This past Saturday morning started out like any other Saturday morning does. Kimberly went to walk with her mom while I fed Cohen his breakfast and we played for a little while. After she got home, I handed the little guy off to her and headed to hockey.
I had no idea that I was about to have quite possibly the best Saturday night of my life.
In between games at hockey, I routinely check my phone. This week was no different. Only this time, I had a text message from Jason (you know...from the Anthem blogs). It stated:
FYI there's gonna be a squad reunion tonight in ATL
WHAT?
(back story)
You may or may not know. I mentioned in a previous blog post that we (members of Anthem) were big fans of Squad Five-O. I may have understated that a bit. Squad Five-O is one of my two absolute, hands-down, favorite bands of all time (the other is Five Iron Frenzy). I first saw Squad when I was seventeen, and over the next 6 years, I saw them about 30-40 more times. No exaggerating. I am really pretty sure I saw them that many times. They broke up about five years ago, and I was pretty sure it was for real over, and I'd never see them again.
Squad Five-O had (at one point) five members. Jeff Fortson sang. His brother John Fortson played bass. Adam Garbinski played guitar. Dave Petersen (formerly of Blaster the Rocketboy) played drums, and Kris Klein played second guitar.
After they broke up, John moved to Orlando and joined a band called Gasoline Heart with Louis Defabrizio. Adam and Dave started their own band. Jeff went back to school.
When Jason and Brent moved to Orlando, they ran into John one night, and they became friends. Jason eventually joined Gasoline heart for a while.
(flash back to present times)
When I called Jason back after his text on Saturday, he said that Gasoline Heart was on their way to play a show in Marietta, and they were picking up Jeff on the way. I later learned that Gasoline Heart was (kind of) breaking up, and this was a last horrah before Louis moved to New York. They had apparently been practicing a few Squad Five-O songs, and were planning on bringing Jeff and playing the SFO songs that night.
Okay, cool, I thought. Even if it's not a full on Squad Five-O lineup, it'll still be nice to see John and Jeff play together...plus I like Gasoline Heart, anyway. This will definitely be a good show.
Kimberly and I dropped Cohen off at my parents' to spend the night, and up to Marietta we went. When we walked into the place (The Local...a bar within another bar), I saw John. Then I saw Jeff. This is really happening!, I thought. Kimberly and I were grabbing a bite to eat within the restaurant part of the place, and we could see through the windows into stage area. I saw Louis. I saw a few other people I recognized. Then I saw...Adam Garbinski? And who's that with him...is that...Dave Petersen?!?!
Holy crap! Squad Five-O is really here!
We ran into a few old friends and caught up with them through the opening act (who, I'm pretty sure, was originally supposed to be the headlining act), and then Gasoline Heart was set to go.
I've seen Gasoline Heart a few times. They're really good. This time was different, though. They were GREAT. When they started playing, I realized that Adam and Dave were actually playing in GH. They weren't in the band in previous times I saw them, but hey, I'm not complaining. They ran through about 7 or 8 songs, then Louis said "Hey Jeff, come on up." He then addressed us and said "We've got a little surprise for you".
Then Squad Five-O played.
We were pressed up against the stage, because there was no way we were going to stand in the back for this one. It was amazing. Squad only played two of their original songs, then they played 3 covers. It was intense, though. I had forgotten why I loved this band so much in the first place! So much energy! So much fun! So much interaction with the crowd! Jeff spent the first song on top of the crowd (there are few times that I feel "crowd surfing" is acceptable, but in my mind, Jeff will ALWAYS be allowed).
I felt like I was 19 again. I acted like I was 19 again. I jumped. I clapped. I screamed. I sang along at the top of my lungs. By the time the show was over, Kimberly and I had both lost our voices.
Since Brent knows John from Orlando, we walked behind the stage when the show was over. We shook hands, exchanged hugs, and took pictures. We were about to leave, and I mentioned to Jeff, "Dude, how old is your daughter now?" He replied "She'll be eleven soon". ELEVEN! I've seen Jeff's daughter once. She was a newborn! We talked a little about the old days. We talked about The Pteradactyl club (where we were first introduced to Squad) and Spudgun (who Squad used to play with all the time).
Then, we were about to leave again. We walked out the back door. Kimberly and Cyndi went back in to go to the bathroom, and John came out and we chatted for a few minutes. When the girls came back, we just stayed out there and talked to John (and Dave showed up and hung out too). We talked about our kids; about how his daughter loves trucks and didn't want him to leave to come play the show today; about how Cohen skipped "mama" and just calls Kimberly "mom". We talked in depth and at length about the plotline and characters of LOST.
Basically, we hung out like we were old friends. And in a way, I guess we were. I never knew them in the past, and they never knew me. I felt like I knew them, though. I have felt like I have known them for the past thirteen years.
I'd like to thank four people in specific for making this possible.
