Flin Flon is built on the rock of the Canadian Shield, but when musician Mark Robinson named his band in the mid-1990s, he had a different sort of rock in mind.
Robinson, a veteran of the independent music scene on the US East Coast, is the creative force behind a band with an incessant groove and a subtle attitude – a group that just so happens to be called Flin Flon.
So how does a musician in Washington, DC end up naming a band after a small town in the middle of the Canadian wilderness?
It’s simple – hockey.
“I’m a hockey fan and at some point I started to subscribe to The Hockey News. This was pre-internet,” said Robinson. “I learned all the names of the teams in the major junior leagues. To a young American person, some of the names sounded unusual. Like Swift Current and Kamloops, places like that. Flin Flon stuck out as an interesting name.”
“It just sounded so unusual. When I found out it was named after a science fiction character, that really sold it. We did get billed incorrectly in a few places on tour as ‘Flim Flam’ because people didn’t know,” said Robinson with a
peeved sigh.
The band Flin Flon formed in 1997 with Robinson on vocals and guitar, Matt Datesman on drums and Natalie “Nattles” Mencinsky on bass.
Robinson met Datesman and Mencinsky through playing shows with other bands.
Flin Flon was Robinson’s way of realizing a new sound, one that mixed rock and pop sensibilities with the bass as the cornerstone.
“I’d always had this idea of a band where the bass was the main instrument,” he said. “The bass and the drums were the focal points of the band. All the songs were based on the bass guitar.”
The group’s sound was rooted in post-punk fandom, influenced by British post-punk groups such as Joy Division and Wire.
“It was all about what records we were listening to when we formed that band,” Robinson said.
The band toured frequently, sometimes moving north of the border to play shows in Canada with well-known groups.
“We played a lot of shows with Sleater-Kinney,” said Robinson. “It was fun playing to packed houses every night.”
Big break
While Flin Flon earned accolades within the disjointed world of indie rock fandom, perhaps its biggest break came in 2003 when its song “Floods” became the theme song for CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360°.
“When they were first putting the show together, [Cooper’s] producer was a fan of our band,” recalled Robinson. “He thought that one of our songs would be a great theme song for the show.”
Nearly fifteen years later, Robinson still seems to be in slight disbelief discussing the producer’s choice.
With a smooth bass riff and staccato guitar notes, “Floods” would be Anderson Cooper 360°’s theme for two seasons.
“It was pretty exciting and kind of unusual to have that,” said Robinson. “I don’t know what people were thinking in the news realm of that, but it was pretty amazing.”
Flin Flon has now released five full-length albums, often with titles or songs that reference obscure Canadian place names.
Locales such as Buffalo Narrows, Virgin Arm, Chicoutimi and Swift Current have all became song titles on Flin Flon releases, with the latter two also being album names. The most recent Flin Flon album, entitled Et Cetera, was released in 2009.
Since then, members of the band have moved across New England. While Mencinsky and Datesman still live near Washington, DC, Robinson makes his home in Boston.
“We haven’t officially broken up. I guess we’re on a hiatus,” said Robinson.
“We did talk about playing again a couple of years ago,” he said. “Nattles said she hadn’t picked up a bass since 2006 and wasn’t sure if she still knew how to play it.”
Robinson runs the record label Teen-Beat, which he started in 1984 as a high school student.
“I was delivering pizzas and saved up enough money to put out the first seven-inch single,” he said. “The money from that went into the next record. Then we released a single and it was an ongoing thing. There was a pile of money that could be spent to manufacture records.”
In addition to being the label’s director, Robinson works as the director and graphic designer.
He is also releasing an album with a new band called Fang Wizard and working on a documentary.
In print
Flin Flon’s music is still mostly in print and available through online streaming services.
CDs and vinyl of most of the band’s work are available online. Teen-Beat will soon reissue the band’s first two albums, A-OK and Boo-Boo.
Robinson has been part of several musical groups and has performed some shows in Canada, but has never made his way to the town that shares his band’s name. That’s something he hopes to someday change.
“I’ve never been to Flin Flon. I will make it there someday,” he said.
An avid long-distance cyclist, Robinson has even thought about completing a cross-Canada bike ride.
“I’ve done a couple of long bike rides,” he said. “I’ve looked into people who have done Pacific to Atlantic bike rides across Canada. That would be pretty interesting.”
When asked about the possibility of playing with Flin Flon in Flin Flon, Robinson was receptive.
“That would be amazing,” he said. “I think the extent of my Canadian touring has been Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver. I would definitely be into it.”
