"Acts of Man"

This was supposed to be my first solo record, but it fell apart as it kept stretching on and on and on and on. It just never got finished. I think it was more important to me to WRITE it and do some of the work than it was to actually produce a finished product. The songs, for the most part, are average at best. I was trying to write on my own for the first time in my life, and it wasn't going well. Big learning experience.

Part of the reason this never got finished is that, people don't understand this, it used to cost aLOT more to do a record. When I started this project (somewhere between 1996 and 1998) it was still perfectly acceptable for a local, small-time, indie act to release their material on audio-cassette. CD was around, and was the industry standard for mainstream acts, but cassette had not yet died. As such, CDs were expensive to make--especially if you were a high school student trying to put together his first project on your dad's dime. I knew cassette was dying, and I wanted to do a CD, which is probably why this burned out. As much ambition as I had, the reality just didn't add up to finishing the thing. I didn't have the money or the interest in the material to do it. I may as well have just stood on my porch and shouted the songs at people.

As I said, the material wasn't that good, either. I still think there are a couple of interesting ideas there...but the lyrics were amateurish and dull. I was trying WAY too hard to write Christian material, and it showed. I don't think I've ever tried to salvage anything from this tape...though there was a LOT of work done. I'd recorded it with the help of the following people, who sacrificed their time, resources, and in some cases money to help me out with a complete misfire...and my thanks goes to:

Tony Gambill, who was engineering most of it.
Rich Goodman, who engineered the rest and played some guitar.
David Knobel, who drummed and drummed and drummed...and is still drumming.
Jason Soroski, who played some bass.
Rich Guideswitz (?), who played some awesome 12-string.
Beth Ann Crouse (then called Beth Ann Puckett) who sang on a track.

Kind of a shame I never did anything with it. I'll probably post a few samples in the "downloads" section one of these days. It was about a two-year process that I completely abandoned, and I feel bad that I wasted the time of those six people, plus their families...and everyone that I forced to listen to rough mixes and so on. Don't get me wrong, the SOUND was great. Tony and/or Rich really knew what they were doing...I just wound up not liking the songs enough to continue.

"Blameless"

"Blameless" would have followed "Acts of Man" had I ever finished...well...either one.  Actually, I ended up harvesting a lot of the track-list for "Blameless" to make up my first REAL solo-record ("Grounds"). This one never really seriously made it to the recording stage. I demoed some stuff and gave copies to Dave Knobel, hoping to enlist his drumming. I did one serious session with Tony Gambill at the church we both went to at the time (the now-defunct Parkwood Christian Church in Maryland Heights, MO). Recorded acoustic guitar and vocals for 12 or 13 songs in one day. Just sat and did sort of a "Storytellers" thing. Gave that to a couple of people and...well, I'm not really sure what happened that I didn't finish it. I think I always meant to, but life got serious (college and whatnot) and I just moved on.

I gigged pretty significantly around that time and I played a bunch of the songs from this project. I kept digging them, and I kept playing them. This one didn't quite fade away on me like "Acts of Man" had. At some point, I realized that I could fairly quickly and inexpensively make a record on my own terms with digital software that had become affordable since the "Acts of Man" days. When I went to make that, I went back to the list that was going to appear on this record, and that made up a large portion of the track-list of "Grounds." At the time, I was even planning on still calling it "Blameless," but eventually I realized there'd been a significant split between the two worlds, and even "Grounds" wasn't going to keep fully representing where I was headed (and where I now AM)...so I renamed it. It became "Grounds." It would never have been if not for that one serious session in the church.

One day, I plan on getting my hands on Tony's master-copy of this stuff and properly mastering it for an internet release. It'd be interesting. I'm just not sure how much he'll want me to pay him for it! (Tony's moved on to being a very accomplished engineer, and now has a good head for business...back when we did this, it was wing-and-a-prayer...but now there are papers with lines to sign on them, alongside words like "intellectual property rights" and "fairly compensated." ...and good for him! I'm actually pretty proud of the guy.)

union jack

Part of me STILL misses this band. This was my first real, decently successful project. Made up of myself on bass and vocals, Marc Schneider on guitar and vocals, and Mike Hutter on the drums, union jack (yes, it's supposed to be lowercase) was a really good trio. We made a big noise, and it's a shame that egos got in the way and ended not only the band, but for a long while my friendship with those guys (though we're all on good terms now). This is all discussed elsewhere in my "bio" pages on the site, but the short version is that I had a big head, I was pissed off, and I was newly converted to Christianity...bad combination when you add in teenage hormones and guitars.

union jack recorded extensively in basements across the Midwest, and gigged in St. Louis fairly regularly...but we only did one real demo of five songs. I wish we had done more. We were good. I still listen to the demo now and again, and pending Marc and Mike's approval, I hope to post it in the "Downloads" section one day. But, I guess I should get them copies of it before I do...and I'm not even sure where Hutter is at the moment. It might be harder than I expect.

The demo itself, titled "SEXATNOONTAXES" (a palindrome we thought was awesome) was recorded by my friend Jimmy Manno in his old band's rehearsal space (they were called Spoondrift, and I loved them). We did five tunes I've never really done anything else with, since Marc really wrote them. I did, however, recently lift a few lines from one of Marc's songs on that demo for "Looking Back" on my "Things I Meant to Say" record. They fit, and they haven't been used in like 12 years, so I stole them outright. (He has a credit in the liner notes, though).