1. Darrel Boyer - He took us to our first Squad Five-O show in December of 1996. Coincidentally, he was at the show this past Saturday night. It was awesome catching up with him.
2. Brent - for meeting John in Orlando. If he didn't know John, I still would have been starstruck that night, and Kimberly and I would have sheepishly walked away after the show, having not talked to my teen idols.
3. Jason - If he wasn't looking out for us, I would have never known that the show was even happening.
4. Kimberly - At first, I was worried she wouldn't be cool with going out late for the show. Fortunately, I neglected to remember that not only does she miss going to shows just as much as I do, she also loves Squad Five-O too. I think she had just as much fun as I did.
Thanks everybody. I'll never forget it.
Monday, March 22, 2010
Friday, March 12, 2010
The ever-progressing musical career of Daniel Dorris, Part IV
(continued) After about 5 or six months, Mike and I decided that it would probably just be best to move on and find a new drummer. Re-Enter Goose.
Right around this time, Lily was pregnant with Reese (their third). They already had twins, Ty and Nolan. Mike and (his lady) Hilary had one boy, Holden. By that point, we had a pretty standard process for dealing with events such as new babies, as far as participation in a band was concerned. When a baby was born, we would take about a month-long hiatus for the new daddy to get acclimated with his newly altered homelife, then once a certain comfort level was reached, we'd jump back to it.
The only problem with this is that really only one band "jumped back to it". Thank goodness for Mike's persistence. The Last Chucks got back to work (or play, I suppose), and Santa Maria never really recovered. It wasn't really because of the new baby, though. Back in Anthem, it was hard to get 5 guys together to practice regularly, and we were all young adults with no children back then. Add about 4 or 5 years to that, and it's even harder. Jobs got busier, lives became more hectic, schedules didn't coordinate well, and it's just darn near impossible to get 5 guys together to practice with any kind of regularity. It's a shame, too. Some of those Santa Maria songs are awesome, and we just flat out stopped playing them. So, after over a year and a half of preparation, Santa Maria ended in a whimper...having never played a show. We did record a 4 song demo. It will be filed in the "Songs I Play On" playlist on my iPod, along with Anthem and The Last Chucks. I will remember it fondly.
As I said though, The Last Chucks were back at it. When Goose joined The Chucks, we started working on only four songs. These were songs that we were planning on recording, so we wanted to get those down first before working on anything else.
I'll be completely honest with you. When Goose joined The Last Chucks, I knew he was a good drummer. I had played with the guy for about ten years at this point. But here's the thing...Brian (Goose's predecessor) was a great drummer. As hard as these songs were to learn on Bass, they were even harder on drums. I was really hoping Goose would be able to keep up, but I won't lie...I was worried. As it turns out...I was worried over absolutely nothing. Goose came in and not only surprised me, but amazed me with how fast he picked up the songs. As an example...we have a song called Spider. It took me about 3-4 weeks worth of practices to learn completely. It took Goose about an hour.
In May of 2008, we went into the studio (read: Jason's mom's house) to record. Oh, I didn't mention...when Jason (formerly of Anthem, for those keeping score at home) went to Orlando, his main objective was attending Full Sail University, which specialized in entertainment, music, recording engineering, etc. By the time he finished, he had become quite the producer (or recording engineer, or whatever he's called). We had him come up for a weekend to record the aforementioned four songs. The weekend went relatively well. We got three of the songs finished. *Side note: Jason also recorded the previously mentioned Santa Maria 4-song demo.
One of the songs, Bluebird Revisited, found its way onto the Diner Junkie Records compilation, Open 24 Hours. Another song, "What Can Bring A Smile" will be on a compilation cd which will be released in a month or so.
After recording, we spent the next year and a half working on the rest of the songs. There were more breaks over the course of the year, as Kimberly and I had our first baby, Cohen. In September of 2009, Mike and Hilary welcomed their second boy, Jack. In December, Goose and Lily were blessed for an all-too-short time with Evie (whose story you can read at bilslandfamily.blogspot.com ...again, no html...just copy and paste). Point is, we all had important things in our lives. Things that were/are more important than playing in a band, regardless of how good the band is.
So here we are. It's 2010, and we're still doing it. Well, by "still doing it", I mean we're getting together once a week to take out our frustrations on our instruments. The songs are still great. We're pretty dang good at them, being that we've been playing them for a number of years now.
Mike and I have different philosophies on a myriad of things, but one of the differences applicable to this story is the emphasis placed on recording versus playing live. In an ideal world, we'd be doing both. That's not the case, however. Mike loves the recording process...the ins and outs of it...the retakes, the tweaking, the scientific approach. I'm more of a live show kind of guy, myself. I love nothing more than to get up on a stage and play for an hour (or longer, as was the case in most of Anthem's shows). I don't want people to hear my band play. I want them to see us play.
