5¢ Wings

5¢ Wings is a rockin' group with roots that are planted in the mean streets of Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania. It was there, at 511 Scotts Street in the winter of '95, where its founding fathers, Joe Stavisky and Shawn Paladini, joined their musical forces together and formed MINE EYE. The two would write like mad, drink like fish, and play their music into a tiny four-track recorder in their country-hick-grunge-funk fashion. MINE EYE pounded out two full length albums in four months, the first being an untitled bevy of low-talent noise, and the second, The End of Poland Sessions, an improvement showing signs of genius with tracks like grimm. Unfortunately, it ended there. Joe graduated and found a job back home "workin' for the man," and had to split. MINE EYE was no more...

Shawn continued on under the name THUMB, and recorded two more short albums. Each of them decent in its own right, but lacking something in the heart of the music. Joe moved in with another guy named Joe, and recorded music into his tape player.

Two years later, the two came together once again and recorded what is known as the lost tapes. The reason it's known as the lost tapes is because Shawn lost the masters, and all that survives of those recordings are the two copies each of them holds -- good music, fading fast...

A few months later in early '98 the two set their sights on recording the first good album in a long time. Scraping together the best each had to offer they set a date, and met at Thunder Bay Recording Studio (Shawn's basement). JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS was born. The self-titled album was... "eh." With flashes in the pan like my top 40 hit and HBHM the album was listenable, but tracks like druid and jason and the argonauts had people jumping off the Brooklyn Bridge. Then Joe and Shawn got engaged (not to each other, of course)...

Months later, with new outlooks on life, again the two met at Thunder Bay Studio on the weekend of April 23, 1999. They went in as JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS and came out 19 songs later as NEPTUNE with their new full-length album entitled Triple Platinum. Simply put -- people loved it. The two then decided to pick the hits off of the album and put together an EP for the fans, titled The Pickle Boat EP named after the smash hit Pickleboat.

Riding high on life the two again set their sights on a date and prepared for their next album. On July 25, 1999, the final note of Spaceman Farmers was struck and NEPTUNE knew they had something. Stripping away from the "dark" feel of their past endeavors, "farmers" still had the country-hick-grunge-funk sound that coursed fluidly through their music, but left you with a smile on your face after hearing tracks like Bigger Than All and White Defunk'd NEPTUNE truly had come into their own on Farmers.

Just months after the buzz of Spaceman Farmers, the duo headed back into the studio again for their third full-length collaboration appropriately titled Strike Three!. It was here that the production potential of the two shined. With a new approach in the recording process and musical changes such as the addition of full piece orchestras (not really, it was just a keyboard that Shawn got for Christmas), like in Lurking, NEPTUNE had again, outdone themselves.

Months after the release of Strike Three! they recorded From the Other Side of the Room. In typical NEPTUNE fashion, the two wasted no time and again immediately plodded away to the studio to recorded their next creation Steel Reinforced Polymer Coated. SRPC proved to be their most experimental venture yet. Branching out, the two added a new dimension to their sound by bringing in other musical talents into their Smorgasbord of listening delights.