before there was banjo, there was ¡Schitt! ê! ü! æ!.




¡Schitt! ê! ü! æ! was a one week side project formed by Jak (as Bull Schitt), Daniel (as Jack Schitt) and Bryan (as Ferdinand Schitt) and played two sets at the Neutral Ground Coffeehouse in New Orleans. The group's intention was stated at the introduction of their sets:

"Ladies and gentlemen, once again at the Neutral Ground, three musicians of astounding talent are going to come together and use none of it. We are ¡Schitt! ê! ü! æ!"

The project was intended as a lampoon of a typical open microphone night at the Neutral Ground, as long-winded political speakers and talentless musicians were usually the bulk of the sign-in sheet at these events.

Prior to the introduction, the three would each grab a pair of spoons from the counter and bang them together on their way up to the stage for anywhere from a few seconds to about a minute before dropping them on the ground and leaving them there. Following the introduction, a song or two would be played using the Neutral Ground's house instruments (a classical guitar, a piano, conga drums and a tambourine) as loudly and as badly as possible. After this, Daniel would give a speech for some fictional political campaign for minutes straight (the first was Kthulhu For President, the last was Jack Schitt For Tahitian Ambassador) and then the group would close with a song or two, performed even worse than the first song and usually breaking one of the house instruments in the process. The inevitable heckling at ¡Schitt! ê! ü! æ!'s sets was always met with loud and profane boasts along the lines of "shut up, we're the best band in the world".

¡Schitt! ê! ü! æ! performed at the Neutral Ground's open microphone nights on July 13 and July 20, 2003, the latter of which ended with Daniel shattering the Neutral Ground's tambourine against the conga.

Obviously, they were never offered a real show at the Neutral Ground, or anywhere else.

This ethic of "the worst band ever" was applied three years later for an obnoxious punk band called "banjo" which is somehow still going.

Here you can watch a video with audio from the only recorded performance (July 20, 2003's).