Problem is...we're doing neither. Scheduling and money are hurdles as far as recording is concerned. I've been pushing Mike to book some shows, and hopefully it will happen sooner rather than later, but up to now, it hasn't.
All in all, I'm still satisfied with where my musical career has brought me so far. I have a wonderful wife and son. I have a job that I (most of the time) love. AND, I still get to play music regularly. My personal income from music is a total of $150 over the past twelve years (the Anthem fund was divided by three and doled out when Jason and Brent split...sorry guys). As Buckcherry states, though, "I didn't do it for money. I did it all for free. I did it all to fill the f***ing hole inside of me".
In addition to the weekly play-along with The Chucks, I have also recently taken up playing in the youth praise and worship band at Central Baptist Church. I started out in the summer of 2009 on bass, just to see how it'd go. After a chain of events, I now find myself playing guitar temporarily. I initially just thought it'd be fun to go in and play around with some simple songs once a week. Here lately though, I have taken it a lot more seriously. I have had a revelation of sorts, and I now realize that I am taking part in facilitating an atmosphere of worship for the students in attendance. Things have been going much better since that realization. I feel like my playing now has more of a purpose than simply entertaining myself once a week.
That, my friends, is the short version of my musical life from 1998-2010. I hope (but doubt) that you have found it as interesting to read as I have found it to remember. Maybe in 2022 I'll post another four-parter updating my faithful few readers on what has transpired in the subsequent 12 years. Until then, I'll continue to post things that make me mad/make me laugh on my one square acre of the internet.
Oh, and I think I'll start telling some of those war stories, too.
Right around this time, Lily was pregnant with Reese (their third). They already had twins, Ty and Nolan. Mike and (his lady) Hilary had one boy, Holden. By that point, we had a pretty standard process for dealing with events such as new babies, as far as participation in a band was concerned. When a baby was born, we would take about a month-long hiatus for the new daddy to get acclimated with his newly altered homelife, then once a certain comfort level was reached, we'd jump back to it.
The only problem with this is that really only one band "jumped back to it". Thank goodness for Mike's persistence. The Last Chucks got back to work (or play, I suppose), and Santa Maria never really recovered. It wasn't really because of the new baby, though. Back in Anthem, it was hard to get 5 guys together to practice regularly, and we were all young adults with no children back then. Add about 4 or 5 years to that, and it's even harder. Jobs got busier, lives became more hectic, schedules didn't coordinate well, and it's just darn near impossible to get 5 guys together to practice with any kind of regularity. It's a shame, too. Some of those Santa Maria songs are awesome, and we just flat out stopped playing them. So, after over a year and a half of preparation, Santa Maria ended in a whimper...having never played a show. We did record a 4 song demo. It will be filed in the "Songs I Play On" playlist on my iPod, along with Anthem and The Last Chucks. I will remember it fondly.
As I said though, The Last Chucks were back at it. When Goose joined The Chucks, we started working on only four songs. These were songs that we were planning on recording, so we wanted to get those down first before working on anything else.
I'll be completely honest with you. When Goose joined The Last Chucks, I knew he was a good drummer. I had played with the guy for about ten years at this point. But here's the thing...Brian (Goose's predecessor) was a great drummer. As hard as these songs were to learn on Bass, they were even harder on drums. I was really hoping Goose would be able to keep up, but I won't lie...I was worried. As it turns out...I was worried over absolutely nothing. Goose came in and not only surprised me, but amazed me with how fast he picked up the songs. As an example...we have a song called Spider. It took me about 3-4 weeks worth of practices to learn completely. It took Goose about an hour.
In May of 2008, we went into the studio (read: Jason's mom's house) to record. Oh, I didn't mention...when Jason (formerly of Anthem, for those keeping score at home) went to Orlando, his main objective was attending Full Sail University, which specialized in entertainment, music, recording engineering, etc. By the time he finished, he had become quite the producer (or recording engineer, or whatever he's called). We had him come up for a weekend to record the aforementioned four songs. The weekend went relatively well. We got three of the songs finished. *Side note: Jason also recorded the previously mentioned Santa Maria 4-song demo.
One of the songs, Bluebird Revisited, found its way onto the Diner Junkie Records compilation, Open 24 Hours. Another song, "What Can Bring A Smile" will be on a compilation cd which will be released in a month or so.
After recording, we spent the next year and a half working on the rest of the songs. There were more breaks over the course of the year, as Kimberly and I had our first baby, Cohen. In September of 2009, Mike and Hilary welcomed their second boy, Jack. In December, Goose and Lily were blessed for an all-too-short time with Evie (whose story you can read at bilslandfamily.blogspot.com ...again, no html...just copy and paste). Point is, we all had important things in our lives. Things that were/are more important than playing in a band, regardless of how good the band is.
So here we are. It's 2010, and we're still doing it. Well, by "still doing it", I mean we're getting together once a week to take out our frustrations on our instruments. The songs are still great. We're pretty dang good at them, being that we've been playing them for a number of years now.
