My So-Called Band History

Intro

On ocassion I do get to wondering how my band history compares with the other loosers I know. I had one success, I suppose, but most of my years have been spent wishing I was in a band, or wishing I was in a band that would try to act just that much more professional. And then again, maybe I am the one who should get around to learning how to sing and play guitar, or at least practice a little more often.

Here's something of a rundown:

circa 1986

The first band I was in didn't have a name. I formed it with Joe Corica on bass and Jason Moody on drums. I have a cassette labeled "Truth/Fiction", which has one side with Jason and me jamming out some restless punk rock, and the other side with nothing more than me and a casio patched through an overdrive pedal. I thought our sound was pretty neat, but Joe wanted to start the next Joy Division, and Jason was a hardcore kid, into things like Dr. Know and DRI. Many times I would just watch them smoke pot. Needless to say, we never played out.

circa 1987

My secord band was Mice at Play, which still exerts a creative influence over me to this day. The band was composed of two University of California at Berkeley students, Michelle Morimoto on Guitar and Ivette Garay on bass; and, as the mood struck them, Mario Hernandez or Jamie McCormick from Caio Bella on drums. Mario is now a big pop star in Japan apparently, under the name BananaBubblePop or something. Years later, we used to joke that we were the Pixies before the Pixies, and managed to record a demo at Gilman Street with Marshall Stax before band politics and jealousy reared its ugly head. I got two cassette tapes worth of music and a guitarist girlfriend out of that one, for a while anyway.

During this time, I was doing four-track stuff with Joe Selby, John Burnley, and Jamie on occassion. I appeared on the Gong Show, where I sang "Yummy Yummy Yummy (I've Got Love in My Tummy)", and Jane Wiedlan saved me from getting gonged and called me a "rock god". Ask her; she still remembers.

I tried out for a band East Bay Ray was trying to start up. Strangely enough, that band became Consolidated, but he wasn't in it anymore.

Then a guy who called himself Eric Rice (he had some unpronouncable Polish surname) and I started a power pop band called Jumbo Shrimp (not to be confused with the Klaus Flouride band of the same name). Eric hadn't heard of the Misfits until I turned him onto them, and then we became b-movie horror rock and had considered the theoretical application of naming our band The Wynona Riders. I used to ride my bike through East Oakland at night to get to his place for practice. We couldn't find a drummer, which is what led to the band falling apart. We played a show at my brother Brad's apartment with Steve Lieker on drums, and that's about all that came out of that.

circa 1990

By now we've made it up to the first incarnation of The Wynona Riders, which came about from a musicians wanted ad I answered, in the newspaper no less! The original members, being Eric Matson (guitar), Ron Murphy (bass), and Jim something-or-other (drums), practiced in a Livermore storage space and wanted to call the band Miss Conduct. Fortunately I conspired with the Powers That Be at Gilman Street to list us on the bill of our first show there as the Wynona Riders. The band went through a fair amount of line-up changes until I had gotten Richie Bucher on bass and Dave E.C. on drums. We recorded the Some Enchanted Evening 7-inch for Lookout!, made some demos, made big plans for a full-length album (even then called JD Salinger), and then broke up when Mr. Matson said he didn't feel like being in the band anymore. I had humorously predicted that the band would fall apart in October of 1992. I wasn't too far off.

One wonders how I could forget about TOFU, me on guitar, Joe Corica on Bass, Michelle Morimoto on drums, and the incomparable Mike Stand on Vocals. TOFU was our snide, sloppy and ill-advised answer to Fugazi. We had the nerve to play a few times, including Gilman Street and a few backyard bar-be-ques. No one could ask for a better friend than MiKe Stand }:p . Doesn't he own gilman street now?

1993

I went on to form Here Kitty Kitty with Richie on bass, and Craig White playing the drums. Joe Selby was supposed to join us, but he had better things to do. As I recall, an earlier version had my brother Mark on drums, and we played a gig at a pizza parlor. The band was my first clumsy foray into playing guitar and singing for a trio. We got an interesting record out of it, "Kiss Me You Fool", but the band fell apart because Craig didn't like my (lack of) playing. With a sound like Jawbreaker meets the Violent Femmes, we went on tour, believe it or not. Made it all the way to Atlanta, Georgia, and then our booker flaked, and we had to truck it back to Cali in 36 hours flat. Note how I deftly gloss over having our van inspected at the Mexican Border for drugs, while Craig had a joint in his shaving kit. Fun.

1994

Simply to put it in context with all my other comings and goings, I ran for Mayor of Alameda, California, and got 738 votes. That got me a story published in Cometbus.

1995

Back home, I used the rationalization of spare Green Day money laying about to convince Lookout! Records to release a Wynona Riders retrospective. Originally, it was going to be a remix of our origninal tapes, but Dave, bless his soul, had been talking to Eric Matson, the original guitarist. and we got back together with him for the recording. We had slated East Bay Ray of the Dead Kennedys to play guitar, and Lookout paid him for two practices. They also paid for us recording the album twice and mixing it twice, both times because we didn't like the results. The end-product is a masterpiece, of course, but unfortunately, Eric bailed on us again. This time we were semi-prepared and recruited Joes Selby to take up the guitar. We went on a nationwide tour. We recorded an ep for What Else? Records under a pseudonym, Nation of Wynona. We played SxSW. We recorded another album. We broke up.... well we broke up and then recorded another album. Such is punk rock.

circa 1996-1997

Joe went along with me and we formed Toyboat (not to be mistaken for the Boston Toyboat). We recorded a full-length on vinyl for What Else? Records. Let's just say our bassist Adam Turk, and our Drummer, Julie Rose, had a difficult time playing nice with each other, and both left the band under murky circumstances. Matt Kilborne took both their places. While we appeared to make further musical plans, romance got the better of me, and I broke up the band to move to New York with my then-sweetheart (let's try not to get into how I never thought I'd have to use the word "then" when referring to this "sweetheart". Such are relationships that travel thousands of miles to stay together).

The End of the Millenium

New York did not prove to be a musician-friendly city for me. Perpetually bandless, I had a lot of false starts before I got together with James Kreeger(sic) and Sebastian Black to form The Starkweather Conspiracy, which was only a working title anyway. It was supposed to be goth metal. Next!

In the last few months of 2001, I hallucinated that I was in a band called Rope Trick with someone named Sara Ross on bass and another fellow named Mauricio Carey on drums. Kurt Cobain lent me his guitar and I lost it. My therapist says I shouldn't dwell too long on this one.

All this time I've been making demo tapes, and I've released some of it as Dalliant. Some people like it, others can take or leave it...all I can say is that it's got that retro sound The Kids™ are into these days. I also composed a station jingle for WLIR that won me a trip to see U2 in Ireland. Yes, I still listen to U2.

Nowadays

As luck would have it, I came across two ads on craigslist, one needing a singer/guitarist for a postpunk powerpop trio, the other a cover band looking for a singer. The latter, 200 Proof, took me in with open arms and an endless supply of beer, and the former also seems to dig what I am doing, although we've yet to have a name. So far, they both still like me. The rest remains to be seen.

I'm also a French Disco Star, but we can discuss this later...

Tomorrow will never be the same