Every band has had its own in-fighting and my favorite band, Alice Donut, was no different. Granted, their's was probably due to irritability over being in the touring van for too long, but something happened to the band during the making of their 1991 album Revenge Fantasies of the Impotent. Their bassist, founding member, and secondary vocalist left and apparently got a well-respected job outside of punk music.
When I watched the Alice Donut documentary Freaks in Love, the filmmakers glossed over Ted Houghton leaving, saying the band wanted to keep their private business private. Which is fine, except Ted then disappeared into the ether in a documentary. For a band that had relatively little drama, they omitted the answers to the questions long-time fans had held.
Why bring this up, years and years after the fact? I was listening to Tiny Ugly World today and I wondered whatever happened to Ted? Could I find him? Was he really gone? His voice was the sad conscience of Alice Donut. Besides being the bassist, he was the lead singer or co-lead singer in these songs:
Mason Reese
Bedpost
Sinead O'Connor on TV
Incinerator Heart
Tiny Ugly World
I also think it's Ted on NSP, but the credits say Michael Jung:
Naked, Sharp, Perfect
In the time it took me to write this article, using clues I garnered from a 2007 interview with the band, I found Ted Houghton. I watched a YouTube video of him accepting an award. He didn't look like he was dwelling on his Alice Donut days at all. I went back and re-watched Freaks in Love and noticed that the first person the producers thanked in the documentary credits was Ted Houghton, despite the fact that he didn't do an on camera interview.
I guess some things just aren't scandalous, sometimes people just move on....
Wow. As I type, Megan Kelly Today is on in the background. Megan Kelly might be the fakest personality on network television. In a magical moment in my mind, I imagine that, maybe...maybe Ted could write an Ode to Megan Kelly, then submit it to the Donut crew to lay a musical bed under the lyrics. And, just so he doesn't get in trouble at work, he can be credited as Geri Reischl in the liner notes. Long time fans will chuckle at the circular irony.