Mike and I have different philosophies on a myriad of things, but one of the differences applicable to this story is the emphasis placed on recording versus playing live. In an ideal world, we'd be doing both. That's not the case, however. Mike loves the recording process...the ins and outs of it...the retakes, the tweaking, the scientific approach. I'm more of a live show kind of guy, myself. I love nothing more than to get up on a stage and play for an hour (or longer, as was the case in most of Anthem's shows). I don't want people to hear my band play. I want them to see us play.
Problem is...we're doing neither. Scheduling and money are hurdles as far as recording is concerned. I've been pushing Mike to book some shows, and hopefully it will happen sooner rather than later, but up to now, it hasn't.
All in all, I'm still satisfied with where my musical career has brought me so far. I have a wonderful wife and son. I have a job that I (most of the time) love. AND, I still get to play music regularly. My personal income from music is a total of $150 over the past twelve years (the Anthem fund was divided by three and doled out when Jason and Brent split...sorry guys). As Buckcherry states, though, "I didn't do it for money. I did it all for free. I did it all to fill the f***ing hole inside of me".
In addition to the weekly play-along with The Chucks, I have also recently taken up playing in the youth praise and worship band at Central Baptist Church. I started out in the summer of 2009 on bass, just to see how it'd go. After a chain of events, I now find myself playing guitar temporarily. I initially just thought it'd be fun to go in and play around with some simple songs once a week. Here lately though, I have taken it a lot more seriously. I have had a revelation of sorts, and I now realize that I am taking part in facilitating an atmosphere of worship for the students in attendance. Things have been going much better since that realization. I feel like my playing now has more of a purpose than simply entertaining myself once a week.
That, my friends, is the short version of my musical life from 1998-2010. I hope (but doubt) that you have found it as interesting to read as I have found it to remember. Maybe in 2022 I'll post another four-parter updating my faithful few readers on what has transpired in the subsequent 12 years. Until then, I'll continue to post things that make me mad/make me laugh on my one square acre of the internet.
Oh, and I think I'll start telling some of those war stories, too.
Thursday, March 11, 2010
The ever-progressing musical career of Daniel Dorris, Part III
(Continued) We played our last show in July of 2005.
We had tons of friends come watch our last show. One of these friends was Mike Cammarata, of the Last Chucks. He made mention that night that he was thinking about starting a second band of his own...a more straight-forward rock and roll type project. Since Jason and Brent were moving to Orlando, maybe Goose, Doug, and I should look into this with him. We said sure. Then nothing happened with this project for about a year and a half.
February 2006: I had not played with a band for almost seven months. Despite a healthy marriage, a good job, and an overall happy life, I still felt incomplete. I had played in a band almost constantly since I was seventeen, and now I had nothing. Then one day, I was rooting around on MySpace, and I saw a bulletin that my friend Mike from The Chucks was looking for a bass player.
Going back to the paragraph where I mentioned playing bass in the church band...I didn't mention the fact that I absolutely loved playing bass. In the last few years of Anthem, I had secret fantasies that included Doug having to leave the band for some reason, and me having to fill in at bass. Nothing against Doug, mind you. He's a good friend and a good bass player. I was just jealous.
Back to the story: I answered Mike's bulletin, borrowed a bass, and headed over to his house to practice with him and Brian Cook (Beaker) on drums. Things went well, I suppose, as they liked me enough to let me join. We spent the next few months getting me up to speed on the songs, then started playing out again.
We did a little traveling. We played on the Clemson campus once in South Carolina. We played in Birmingham, Alabama with The Queers (an honor for any fan of punk music). Mostly though, we practiced. The Last Chucks had changed since they had played with Anthem early on. The songs were more complex. They required a lot of thought, talent, and practice to play. Learning and playing the songs was somewhat of a puzzle - a challenge...and I welcomed it. It boosted my skill level exponentially more than I ever would have had the wherewithal or the desire to do myself. I will forever give Mike Cammarata credit for being probably the best songwriter I know personally, if not the best songwriter I know of, period.
December 2006: On a whim one night, I decided that Goose, Doug, and I needed to get together to play some Anthem songs in my basement. The songs were too fun to just let disappear...they needed to be played. We set up in our living room downstairs and realized that we didn't have any microphones. It occurred to me that I had taken all of them to Mike's house for Last Chucks stuff. This ended up being a good opportunity to call Mike and see if he wanted to bring a couple of them over, along with his guitar, and we'd see about this side project we had talked about a year and a half prior.
Things went smashingly. That night, I pulled out a song I had written and we ran through it. Everything felt good. The song (Looking For My Place) was catchy, and we decided to build off of it. Mike got to work, this time writing straight-forward rock songs. It was a great experience. I had my technichal band in The Last Chucks, and I also had my fun rock band, which was untitled for about a year. Naming bands is no easy task, my friend.
