For years now, Fred M. has been one of the scene's biggest Muffs and Sluts for Hire fans. For just as many years, Fred has claimed he was in a band called TWINKLE , which has never played live. Fred did briefly play bass in Leaving Trains (but who hasn't?), but most of the time he just talked about Twinkle. One day, three of Fred's friends, Chris De Young, Chris Moore and Falling James , went ahead and booked a show at Al's Bar in downtown Los Angeles and then told Fred. We were all pleasantly surprised that Fred turned out to be a genius, and he was forced to teach us his songs since we had called his bluff. Songs include ditties like "Pneumatic Jack," "I'm an Electric Eel for Your Love," "Pile Driver," "Camel," and "Wouldn't Want to Be You." Calling ourselves THE HELPFUL NUNS (Fred claims he's still working on a separate Twinkle project as well), we've played a few shows since beginning in summer 1997.

People have said that the Helpful Nuns are "gods in their own way" and that "they play so bad, it's good." Fred Manchento (who's also half of the synth duo EMA 3) plays lead guitar and does most of the singing & songwriting. Falling James switched to rhythm guitar from bass after Chris De Young left the band and noted artist Katy "Nana" Bowen joined on bass. Chris Moore has to lug all the drums around and restore some sense of musical order. "We're the nuns with the dirty habits" goes the song. The Helpful Nuns are planning to record even as you read these shiny little dots on your computer screen (but we've been saying this for years, mind you, and have already forgotten several albums' worth of Fred's songs!). We exist, damn it! We've been written about in no-longer-recent issues of FLIPSIDE magazine. Wow!

You don't like it? Start your own band then!

Check out the chords and lyrics for "HE SAID, SHE SAID..."