Reflex

Defunct band from Arthur Phillips's 2009 novel The Song Is You. Lead singer and guitarist Alec Stamford attempted to go solo to indifferent success after the band fell apart.

Reflex had a song on a film soundtrack back in 1991, the pinnacle of a twelve-year run as a band with underground and college success but never arena stardom. That film and their title song for it, "Sugar Girl," were both moderate hits (the band's largest by far), but that didn't, as its management had continually promised, "bump them up to the next level." Then a child was born, and the drummer retired to become a school music teacher. Another child was born, launching the bassist into a sinecure in his father's restaurant-supply company. One more child was born, and the keyboardist-composer--musically essential for the band but so fat and ugly that he always played far in the back and was edited out of videos-retired to score for local theater. Babies promenaded along Venice Beach strapped into their fathers' chest harnesses-worn ironically, custom made with black leather and band logos and metal studs-and Reflex was no more.

See also Cait O'Dwyer.