ANJA DIABOLIK
Mike Stax’s wife Anja Stax, who has been with the Loons for their last three albums, has also recorded under several other names – Anja Diabolik, Anja Dixson, and Anja Bungert. Her first band was evidently Thee Cherylinas, an all-female 1960’s-style Beat band from Germany. She has also played with the Diaboliks and, more recently, the Rosalyns.
Mike Stax went in-house but with new musicians for the band’s second album, Paraphernalia (2004) on Ugly Things Records. I haven’t found this album yet, but I am still hunting. Anja Stax is credited for the album design and is also the bass guitarist for the Loons on the album, but under the name Anja Diabolik. Other bandmembers are Mark Schroeder and Chris Marsteller, both on guitar, and Iain Andrew on drums.
Bass guitarist and vocalist Anja Diabolik is quoted as saying about the Loons: “We play psychotic beat music, tapping into the most exciting elements of mid-to-late ’60s rock and roll and channel it into new, intense, original songs of our own. We find it a lot more interesting than opting to be a mere ’60s garage-band jukebox.”
(June 2017)
