The Bent Scepters

From The Secret History of the Cedar Valley

Rising from the ashes of several Iowa City bands, including psych/pop heavyweights the Dangtrippers and Head Candy, the Bent Scepters succeeded in forcing their unique blend of Nuggets-era psychedelia and Pacific-Northwest-garage down the throats of an unsuspecting public, right from the group’s inception in 1991^†.

Originally conceived as a side-project, the group rapidly gained a cult following, thanks to several years of grueling roadwork, eventually eclipsing the members’ so-called “serious” bands. The Scepters released several self-financed vinyl singles, in keeping with their “retro” stature, only to realize that the great majority of the record-buying public no longer owned turntables. Bowing to pressure from fans, the group released its first CD, entitled “Blind Date With Destiny,” which would eventually sell out its entire, albeit limited, production run.

In 1995, the Scepters signed on with a management company in Los Angeles, which found them a record deal with Frank Zappa’s long-dormant Bizarre/Planet Records, a label that had previously released work from artists as diverse as Alice Cooper and Wild Man Fisher, among others. This led to the release of a new CD, also cryptically entitled “Blind Date With Destiny,” which included eight songs from the original disc along with eight new ones. The group enjoyed a fair amount of success touring across America, playing shows from San Diego to Seattle, from Chapel Hill to New York City, and all points in-between.

Unsure how to market the band – too poppy to be grunge, too grungy to be pop – the label and the group parted ways after the release of the CD, at which point the band was immediately picked up by a fledgling power-pop label from Chicago called Ginger Records. In 1999, Ginger released the band’s third full-length CD, “Hellevator Music,” which went on to top several indie critic’s year-end top-ten lists.

In 2001, the band returned from a two-year hiatus, evolving into its current “semi-retired” incarnation. The Scepters still play the occasional show, though they rarely venture beyond the borders of Iowa.

^†An early incarnation of the group existed briefly in 1986, with Mike McLaughlin on guitar and Jim Merrick on drums.