MAD VIOLETS

Dino Sorbello and Wendy Wild formed the Mad Violets because of a love, not just of 60's rock and roll, but also because of a love of psylocibin mushrooms.  With Mark Seligman (bass), "Big Daddy" Dan Reich (drums) (Keith Streng of The Fleshtones and his wife Judy were members of the band in an early phase), and began peforming around NYC.  As the Tripwave label website describes it:
   
Early Mad Violets shows took place at loft parties and the infamous club known as The Dive on West 29th St, where a whole new quasi-retro 60s garage/psychedelic rock scene was coming together quite fast. In a scene they shared with such local luminaries as The Fuzztones, Cheepskates, Optic Nerve, The Tryffles, Headless Horsemen, The Outta Place, The Secret Service, The Vipers etc etc. they quickly distinguished themselves as the one band that featured original material where most were content to play note-for-note covers of obscure classics. For their fungicidally-inspired Psilocybe song Wendy assumed role of high priestess and handed out live mushroom communion to the faithful as they would line up before the stage. The Mad Violets also made many trips to Boston and stops along the way, playing often at the famous Rat, and often with Boston band The Prime Movers. With the Movers they also embarked on a very surreal tour of the Midwestern states during September of 1984. And there was the night they were banned from Hobokens Maxwells club after Wendy mounted the stage occupied by LA s Dream Syndicate (after being waved up by Steve Wynn himself) carrying a vacuum cleaner and playing it like air guitar. Promoter Todd Abrams mistakenly thought his Village Voice Pick show band was being told they sucked. After the usual internal disturbances Mad Violets finally disbanded in late 84, but not before there was one aborted attempt to continue the band without Dino, using ex-Levi & The Rockkats guitarist Danny Harvey to record an ep for Voxx Records.

In the words of Wendy Wild herself:
 
Our first gig was at the Lucky Strike gallery where we threw our mushrooms to the audience. This worked to our advantage because by the time we launched into "The Trip", the crowd was half-naked and tripping their asses off! We had to put towels on the drums because of the noise complaints that the club received, but no one said how long we could play, which ended up being about 4 hours, (we were tripping too!). When we were booked to play in Worcester, we couldn't find the place because there were no signs for "Wooster" on the map. Finally we turned off the highway to ask a gas station attendant where the hell we were and, of course, we were in the right place but it was nearly midnight. We made it to the club but couldn't help notice all the skinheads who came to see us. We were billed as "Mad Violence" from NYC. Again we gave out mushrooms. It was fun to see them stage diving to the psychedelic music that we played. 

I was also known for my stage diving antics as well, particularly at one show in Boston, I was hanging from a pipe go-go dancing with about 50 people on stage for our rendition of "Jump into the Fire". The mob whipped up into such a frenzy that one one noticed when I fell 15 feet flat on my back. When the show was over and I still didn't get up, they finally called an ambulance to cart me away. My recovery was nothing short of miraculous because the next night I was go-go dancing on the stage with the Fleshtones.

My mushroom antics gave me so much notoriety that I was picked to be the cover girl for the August 86 issue of High Times. Carlo McCormick shared the cover with me, and the caption read, "The mushroom queen meets the acid prince". We  even wrote a song about mushrooms called, "Psilocybe". 

Wendy had quite a career, pre-and post- Mad Violets.  Wikipedia:
 


Wild appeared on several recordings. Along with releases for Mad Violets (World of LSD... and the posthumously released Season of the Mad Violets), she sang on records for Bronski Beat, The Fleshtones, Peter Zaremba's Love Delegation, Hoodoo Gurus, and John Sex. She also appeared in two music videos with Mr. Sex, Hustle with My Muscle and Rock Your Body, as well as the 1988 documentary Mondo New York. Wild performed in the stage musicals The Sound of Muzak at Club 57 in 1981 (revived at NYC's Limelight in 1986), and Peter Pan at Danceteria in 1983. She also staged one-woman shows for her booze-addled sex-kitten character "Joey Heatherock," and was one of the group of East Village performers who created the first annual Wigstock festival. She performed at Wigstock many times, and appeared in Wigstock, The Movie, released in 1994. Many of Wild's performances at the Pyramid and other New York City venues have been recorded by the late video artist Nelson Sullivan and have been included in exhibitions of his work.

Wendy Wild died on October 26, 1996, after a long battle with breast cancer.
 Mad Violets page at Tripwave
Wendy Wild's Autobiographical Blog
Wendy Wild Facebook page
Discography