After a few months, we (the new, yet-unnamed band) had a solid set's worth of songs, and we heard that Brent may be moving back from Orlando. Mike had been singing up to that point, but he really didn't want to be the frontman of this band. He just wanted to play guitar and be in the background. We decided that Brent would fit right in to this group upon his moving back. If only we had a name of this band, things would be complete.
I'd love to tell you we have some cool story behind the name we came up with, but the truth is, there isn't. After spending literally hours trying to come up with something on multiple occasions over the course of a year, we discussed and discarded such names as The Blue Jeans, The Ruckus, and a slew of others that I fail to remember at this point. Finally, someone (I'm pretty sure it was Mike) threw out "Santa Maria". Some of us loved it, some of us thought it was okay, and some of us didn't really care anymore. Point is, none of us hated it, so that became the name...Santa Maria.
Mike and I pulled double-duty between the two bands for a while. Sunday was practice day. We would have Chucks practice at his house around 1:00, then we would have Santa Maria practice at my house around 5:00. This went on probably about a year, until one day I showed up for Chucks practice, and Brian wasn't there yet.
And he never showed up.
He didn't call, email, or anything. A week went by without his returning any calls. Then two weeks. Then a month. Then two months. It was the strangest thing. The guy just flat-out disappeared! We knew he was alive, as a friend of ours saw him in Athens one day. He just never made any contact with us at all.
After about 5 or six months, Mike and I decided that it would probably just be best to move on and find a new drummer. Re-Enter Goose.
To Be Continued...
We had tons of friends come watch our last show. One of these friends was Mike Cammarata, of the Last Chucks. He made mention that night that he was thinking about starting a second band of his own...a more straight-forward rock and roll type project. Since Jason and Brent were moving to Orlando, maybe Goose, Doug, and I should look into this with him. We said sure. Then nothing happened with this project for about a year and a half.
February 2006: I had not played with a band for almost seven months. Despite a healthy marriage, a good job, and an overall happy life, I still felt incomplete. I had played in a band almost constantly since I was seventeen, and now I had nothing. Then one day, I was rooting around on MySpace, and I saw a bulletin that my friend Mike from The Chucks was looking for a bass player.
Going back to the paragraph where I mentioned playing bass in the church band...I didn't mention the fact that I absolutely loved playing bass. In the last few years of Anthem, I had secret fantasies that included Doug having to leave the band for some reason, and me having to fill in at bass. Nothing against Doug, mind you. He's a good friend and a good bass player. I was just jealous.
Back to the story: I answered Mike's bulletin, borrowed a bass, and headed over to his house to practice with him and Brian Cook (Beaker) on drums. Things went well, I suppose, as they liked me enough to let me join. We spent the next few months getting me up to speed on the songs, then started playing out again.
We did a little traveling. We played on the Clemson campus once in South Carolina. We played in Birmingham, Alabama with The Queers (an honor for any fan of punk music). Mostly though, we practiced. The Last Chucks had changed since they had played with Anthem early on. The songs were more complex. They required a lot of thought, talent, and practice to play. Learning and playing the songs was somewhat of a puzzle - a challenge...and I welcomed it. It boosted my skill level exponentially more than I ever would have had the wherewithal or the desire to do myself. I will forever give Mike Cammarata credit for being probably the best songwriter I know personally, if not the best songwriter I know of, period.
December 2006: On a whim one night, I decided that Goose, Doug, and I needed to get together to play some Anthem songs in my basement. The songs were too fun to just let disappear...they needed to be played. We set up in our living room downstairs and realized that we didn't have any microphones. It occurred to me that I had taken all of them to Mike's house for Last Chucks stuff. This ended up being a good opportunity to call Mike and see if he wanted to bring a couple of them over, along with his guitar, and we'd see about this side project we had talked about a year and a half prior.
Things went smashingly. That night, I pulled out a song I had written and we ran through it. Everything felt good. The song (Looking For My Place) was catchy, and we decided to build off of it. Mike got to work, this time writing straight-forward rock songs. It was a great experience. I had my technichal band in The Last Chucks, and I also had my fun rock band, which was untitled for about a year. Naming bands is no easy task, my friend.
After a few months, we (the new, yet-unnamed band) had a solid set's worth of songs, and we heard that Brent may be moving back from Orlando. Mike had been singing up to that point, but he really didn't want to be the frontman of this band. He just wanted to play guitar and be in the background. We decided that Brent would fit right in to this group upon his moving back. If only we had a name of this band, things would be complete.
I'd love to tell you we have some cool story behind the name we came up with, but the truth is, there isn't. After spending literally hours trying to come up with something on multiple occasions over the course of a year, we discussed and discarded such names as The Blue Jeans, The Ruckus, and a slew of others that I fail to remember at this point. Finally, someone (I'm pretty sure it was Mike) threw out "Santa Maria". Some of us loved it, some of us thought it was okay, and some of us didn't really care anymore. Point is, none of us hated it, so that became the name...Santa Maria.
