"All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players: They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts. . ."
These days my part to play is father, husband, teacher, and servant. But there was a time in my life where the part required me to form bands, and play music. I still love to play music, and music dominates so much of my thinking and energy. It is spiritual for me. But when I was younger, it was even more than that. I found some old pics of those days, and (as always) it led to reflection, which is documented below.
Full Disclosure: For typical readers of this blog - I am basically going to use this post to document some history of these bands - so feel free to skip this post if you find that you have something more interesting to attend to. :)
Growing up, being in bands/on stages taught me more than almost any other thing in my life about
relationships, and getting things done. I was lucky to grow up in Winston-Salem at a time when there was a fertile scene for starting your own band, writing songs, booking shows, making your own stickers and shirts, recording those songs, and just generally making a vision become a reality. I made great friends in that world, and learned more from those experiences than most anything I have ever done. My main band in high school was Filling In For Zippy.
Having met in church Youth Group - we started playing together in 1990, when I was around 14 years old. The lineup shifted, but generally there were four of us, and we learned the ropes of being in a band together. We played in kid's basements, VFWs, Skateparks, Masonic halls, living rooms, and at some legitimate W-S clubs (like Newstart, Ziggy's, etc). I wrote a bunch of the songs, played guitar, and sang quite a bit - but I was pretty awful at all of those things. Even at the time, I sort of knew that I was sub-standard, but I tried to make up for it with my enthusiasm, and general excitable nature. And man was I excited. More than most people that I knew - I was so enthused to be in a band that played shows - no matter how small or unimportant, even though my personal highlight was playing with Squatweiler, a band I still adore. I was totally smitten with bands like Sonic Youth, Superchunk, Minor Threat, Descendents, Dinosaur Jr, Black Flag, and the Replacements. In the process I learned about hurting people's feelings, how to organize shows, forgiving friends, and how to record a record. In the end - that band never actually broke up - we just stopped playing together, but to this day I am convinced that it fell apart because of me. By the end, we had whittled down to a three piece - and one day I found out that the other two guys had joined a new band. I was pissed, and hurt - but later realized that I had become a very difficult kid with which to work. I had become uncompromising - which as we all know, is a relationship killer. So, in the end I reaped what I had sewn, for sure.
Callie's Paw:
So, I took a new approach into college, where I played in a few different bands, but the main one was Callie's Paw. I accidentally created this band with my roommate in order to record some folk songs I had written to a four track. I was playing drums in another band, Mike TV, at the time but really wanted to write songs and play guitar. So, by the summer of 1996, when I was 19, my roommate and I had added a high school friend, and had recruited two other college friends to become a band. I wrote the songs, played guitar and sang much of the time (though not all of it). We picked up where Filling In For Zippy left off (which was 
all I knew), and started out playing in basements (mostly at UNCG). But almost immediately we got some shows at Greensboro clubs like Somewhere Else Tavern, Zoo bar, and Blind Tiger.
Our high school friend, Jennifer, was too young to drive to Greensboro on school nights to play shows with us at clubs and/or basements so we made the terrible decision to cut her out of the band. The only one of us who had enough guts to tell her the bad news was our drummer - who knew her the least. I am still ashamed of that decision. I should have worked harder to be more fair, and be a better person. (At any rate - we actually recruited her back in the band in 1998 to play guitar, violin, and sing - which she did on our second record. But within a month after that I
moved to Asheville, and the band broke up not long after. She later moved to California where she now performs solo as Spring Summer. She put out her first full length record last year and it is amazing.
Anyways - within weeks after losing Jennifer, we went directly to the studio and cut a five song demo to get more shows and have something to sell. It worked quite well, and the next thing we knew we were selling out Greensboro clubs, and traveling regionally to Chapel Hill, Charlotte, High Point, Winston, Charleston, and Boone. But our bread and butter was playing at colleges - whether it was UNCG, Guilford, Wake Forest, or whatever. We returned to the studio in 1997 and made a full length record. We sold it along with our printed shirts and stickers. We bought better equipment, and even had business cards. We had a grand time.
As always, and like a bad "Behind the Music "plot line, we began to fracture around this time. Our bassists lost his mother, we were probably of little comfort, and he started hanging out with a new group of friends. As shameless as it is - we
resented him for that. Our drummer began to deal with personal stuff, and I met Jessica and decided to graduate, and fulfill my dream of living in the mountains. We thought we would continue playing, even though I would be in Asheville and everyone else in Greensboro. But the distance quickly took its toll, I got a teaching job - and decided to leave the band in the Fall of 1999. I know that I really let those guys down by my decisions. I played solo a bit, and write a fair amount of songs - but as a rule I steered clear of all bands for a while after that. And then I met Jason.
