All in the Family

One look at Michael Farmer’s office door is all you need to
discern that he is a professor in Chinese studies. With a Mao Ze Dong meme
displayed prominently at eye-level, it’s clear to see that he is a man with a
sense of fun too. Scanning among the other amusing signs, however, one might
miss the small picture of a graphic panda skeleton with the words “The
Prof.Fuzz 63.”

The Prof.Fuzz 63 is his lo-fi rock band composed of his wife
on the organ and vocals, his son on drums, and Farmer himself on guitar and
vocals. With album names such as “Bang Me Hard! (To Get Inside)” and songs such
as “S***water TX Blues,” which is self-described as a song “about the sad
feeling one gets when plumbing goes bad,” this might not be the type of music
one would expect from the professor.

Farmer said the band formed and came up with their unique
name in fall 2014.

“Professor Fuzz is a nickname that was given to me about 20
years ago because I was already a professor at that point, and I like fuzz
pedals for the guitar— things that make distortion noises — so they started
calling me Professor Fuzz,” Farmer said.

As for the “63” part of the name, it’s ambiguous on purpose.

“When we put this band together, we wanted to have that as
part of the name and I like the Miles Davis quintet, so we wanted to be the
Professor Fuzz Sextet, but that needed 6 people,” Farmer said. “We only had
three people, so we put them together and it became 6 and 3. It means a lot of
different things to a lot of different people. Some people think it’s my birth
year, but it’s not.  Other people don’t
have any idea. So, we just tell them it gives us room to expand. We can add 60
more people without having to change the name.”

To date, they have played 187 shows while Farmer has
simultaneously pieced together soundbites to form songs and created characters
and stories based off of experiences to give the lyrics a life of their own.
Although he has been active musically, Farmer has progressed academically as
well.

He has been editing a journal for 10 years and has been
working on a translation project for the better part of a decade. He has
published articles and book chapters. He has won awards and fellowships, and
all the while managed to keep up an active role in the band. As Farmer said,
his academic career allows for flexibility of time, allowing him to pursue
other passions as well.

“Everything on my professional resume seems to be going in
the right direction and the band is my mental health hobby,” Farmer said. “It
gives me something to do that’s not exactly related to my job but helps keep me
happy. It gives me some kind of release, a time to be concentrating on
something else, be doing other things.”

Although his music is a source of joy for himself, writing
songs reveals the potentially unusual thoughts that are in his head, which
Farmer said is the scariest part about making music with The Prof.Fuzz 63.

“As a professor, I’m supposed to be logical and rational and
all these kinds of things, but inside my head I’ve got this voice that’s
yelling ‘Panda attack, panda attack, panda attack’ or something else,” he said.
“It’s a different side of me.”

Although it may seem that sitting in his office to engage in
academia and going on stage to slam some chords have no overlap, Farmer said
the opposite.

“They’re not completely exclusive processes,” Farmer said.
“There is very much a creative element in researching and writing history. And
there is a disciplined element to songwriting. It’s just that in songwriting I
can make up stories that don’t have to have evidence that I can’t do if I’m
writing an article or a book.”

The songs and articles he writes share subject matter as
well. There are many threads of Asian influence throughout the music, as shown
by their album “Chinese Folk Songs,” the song “Panda Attack,” and their band
logo of a panda skeleton. This crossover is organic, Farmer said.

“I’ve spoken Chinese in more years than I have not spoken
Chinese,” Farmer said. “I started learning Chinese when I was 21 years old.
I’ve been going back and forth between Taiwan and the mainland for over 35
years. That is very much part of who I am. Asian stories and themes
occasionally pop up in my songs. It’s simply because those things are always in
my life.”

To find inspiration for his songs, he looks around, hears stories
and picks up snippets of words and phrases, Farmer said. For the song “Panda
Attack,” which was written in 2015, Farmer was in Taiwan for six months on a
grant working on a translation project.

“It was kind of cold, kind of rainy, February, March-ish,
I’m walking down the street in Taipei, holding an umbrella, the song comes into
my mind, I’m holding up this phone up to my mouth and going ‘we went to the zoo
to see Gu Gu, da da da da,’ starting to fill out the words and the guitar
riffs,” he said. “I got back to the apartment, later that day — I bought a
guitar that trip because I knew I was going to be there for 6 months — sat
down, started figuring it out. Over the course of the next couple days, the
song happened.”

With a three-day Christmas tour coming up, a new record that
they are working on in January and multiple shows booked in the coming year,
the band is staying busy and making money. In terms of the band’s future, while
Farmer suspects he and his wife will continue to make music together, Brooks,
his son, has a shelf life, Farmer said. 

“We joke he beats on stuff for room and board and his
college tuition,” Farmer said. “At some point, he will longer need us for
everyday survival things. He can go beat on stuff for somebody else if he wants.

Even if the band makes some alterations, it appears that the
band will keep going.

“We have a new record we’re working towards, we’re always
writing songs, and we’ll just keep doing what we’re doing until circumstances
demand that we make a change,” Farmer said.