Mike and I pulled double-duty between the two bands for a while. Sunday was practice day. We would have Chucks practice at his house around 1:00, then we would have Santa Maria practice at my house around 5:00. This went on probably about a year, until one day I showed up for Chucks practice, and Brian wasn't there yet.
And he never showed up.
He didn't call, email, or anything. A week went by without his returning any calls. Then two weeks. Then a month. Then two months. It was the strangest thing. The guy just flat-out disappeared! We knew he was alive, as a friend of ours saw him in Athens one day. He just never made any contact with us at all.
After about 5 or six months, Mike and I decided that it would probably just be best to move on and find a new drummer. Re-Enter Goose.
To Be Continued...
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
The ever-progressing musical career of Daniel Dorris, Part II - Whoa Oh! I Wanna Rock and Roll!
(Continued)
Hmm...Anthem! That's it! The band will be called Anthem!
Goose, Brent and I had our new rock and roll band and were off to the races. We signed with an up-and-coming new record label called Four Ring Records (started by a co-pastor at Faith Life Fellowship) and went in to the studio (read: our friend Dave Rigg's house) to record our full-length album, 2 Close 4 Comfort. We never actually finished the album, though we did compile enough recordings to create what could be construed as a full-length project.
About two years into the Anthem era, it was evident that Brent was the animated-frontman type and that being behind a bass was holding him back. Enter Doug E. Knight.
Oh, before I go any further, there is something I neglected to mention earlier...stage names. Brent (whose given name is James Brent Dorris), became Jimmy B. Anthem. I (Daniel Martin Dorris), became Danny M. Anthem. Goose...well, he's Goose. His real name is David Mark Bilsland, but ever since I met the guy, he always has been, and always will be Goose. Douglas Edgar Banks became Doug E. Knight...he's a fan of Batman...you know, the Dark Knight.
Anyway, as a four-piece, we persevered forward. We were all decent enough musicians. Nothing spectacular, but it got the job done. We were playing clubs and bars regularly (and the occasional outdoor Christian music festival). Our first show at The Last Great Watering Hole, a bar that would soon be one of our regular venues, was with a band we were friends with called The Last Chucks.
As time went by, we were playing more often, and it became apparent that we really needed a second guitar player. We were a little pickier this time than we were when Doug joined. Not that Doug wasn't good, mind you...but when he joined, he hadn't played bass before. He learned how to play as he went along. He progressed very quickly. But as for a second guitar player, this guy needed to be good. He needed to be the one musician that put us over the top; that made us a genuine good rock and roll band. The first guy we tried was Jason Mask. We went over to his house and set up the band in his basement. We ran through a few songs with Jason, and after we finished, we asked him to stay inside while we walked out and talk about some things. I believe once we got outside, the conversation went something like:
"Wow"
"I know, right?"
"He's pretty awesome"
"So, we don't really need to discuss this, do we?"
"I don't think so"
"So, he's in?"
"Yeah."
Enter C.J. Mask.
As a solid five-piece, we spent the next few years playing out quite regularly. We never made our way out of Atlanta, but we played a pretty heavy rotation of The Last Great Watering Hole, Anthony's, 9 Lives Saloon, Presidio, etc. There are a ton of "war stories" from this time period. Maybe I will create a blog series on that one day soon. Although, some of those involve rivalries, hard feelings, and various shenanigans, so I may have to choose wisely.
The problem with this is that we became comfortable. Or, at least that was my problem. We were comfortable with playing out regluarly. We never persued more; never tried to sign with a real label (Four Rings had long since folded); never tried to tour.
Understandibly, this frustrated Jason. He was the real premier musician in the group. He had hopes and dreams that included a musical career. We weren't in the same place as Jason. In June 2004, I got married (to the aforementioned hot little number, Kimberly). A month later, Goose married Lily (that story you can read for yourself at bilslandfamily.blogspot.com - sorry, no link, because I don't know crap about html). We were starting households. We were starting families.
Jason approached us in 2005 and told us he was moving to Orlando. Brent was also looking for some kind of a change, as his life had fallen into somewhat of a rut, so he went with Jason. We played our last show in July of 2005.
I still listen to the recording of that show regularly. The sound quality is crap, but the memories are as clear as can be.
(to be continued)
Hmm...Anthem! That's it! The band will be called Anthem!
Goose, Brent and I had our new rock and roll band and were off to the races. We signed with an up-and-coming new record label called Four Ring Records (started by a co-pastor at Faith Life Fellowship) and went in to the studio (read: our friend Dave Rigg's house) to record our full-length album, 2 Close 4 Comfort. We never actually finished the album, though we did compile enough recordings to create what could be construed as a full-length project.
