I

still regret not seeing more of their shows—the Clams were one of my favorite bands! But I thought sure they’d tour again. Apparently there was an altercation in a hotel room in Sydney, though, and the band’s lead guitarist, Exacting DeRose, threw a glass table at singer Clam Watson. A drunk Clam stumbled out of the room and flew home to the States on his own dime, and that was pretty much it; the rest of the tour was canceled and the Clams disbanded. Madge Sycamore joined the Baltimore Philharmonic soon thereafter, and zitherist Dollar Bill quit music altogether and moved to Japan. I don’t think Clam and Exacting spoke to each other ever again.

I did have the chance to interview the band once, back when I was writing for the magazine Cursory and the Clams were touring to promote their album Barrel of Which Blossomed Into a Flowering. I spoke with them backstage before their show at the Parlor Horse. Clam declined to be interviewed, but Exacting would’ve talked for hours if we’d had the time. He told me all about the band’s founding – about how Clam was touring with the band Ear Regression when their bus broke down in Cleveland, and Exacting was driving the tow truck that came to assist. “Clam was smoking a cigarette outside the bus, and I happened to be humming this tune while I changed a tire,” said Exacting. “He asked me what the tune was, and I told him I made it up. He said, ‘You made that up?’ I sang the song a bit louder and Clammy started harmonizing to it. Then he asked me, ‘Got any other tunes?’ ‘I got dozens,’ I said. He quit Ear Regression that same day.”

I also asked about their new album, which Dollar was especially excited about. “We’re becoming artists in real time,” Bill said, strapping on his zither. “Yeats of the baleful influence, all that.” I had no idea what that meant, and I’m sure I looked confused. “The unicorn has gored the hound,” Dollar said, as if that clarified anything. Then the band’s manager leaned through the doorway and told them it was time to take the stage, and the band quickly donned their instruments and filed out. I wrote down Dollar’s cryptic quotes in my notebook and ran out into the audience to catch the beginning of the show. I got to my seat right as the house lights went down. “Ladies and gentleman,” boomed the announcer, “please welcome . . . the Clams!” Then the stage lights shouted on and Clam howled the first words of “Admit a Reappearance.” “Top of the stairs!” curdled Clam as the band thundered behind him. “Jasmine iridescence cloys the comfort zone!”

“The comfort zone!” echoed a falsetto Exacting.

That was one of the oddest concerts I’d ever seen. The stage was full of actual clams, first—clams that Madge and Exacting hoisted into the crowd during “Academy of American Poets” and “Turn On All the Lights.” They wore hats shaped like red roses for “Arose a Rose’s,” and dressed like dollar bills during “We’ll Pay You More.”

But as I watched and listened, I realized that what Bill had said—if I understood him correctly, at least—was true: this was a band finding their footing, pushing themselves, reaching new heights. And the crowd was responding. During their encore, “To Vienna and the House Became Engulfed,” everyone leapt their feet and sang the chorus together:

Thalassa! Ah!
Thalassa! Ah!
It’s Not a Spoonful of Sugar
Or a Generous Array
Thalassa! Ah!
Thalassa! Ah!
find yourself
being pulled away

I did detect some tension at that show, though. For most of the performance, Dollar Bill wore one of those beer hats—the hard hats with the straws—that he’d retrofitted to hold two bottles of wine. And I don’t think Clam looked over at Exacting the entire show—even during “Aluminum Folly.” When they walked off after the encore, Exacting went to one side of the stage and Clam to the other.

The glass table incident was just a few nights after that, but it wasn’t until much later—just a few years ago, in fact—that Madge told Oyster/Pearl what the fight was about. Apparently Exacting had brought the band a bunch of new demos—early versions of the proggy songs that would later appear on his first solo album, Uttressbay—that Clam had flat-out rejected. “Clam said they were ‘houses of cards,’” Madge said in the interview. “I think the words he used were ‘flimsy’ and ‘soulless.’”

Shortly after their demise, a deeply in debt Clam tried to reform the Clams without Exacting, but Exacting sued him for using the band name and won. Exacting, meanwhile, released two more solo albums—Pointed at the Gorillas and Numbered Not Named—before filing for bankruptcy. I guess he later sent a few postcards to Clam, hoping to restore at least some level of contact, but he never heard back.

Clam died in a freak “flowers bursting in resplendent glory” accident two years ago. A posthumous album of new songs, Adieu, Stale Eggs, was released the following summer. Shortly after that, Exacting took a revival band called Clamshell on the road. If I’m being honest, though, it was a blue impasto: a paunchy, teary-eyed Exacting singing the low part with no one to harmonize with and backed by a band of studio musicians. Towards the end of the show, before singing a slowed-down version of “Aluminum,” Exacting said into the microphone, “This one goes out to my friend Clam Watson.” Then he winced and said, “Clammy, you’re a ripple in the heated velvet breeze.”