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Songs
The first instrument I ever wanted to play was drums. I remember watching my father's band practice when I was a wee lad and thinking "I want to be a drummer". Although I always kept my fascination with drums the first instrument I was going to take up in a band was not actually an instrument at all. The first band I was in (Process) I was originally going to be the singer. Mike Schwahn was going to play the drums, Brit Murray was going to play guitar and Jason Fraser was going to (and did) play bass. Before we really got underway Brit switched to drums, Mike switched to vocals and I went to guitar (really having no idea how to play). Little did I know I was starting on a life long love/hate relationship with music. I have played guitar for most of my life at this point, but started concentrating more on the bass in the last six years. I really love the bass guitar. So much so that I am not sure if I consider myself a bass player that plays guitar or a guitar player that plays the bass. Of course when I write music I still write on a guitar. Leaving that all behind and getting down to business, this page is basically a history of bands I have played in and music I have written. Do not be shocked if you have not heard of any of these bands. None of them ever got anywhere. I will hopefully add dates soon but it is in chronological order already. I have a lot more to add and I am trying to make the audio quality better on some of these clips. Enjoy.
Process
OK. This is a band that I was in when I was in high school. The members were (from left to right) Mike Schwahn (Vocals), me (Harpsichord), Brit Murray (Drums), and Jason Fraser (Bass). Though on the song below Mike is playing guitar, Brit is singing and I am playing the drums (not very well I might add). If you click the image above you will get a bigger version of it! We really were not even half as cool as we looked. Which really says a lot considering we did not look half as cool as we thought we did. This song was recorded live at the 7th street entry. I really do not remember what year it was though. I will ask one of the other guys.
Sway
About three years after Process Mike and I started working again under the name Sway. We only recorded two songs both of which are here. I think these were recorded in Mike's basement with rented equipment. Carousel was written on the spot which should be fairly obvious if you listen to how complex it is. Turn Around was a song of mine (but not the lyrics, I had nothing to do with that!) that had been laying around. Unfortunately the only version of both of these songs that I posses is on cassette so the quality of what you are about to hear is not that great. Carousel was actually released on the Mad Radish Sampler No. 1. Honestly it fit in with the rest of the record. Trash. Again if you click on the picture above you get to see us bigger. Oh boy!
Spriggans
Moving right along. After Mike and I recorded the two songs as Sway he got the crazy idea that we should actually form a band and start playing out. This is one of the reasons I did not like Mike, he was too ambitious. So we put an ad in the City Pages for a bass player and found Josh Larson. He was the first person to answer the ad and the first person we tried out. I immediately fell in love with him and told Mike he was our man. After trying out billions and billions of drummers and not being happy with any of them, Josh and I decided to kick Mike out and I asked an old friend of mine from High School Derik Newman to play drums. Derik, Josh and I got along like a house on fire (I have always wanted to use that expression even though I am not sure if it means we got along well or we hated each other) but we could not find a singer. After trying out billions and billions of singers (I think some of the drummers reapplied as singers) we decided I would sing (only because we were tired of looking for a real singer mind you). As you are about to find out (if you dare to download the songs below) it was not one of our better ideas. These songs were recorded in my basement using a four track cassette recorder. We "released" them on a tape called "the Ambidextrous Poster Girl EP." These versions were taken from a tape so the sound quality is not very good. I hope to some day find the original four track tapes and make better copies. Consider yourself warned. The line up on these songs is Derik Newman on drums and Josh Larson on bass. I stood around and pushed the buttons. Oh, and I polished Derik's shoes. It is always important for drummers to have polished shoes. The person in the picture above is Don Osier. He is the father of a good friend of ours. Again you can click on it to see a bigger version.
Gromit
This is basically Spriggans with a guy named Ken Woods singing. Ken was a guy I met (again through the City Pages) that had a great voice (at least I thought so). We worked together for about a year until he and his girlfriend moved back to San Francisco. Everybody Came was the very first song Ken and I worked on. leaving Wrecks and Devil in the Shade were reworked Spriggans songs. Derik is playing drums on all three tracks (with nice shiny shoes I might add) and Josh is playing Bass on the second two. He wrote the bass line for Everybody Came but had moved to Nebraska by the time the song was recorded so do not blame him for the bad bass playing. Everybody Came was recorded at my friend Randy Duer's studio. That is why it sounds so good. The other two are cassettes again so the sound quality is pretty bad. Sorry, no pictures.
rpm
I used to get together with my two Martial Arts teachers, Ray Hayward and Paul Abdella, to play music. Ray plays drums and Paul plays guitar. For now we are just having fun but by this summer we are hoping to be ready to open for Buddy Guy. We'll see what happens. These songs were supposed to be from our major label debut, Blues in the Afternoon. It should have been available in early 2003. After Walmart decided not to carry the record all the major retailers decided it was too risky as well. It seems they believed Paul's guitar playing was too "explicit." I really don't know what they meant by that, but without any interest from any of the major retail chains the record label decided not to release the album. We are trying to get the rights to the original recordings back but until then, judge for yourself. these are the rough demo versions. There are a lot of mistakes, and some rough endings, but it gives you an idea of what we are into. Click on the images to see larger versions of the artwork for the album.
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| 1. Snakebite |
| 2. I Can't Explain |
| 3. 3 O'clock Shadow |
| 4. South Side Breakdown |
| 5. Cheap Cigars and Whiskey |
Some guy named micah
These "songs" are really only ideas. Not much more. It is hard to say really who (if anybody) is playing on anything that ends up in this section. Like I said, I am not sure that anything here could actually be considered a song. But it should still give you an idea of what I am doing. Keep in mind these are really rough and have a tendency to be repetitive. When I come up with an idea I usually just record it and if a change does not come immediately I will not force it. I usually spend most of my time fleshing out the main part. Well, here goes...
Still Pacific
This is the band I am in at the moment. Right now it is just me and Brad and an iPod. But big things are coming! Before it was just me and Brad it was Rebel Yellow. You can listen to Still Pacific here, or Rebel Yellow at the link below.