About two years into the Anthem era, it was evident that Brent was the animated-frontman type and that being behind a bass was holding him back. Enter Doug E. Knight.
Oh, before I go any further, there is something I neglected to mention earlier...stage names. Brent (whose given name is James Brent Dorris), became Jimmy B. Anthem. I (Daniel Martin Dorris), became Danny M. Anthem. Goose...well, he's Goose. His real name is David Mark Bilsland, but ever since I met the guy, he always has been, and always will be Goose. Douglas Edgar Banks became Doug E. Knight...he's a fan of Batman...you know, the Dark Knight.
Anyway, as a four-piece, we persevered forward. We were all decent enough musicians. Nothing spectacular, but it got the job done. We were playing clubs and bars regularly (and the occasional outdoor Christian music festival). Our first show at The Last Great Watering Hole, a bar that would soon be one of our regular venues, was with a band we were friends with called The Last Chucks.
As time went by, we were playing more often, and it became apparent that we really needed a second guitar player. We were a little pickier this time than we were when Doug joined. Not that Doug wasn't good, mind you...but when he joined, he hadn't played bass before. He learned how to play as he went along. He progressed very quickly. But as for a second guitar player, this guy needed to be good. He needed to be the one musician that put us over the top; that made us a genuine good rock and roll band. The first guy we tried was Jason Mask. We went over to his house and set up the band in his basement. We ran through a few songs with Jason, and after we finished, we asked him to stay inside while we walked out and talk about some things. I believe once we got outside, the conversation went something like:
"Wow"
"I know, right?"
"He's pretty awesome"
"So, we don't really need to discuss this, do we?"
"I don't think so"
"So, he's in?"
"Yeah."
Enter C.J. Mask.
As a solid five-piece, we spent the next few years playing out quite regularly. We never made our way out of Atlanta, but we played a pretty heavy rotation of The Last Great Watering Hole, Anthony's, 9 Lives Saloon, Presidio, etc. There are a ton of "war stories" from this time period. Maybe I will create a blog series on that one day soon. Although, some of those involve rivalries, hard feelings, and various shenanigans, so I may have to choose wisely.
The problem with this is that we became comfortable. Or, at least that was my problem. We were comfortable with playing out regluarly. We never persued more; never tried to sign with a real label (Four Rings had long since folded); never tried to tour.
Understandibly, this frustrated Jason. He was the real premier musician in the group. He had hopes and dreams that included a musical career. We weren't in the same place as Jason. In June 2004, I got married (to the aforementioned hot little number, Kimberly). A month later, Goose married Lily (that story you can read for yourself at bilslandfamily.blogspot.com - sorry, no link, because I don't know crap about html). We were starting households. We were starting families.
Jason approached us in 2005 and told us he was moving to Orlando. Brent was also looking for some kind of a change, as his life had fallen into somewhat of a rut, so he went with Jason. We played our last show in July of 2005.
I still listen to the recording of that show regularly. The sound quality is crap, but the memories are as clear as can be.
(to be continued)
Saturday, March 6, 2010
The ever-progressing musical career of Daniel Dorris, Part I
I have around twelve years experience of playing in bands. Those twelve years have been a chain of events...one leading to another, leading to another, etc. I have always wanted to chronicle these events, so this past December, I started writing it down.
The story is too long to put in one blog entry, so I'll break it up. Here is part one...the early years.
I currently play in a band called The Last Chucks. It's a trio consisting of myself (on bass and backups), Mike Cammarata (on guitar and lead vocals), and Goose (on drums...and is learning backups). I love the band. We play together once a week, with the occasional hiatis. We have not played an official show in about two years, but we're working on that...I think it's a valid goal for the upcoming year.
I've been a part of this band for...sheesh...about four years now.
I was just thinking about how I got to this point, so I will chronicle for you the ongoing musical career of Daniel Dorris
Summer 1998: I was fresh out of high school (having just started dating this hot little number named Kimberly). My best buddy Goose had just started drumming for a band called Stronghold (with Adam Linton on bass and Adam Wilson on guitar and vocals). I had played (guitar, at that point) with Goose for the previous year or so at church and in the occasional, go-nowhere, noisy high school punk band. I was a little bummed that Goose had a band to play in, and I did not. If memory serves me correctly, I had him convince Adam Wilson that they needed a second guitar player. Soon enough, I was in the band.
We played our fair share of shows over the next year or so, traveling to Toccoa a couple of times, and even as far as Charleston, SC once. Alas, creative differences were the downfall of Stronghold (read: I kept messing with Wilson, playing stuff he hated, and he got mad and disbanded us). Adam Linton became a lifetime friend, and Adam Wilson was seldom heard from again.
May 1999: Goose's brother, Steve had been a youth pastor at a church in Norcross, GA. He called me and asked me to take over his job, as he was leaving to go to college. I (naively) took him up on his offer, and was soon employed by Faith Life Fellowship. Honestly, I had no business being in a pastoral position. I was 19 years old. As a result, however, I had the pleasure of playing bass in the church praise band. This will be important later in the story.
