9.21.99 COLUMBUS (Associated Press)

In a painfully necessary action today, Walt Meadornack was forced to kick everyone out of the music supergroup "Walt Meadornack & His All Stars," according to a press release sent out early this morning.

A failed musical project on behalf of every member was the reason given for the sudden decision to break up the group.

"We all had a simple job to do," said Meadornack, who included himself in the list of members to be kicked out. "Rules were set and no one pulled through. I'm sorry to have to do this."

"Disaster Composers," an experiment designed to test the musical ability of each All-Star, is the job in question. Each member was called to compose an original song for the rest of the group to perform. In four months of apathetic confusion, not a single piece was performed.

"This has made me finally realize what a bunch of idiots we really are," Meadornack said from his latest residence in Pittsburgh. "Who did we think we were kidding?"

The group consisted of thirteen musicians who had been playing together professionally for the last four years. They somehow managed to put together over 30 albums in that short time, notorious for reckless noise and almost skilless execution of melodies.

When asked to comment, members of the All-Stars didn't agree on the decision.

"I don't know what I'm going to do with my life now," cried a devastated Charles Lift. "Walt ripped my bleeding heart out with a spade today."

"I was really looking forward to our Russian Absurdist Literature project we had slated for this fall." Lift played guitar on such landmark projects as "Goonies" and "Warren Piece."

More outraged at the decision was old knob-turner Robbie Hartferson. Hartferson's input has been at a minimum for over a year but he's remained a core member through correspondence and the fabled "Wandering Tape."

"It's classic Walt Meadornack for you," he sneered. "Make a bunch of useless rules at everyone's expense. Why can't we develop at our own damn pace? I'd rather die than try and force good music."

Hartferson had not yet begun work for his Disaster Composition.

Jimmy Schwayder, the mysterious silent All-Star, pulled a machine gun on a reporter later this morning at Dulles International Airport in Washington, D.C.

He gave no comment and was arrested by airport security.

Some had more reason to be upset than others. In a press conference at noon today, group philosopher Slippy Breadstick stepped forward with the news that at least three of the group's members had indeed finished composing songs before the decision was made to cut them all.

Breadstick presented documents and audio tapes proving the completion of compositions by himself, Donnie Maleriamax, and recluse Poppie Asdersonk.

"It's pretty obvious to me that Poppie and Donnie and me were wrongly kicked out of the band," said Breadstick. "We didn't break the rules and I think Walt is hiding behind them because he doesn't want to admit that he was just getting sick of us. His best friends."

Breadstick, who worked himself into a sobbing fit, was helped down from the podium by longtime cohort Stu Exsavieres.

Evidence from an anonymous source also suggests that Meadornack himself had finished composing a song. Its form, scribbled pencil-drawings apperently instructing players how to perform the music, was rather unclear to a group of expert musicians at the Julliard School of Performing Arts.

"This picture here seems to show a man wearing a punching glove playing a violin," commented Dr. Frederick Dublinski, a 20-year professor of classical music.

"I think that's a monkey throwing his turds at someone," argued Prof. Julius Miller of the Silent Acting department.

No matter what the manner of his composition, it seems that Walt Meadornack made his decision in haste and many All-Stars were kept in the dark about it.

The All-Stars have been communicating over very far distances recently and just got through a rather uninvolved summer recording session that yielded five albums. Four of them featured only two musicians--Walt Meadornack and Donnie Maleriamax. The other, "Keyboards Suck," saw the two All-Stars graced with the presence of Bobbie LeShmaltfe.

"The stuff we've just finished doing isn't really so bad compared to all our other crap," said Maleriamax. "I guess some of the butthole songs on "Sweetness" were a little crude, but I mean it's not like our music was hurting because Naveen wasn't showing up."

Naveen Pai was part of 1997's Great Dispersing, in which the group exploded in all directions. Pai ended up in California, Maleriamax in Boston, Meadornack in Pittsburgh, and Hartferson in Texas.

Last year saw an attempt to cross the boundaries of space and time by means of the U.S. Postal Service through a project called the "Wandering Tape." After roughly eight months of successful passing of the time-lapsed collaboration, the tape suddenly disappeared and was never heard from again.

Not all All-Stars have strong feelings about today's announcement, though.

When contacted at his rural home in Ohio, an uncomprehendable ex-lead singer Burt Schmartzky kept his comments short.

"I got your Walt Meadornack All-Stars right here in my pants."