I think we did the whole thing in three sessions. One for music, two for vocals--mostly because it would have been a bad idea at that stage to have Marc and me in the same room doing vocal takes at the same time. The signs of the end of the group were definitely amplified during those sessions. I stand by the adage: "If you want to know if your band has problems--record." This was to be our swan song. We got it done, and blew apart. We might have gotten t-shirts after that, though...it's hard to remember. 

Uncle Dick - "One"

"One" was, suffice to say, Uncle Dick's first recording. Once again, I found myself working with Tony Gambill as engineer, who was right on the cusp of becoming a professional, and was still tweaking his process, so he just charged us cost. Sucker. (Uhh...I mean, "Thanks, Tony!") As I’ve said before...if you want to know if your band has problems--record. This session brought a LOT of problems to light, but we'll get to that later.

We did 12 songs, 11 of them our own, and one a cover of the title track from the movie "That Thing You Do" (which EVERYONE does now...but we did it FIRST). At the time, that was pretty much our entire repertoire. There are things we definitely should have done differently--chief among them, we should have waited another week to do the vocals, until Dave was over his cold. Could've used a little more bass-drum, but that's my fault for approving it, not Tony's for mixing it. All in all, though, I like it. I listened to it not too long ago. It's fun, and it's got a good edge to it. Hopefully a future db.com download.

In the studio, it kind of brought to light some personal disagreements, though. The drummer (Thatcher Bell) and guitarist (Blue Tattoo's own Chris Teague) kind of developed a rift when Thatcher--in the interest of progress, to be fair--kind of started stating some of Chris's mistakes in a very direct way. (ie - Instead of saying, "I think you can do better," he'd say, "Well, you need to redo that.") It was a small thing, but sometimes the small things can be the most nagging (no offense to our midget readers). It wasn't too long thereafter that we went our separate ways with Thatcher.

I think of that recording session in two forms. One I'm proud of, the other irritated me. The first day we went in to record, we had everything DONE except for the vocals, which we'd have to do at a later date. We'd knocked out pretty much the whole thing in a day, and we were happy...then we got sad. There was a problem with the gear. A lot of stuff was just GONE. So, deflated, we set out to redo it...and it got irritating. What we'd done in one day before now took us MONTHS. Errors abounded in our playing, tensions were wearing thin, and our hearts just weren't in it. We got through it, and we got it done...I just wish it'd left less of a bad taste in my mouth. Ehh...can't win 'em all.

After Thatcher's departure, we rejoined with our original drummer (and friend) Tim Heeley, and for a time all was well...but the deathblow to the band was just around the corner when Chris Teague would announce his departure. You can read about the last gasps of the band either on my bio page...or you can read the summary of the four-song EP (below) and see me tear that to shreds. I'd recommend both...but if you only go with one, I think the EP thing is more fun to read.

Uncle Dick EP

Once Tim Heeley rejoined Uncle Dick, things were looking up. The band sounded good, and we delivered consistently. We even did our first (and only) acoustic show. Then, Chris left the band to pursue, as he put it, "a normal life." Part of me knew right then that we should have just stopped...but hindsight not having been a factor, we limped toward the grave.

A guy named Jim Baker was selected to take the spot of guitarist. Due to sharing a name with a disgraced TV evangelist, Jim usually went by his middle name (Jimmy August), but for the sake of accuracy, the truth of the matter is that his name's Baker. To his credit, he never tried to steal even one penny of my money--at least not in the name of the Lord. Also to his credit, he didn't mean to kill the band...he was just the wrong guy to fill Chris's gigantic shoes--seriously, his feet are huge.

Jimmy was a metal player. We were not a metal band. We never should have convinced ourselves that we could make it work. You can change your hair, you can change your clothes, you can change your opinion, and you can make change for a 20...but you can't change how you play, and I'm not sure Jim even tried to. That's not to say he's a bad guitarist. He's good. Very good. He knows a lot of stuff, and has some interesting ideas. He just didn't fit...and like all things, that came through clearly in the recording sessions.

I knew we were in trouble when he asked to do his parts with the rest of the band out of the studio. I don't know why we agreed to that...but we all went home, and suddenly there were a bunch of guitar tracks laid down that were--let's just say "busy." I wrote the songs--every note--and I didn't recognize them from hearing the guitar parts. I understand wanting to give a song your own flair...but the guy just flat-out rewrote them. And the kicker is, none of us said anything about it...we just copied it and started handing it out--completely alienating our punk and hard rock fans.

I don't have a copy of it. I threw all of my copies away. You'll probably never see it on the "Downloads" page of this site. I just don't want to remember Uncle Dick that way--as a mistake I made. (You'll notice that I don't blame Jim. I blame myself, and to a larger extent my brother who also knew better, even before I did). It was four songs done in two days...and I wish I had those days to do over again. I kind of feel that way about that entire year. We just should've made better decisions.

Time makes fools of us all...or at least of me, Dave, and Tim.