St. Elmo's Fire circa 1980
Left to Right: Paul Kollar, Mark Helm, Elliott Weintraub, and Erich Feldman.

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St. Elmo's Fire / A brief history:

In the autumn of 1979 Paul Kollar & Erich Feldman returned to the writing that they had begun several years earlier. The first group of newly recorded tracks were completed in November and made the rounds at college radio stations. By December, full band rehearsals were under way with Mark Helm, Elliot Weintraub and Steve Stavnicky. The band started gigging around the North-East Ohio area in February 1980. Summer 1980 found the band playing at better clubs and with a growing following. The July show at the Cleveland Agora was recorded and ended up being released on vinyl as "Live At The Cleveland Agora". As summer turned to autumn, it was becoming increasingly clear that progressive bands were not what area clubs wanted and gigs were getting harder to find. Steve and Elliot left and a revolving door was nearly placed on the rehearsal studio to accommodate the auditions for new players. In the spring of 1981, new recording sessions began. The resulting batch of demos made the rounds but were neither proggy enough to be loved by the St. Elmo faithful or New Wavy enough to be embraced by the local entertainment establishment. By May of 1981 St. Elmo's Fire had gone into stasis.

Fast forward to 1998. After repeated requests to release the "Live At The Cleveland Agora" tracks on CD, a major overhaul of the original 2-track recordings was undertaken. The analog master was converted into digital and the tweaking began. The resulting CD was released in September 1998 as "Splitting Ions In The Ether". This CD contains the 4 tracks from the original vinyl release plus the other tunes recorded at that gig, plus two bonus tracks from an earlier performance. "Splitting Ions" has been very warmly received and has charted at #26 and # 48 in the Global Progressive Rock Network's top 100 of 1998 & 1999 respectively.

2001 saw the release of "Artifacts Of Passion", the first new recordings from the band in over 20 years. Some of the rhythm tracks for this album were recorded in the summer of 1995 and ended up sitting on a shelf for several years. The rest began in 1999. Over a span of two years, ADAT tapes and sometimes even the people themselves made their way to Musicians Pro Shop and the "Artifacts" project was completed in 2001. "AOP" charted at #66 on the Global Progressive Rock Network's top 100 of 2001.

After receiving e-mail from St. Elmo fans around the world looking for more tunes, (and not knowing when, if ever there would be new album or a reunion gig) a collection of demos and drafts was released in April 2004 titled " Antiquities " . Most of these tracks date from 1979 and 1980. The last track is from 2001 and offers a glimpse of what might be yet to come.

Original Line-up. Active Oct. 1979 thru Aug. 1980:

Erich Feldman / Guitar Synthisizer, Effects
Mark Helm / Drums & Percussion
Paul M. Kollar / Bass guitar, Taurus pedals, 12 string guitar & Tape Loops
Steve J. Stavnicky / Mellotron, Mini Moog, Percussion, Flute & Vox
Elliot Weintraub / Guitar, percussion, Effects & Vox
Fernando Vasquez / Flute (on demo recordings only)

Second line-up. Active Sept. 1980 thru Dec. 1980:

Erich Feldman / Guitar Synthisizer, Effects
Mark Helm / Drums & Percussion
Paul M. Kollar / Bass guitar, Taurus pedals, 12 string guitar & Tape Loops
Elliot Weintraub / Guitar, percussion, Effects & Vox
Mark Edwards / Mellotron, Mini Moog & Piano

Third Line-up. Active Jan. 1981 thru May 1981

Erich Feldman / Guitar Synthisizer, Effects
Mark Helm / Drums & Percussion
Paul M. Kollar / Bass guitar, Taurus pedals, 12 string guitar
Elliot Weintraub / Guitar, percussion, Effects & Vox
Rodney Mapes / Vox, Saxes, Flute
Bob Wilson / Keyboards

Fourth Line-up. Active Jan. 1999 thru Present

Erich Feldman / Guitar, Effects
Miner Gleason / Violin
Mark Helm / Drums & Percussion
Paul M. Kollar / Bass guitar, Taurus pedals, 6 &12 string guitars, Cittern, Mellotron & Percussion
Elliot Weintraub / Guitar, Effects & Vox
Philip Wylie / Drums & Percussion
with: Joshua Feldman, Stan Hull, Lexie Nicole, Pat Kaltefleiter, Howard Sanford, H.P. LeFrois, Patty Kipp, Jack McCarthy and Dhora Jahr

In Nov. 1979 demo recordings of Balrog, Reluctant Bride and Parasites where completed and taken around to all the college radio stations.They were warmly received and made it into regular rotation for several months. The performing unit then began rehearsing in the hope of getting more people interested in the demo's and perhaps getting the attention of a producer or record lable. Several producers approached the band during gigs in the spring of 1980 with plans for recording a LP and traveling to Germany for six weeks but no deals were ever struck and the band remained unsigned.

Stavnicky and Phil Collins