fishwacker was formed in the summer of 2001 by friends Bob Martin (guitar/vocals) and Jeff Newlin (bass/vocals) in Mercer County, a very rural place in Northern Missouri. For at least a year they only had a Yamaha drum machine to accompany their desire to explore old school punk rock songs that were originally done by bands like X, the Angry Samoans, the UK Subs, the Sex Pistols, and many others. Using their first rate performance p.a., they played credible versions of songs like "God Save The Queen" at high decibels from Bob's garage into the fields his Grandfather used to farm.

Bob Martin is a veteran of the bar band music industry in Northern Missouri. Dating back to the late '70s Bob fronted bands for the Saturday night crowds with a sense of energetic fun that audiences would come to love. But after 20 years and hundreds of gigs Bob's music passion had him set on creating his own music fueled with many years worth of lyric writing. To some extent his band Joe Mamma played several original tunes and has made some recordings of them most of which remain incomplete. After years of only handling a microphone, Bob picked up his guitar and adapted his sense of fun to his raw, untrained abilities creating a sound that's never quite what you expect.

Jeff Newlin is a transplant from the west. Raised in Las Vegas and originally a drummer, Jeff lived in the Los Angeles area playing drums with early '80s punk rockers T.P.S. and later with the funk band the Brown Sound in Southern California. He moved out of Southern California to the Utah Mountains where he played drums with the 3-piece band Truckstop. These bands all had excellent bass players and eventually he picked up the instrument himself when he relocated to the Midwest.

Eventually their paths would meet in Mercer, Missouri population 350 ancient family home to both Newlin and Martin. They immediately found an easy working relationship and soon new original songs were being written that blended their styles and backgrounds and finally put Bob's lyric collection to good use. But they would have to wait for quite a while until a drummer could get along with their often-frantic tempos.

Keith Urban enters the picture at the beginning of 2004. Keith's crazy mix of jazz, rock, and punk styles always gets the attention of audience members. He combines a fast, driving energy with spiced beats that everyone notices. Keith is a young 17-year-old so with a 37-year span in band member ages you have the crazy mix of influence that is Fishwacker.

Additional musicians "Catch of the Day" are Tony Ortega from Kansas City playing trumpet on "Sundial Clock", TypicalGirl from Mercer playing the Didgeridoo on "The Crossing", and Bill Newlin of Los Angeles playing piano on the ultra-jazzy-grunge "Circle Think."