the peripherals like Neon. He's more than a peripheral, he's an integral part of it.

That's someone you hope to attract, because the industry doesn't have vision or guts to sell it. I think most artists have this deeper urge to create.

That's why Neon had one finger on the typewriter, forcing himself, it's not like he *had* to work. What I'll miss the most is the conversations we had. He was exuberant. We would "fight the good fight" so to speak.

I guess I could have my own private conversations with the guy...he went through everything with Little Feat, and I was close to him, too.

A POSTCARD FROM NEON PARK (Summer 1981):

A postcard postmarked 9/9/81 received by Ted Alvy in Isla Vista, California that was sent from somewhere in Mexico by Neon Park in response to two "tasteless" postcards sent to him via Tujunga, California

[the post card Marty sent from Mexico had a yellow background color painting called "Mujer fatal" of a curly haired guy with arched eyebrows and a tooth-filled alligator snout in place of a mouth; fearlessly showing his hand with very long sharp fingernails]:

SEPTEMBRE 1781

HI YA CHUM:

LOVED THE SATIN DOLL & MUSSLE BITCH - BOTH REACHED ME BY REROUTE. GROWING SOME NEW PAINTINGS THAT WILL MAKE YOU SPIN AND SHOUT. MAKING THIRD WORLD PSYCHO-POP AND SYNCRO-MUSH. KINK CITY. KICK OUT THE JAMS...NO PRISONERS!! WATCH OUT BELOW AND STAY BEHIND THE YELLOW LINE WHEN THE MACHINE IS IN OPERATION. MAY ALL YOUR COMPUTERS BE SOFT ONES...

EL SENOR DON NEON PAZ

NOTE: THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS WATER...IT IS MERELY MELTED ICE.

From FEATPRINTS #8 [April 1993] A 1992 Interview With NEON PARK (Part 2 of 3) by Featprints Publisher LINDA GIBBON:

Linda Gibbon: I know I've read somewhere they described your work as "psycho-pop". Continuing in psycho-pop tradition...

Neon Park: Psyco-Pop! Yeah - and the tradition of Zen Voodoo. Actually it was Little Feat that broke it on the scene with the "Let It Roll" cover. That was the first taped image that got to be a record cover. And then the new one, "Shake Me Up" was the second.

People are getting more into this style now, i've done so many paintings - well, I started right after Lowell died, I quit painting for awhile to kind of...regroup. Figure out why was I doing this. I guess it was the shock of him not being there, and the realization that it could have been either of us. What does all this mean...why was I born, all that stuff.

So I quit painting, for about a year, and then I started in again, because I wanted to - that's why I was doing it. I was living in Mexico and all of a sudden my paintings were entirely different. That's when I started dealing with the taped images, and there was a whole body of work - maybe a couple hundred images.

HotLink: Ted Alvy COSMOS TOPPER Home Page