September 1999: Having not played in a proper rock band for a few months, Goose and I were starting to get a little antsy. We decided to start our own band with my brother, Brent (who would sing and play bass). The band was to be called: February Days. No, wait: Kimbo Red. No, wait: We couldn't think of a name. That didn't stop us, though. We started writing amazing and brilliant songs such as "S.N.O.T.S.W.O.W (Song Number One, The Song WithOut Words)", "Friends", and "In The Morning". We were all big fans of a band called Squad Five-O at the time. Squad had morphed into a faux 80's glam-metal-type of concoction and specialized in rock anthems. Hmm...Anthem! That's it! The band will be called Anthem!
(to be continued...probably soon...I already have the stuff written.)
The story is too long to put in one blog entry, so I'll break it up. Here is part one...the early years.
I currently play in a band called The Last Chucks. It's a trio consisting of myself (on bass and backups), Mike Cammarata (on guitar and lead vocals), and Goose (on drums...and is learning backups). I love the band. We play together once a week, with the occasional hiatis. We have not played an official show in about two years, but we're working on that...I think it's a valid goal for the upcoming year.
I've been a part of this band for...sheesh...about four years now.
I was just thinking about how I got to this point, so I will chronicle for you the ongoing musical career of Daniel Dorris
Summer 1998: I was fresh out of high school (having just started dating this hot little number named Kimberly). My best buddy Goose had just started drumming for a band called Stronghold (with Adam Linton on bass and Adam Wilson on guitar and vocals). I had played (guitar, at that point) with Goose for the previous year or so at church and in the occasional, go-nowhere, noisy high school punk band. I was a little bummed that Goose had a band to play in, and I did not. If memory serves me correctly, I had him convince Adam Wilson that they needed a second guitar player. Soon enough, I was in the band.
We played our fair share of shows over the next year or so, traveling to Toccoa a couple of times, and even as far as Charleston, SC once. Alas, creative differences were the downfall of Stronghold (read: I kept messing with Wilson, playing stuff he hated, and he got mad and disbanded us). Adam Linton became a lifetime friend, and Adam Wilson was seldom heard from again.
May 1999: Goose's brother, Steve had been a youth pastor at a church in Norcross, GA. He called me and asked me to take over his job, as he was leaving to go to college. I (naively) took him up on his offer, and was soon employed by Faith Life Fellowship. Honestly, I had no business being in a pastoral position. I was 19 years old. As a result, however, I had the pleasure of playing bass in the church praise band. This will be important later in the story.
September 1999: Having not played in a proper rock band for a few months, Goose and I were starting to get a little antsy. We decided to start our own band with my brother, Brent (who would sing and play bass). The band was to be called: February Days. No, wait: Kimbo Red. No, wait: We couldn't think of a name. That didn't stop us, though. We started writing amazing and brilliant songs such as "S.N.O.T.S.W.O.W (Song Number One, The Song WithOut Words)", "Friends", and "In The Morning". We were all big fans of a band called Squad Five-O at the time. Squad had morphed into a faux 80's glam-metal-type of concoction and specialized in rock anthems. Hmm...Anthem! That's it! The band will be called Anthem!
(to be continued...probably soon...I already have the stuff written.)
Thursday, March 4, 2010
A good problem?
You know what bugs the crap out of me? Being so slammed at work that I can't take 30 seconds to sit and collect my thoughts over the course of the day, and some jackass says, "Oh, you're really busy? That's a good problem to have!"
I know what you mean, but I DON'T CARE! Maybe when we have died back down and are at a somewhat normal pace for our business, I'll look back and say "Hmm, that was a nice problem we had". Until then, though, I'll continue to be stressed out, frustrated, and (I think) going gray because of this amazing problem I have.
And another thing...that's isn't a good problem for me to have. It's a good problem for my bosses to have. My paycheck is the same whether we do $10,000 a month or $100,000 a month. Oh, I know...job security, blah, blah, blah. Truth is, I have job security regardless of how busy we are.
Stupid Little League baseball and their 200 teams from 5 different parks all ordering banners that they need by the end of this week.
I know what you mean, but I DON'T CARE! Maybe when we have died back down and are at a somewhat normal pace for our business, I'll look back and say "Hmm, that was a nice problem we had". Until then, though, I'll continue to be stressed out, frustrated, and (I think) going gray because of this amazing problem I have.
And another thing...that's isn't a good problem for me to have. It's a good problem for my bosses to have. My paycheck is the same whether we do $10,000 a month or $100,000 a month. Oh, I know...job security, blah, blah, blah. Truth is, I have job security regardless of how busy we are.
Stupid Little League baseball and their 200 teams from 5 different parks all ordering banners that they need by the end of this week.
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