These days my part to play is father, husband, teacher, and servant. But there was a time in my life where the part required me to form bands, and play music. I still love to play music, and music dominates so much of my thinking and energy. It is spiritual for me. But when I was younger, it was even more than that. I found some old pics of those days, and (as always) it led to reflection, which is documented below.
Full Disclosure: For typical readers of this blog - I am basically going to use this post to document some history of these bands - so feel free to skip this post if you find that you have something more interesting to attend to. :)
Growing up, being in bands/on stages taught me more than almost any other thing in my life about
relationships, and getting things done. I was lucky to grow up in Winston-Salem at a time when there was a fertile scene for starting your own band, writing songs, booking shows, making your own stickers and shirts, recording those songs, and just generally making a vision become a reality. I made great friends in that world, and learned more from those experiences than most anything I have ever done. My main band in high school was Filling In For Zippy.Having met in church Youth Group - we started playing together in 1990, when I was around 14 years old. The lineup shifted, but generally there were four of us, and we learned the ropes of being in a band together. We played in kid's basements, VFWs, Skateparks, Masonic halls, living rooms, and at some legitimate W-S clubs (like Newstart, Ziggy's, etc). I wrote a bunch of the songs, played guitar, and sang quite a bit - but I was pretty awful at all of those things. Even at the time, I sort of knew that I was sub-standard, but I tried to make up for it with my enthusiasm, and general excitable nature. And man was I excited. More than most people that I knew - I was so enthused to be in a band that played shows - no matter how small or unimportant, even though my personal highlight was playing with Squatweiler, a band I still adore. I was totally smitten with bands like Sonic Youth, Superchunk, Minor Threat, Descendents, Dinosaur Jr, Black Flag, and the Replacements. In the process I learned about hurting people's feelings, how to organize shows, forgiving friends, and how to record a record. In the end - that band never actually broke up - we just stopped playing together, but to this day I am convinced that it fell apart because of me. By the end, we had whittled down to a three piece - and one day I found out that the other two guys had joined a new band. I was pissed, and hurt - but later realized that I had become a very difficult kid with which to work. I had become uncompromising - which as we all know, is a relationship killer. So, in the end I reaped what I had sewn, for sure.
Callie's Paw:
So, I took a new approach into college, where I played in a few different bands, but the main one was Callie's Paw. I accidentally created this band with my roommate in order to record some folk songs I had written to a four track. I was playing drums in another band, Mike TV, at the time but really wanted to write songs and play guitar. So, by the summer of 1996, when I was 19, my roommate and I had added a high school friend, and had recruited two other college friends to become a band. I wrote the songs, played guitar and sang much of the time (though not all of it). We picked up where Filling In For Zippy left off (which was 
all I knew), and started out playing in basements (mostly at UNCG). But almost immediately we got some shows at Greensboro clubs like Somewhere Else Tavern, Zoo bar, and Blind Tiger.Our high school friend, Jennifer, was too young to drive to Greensboro on school nights to play shows with us at clubs and/or basements so we made the terrible decision to cut her out of the band. The only one of us who had enough guts to tell her the bad news was our drummer - who knew her the least. I am still ashamed of that decision. I should have worked harder to be more fair, and be a better person. (At any rate - we actually recruited her back in the band in 1998 to play guitar, violin, and sing - which she did on our second record. But within a month after that I
moved to Asheville, and the band broke up not long after. She later moved to California where she now performs solo as Spring Summer. She put out her first full length record last year and it is amazing.Anyways - within weeks after losing Jennifer, we went directly to the studio and cut a five song demo to get more shows and have something to sell. It worked quite well, and the next thing we knew we were selling out Greensboro clubs, and traveling regionally to Chapel Hill, Charlotte, High Point, Winston, Charleston, and Boone. But our bread and butter was playing at colleges - whether it was UNCG, Guilford, Wake Forest, or whatever. We returned to the studio in 1997 and made a full length record. We sold it along with our printed shirts and stickers. We bought better equipment, and even had business cards. We had a grand time.
As always, and like a bad "Behind the Music "plot line, we began to fracture around this time. Our bassists lost his mother, we were probably of little comfort, and he started hanging out with a new group of friends. As shameless as it is - we
resented him for that. Our drummer began to deal with personal stuff, and I met Jessica and decided to graduate, and fulfill my dream of living in the mountains. We thought we would continue playing, even though I would be in Asheville and everyone else in Greensboro. But the distance quickly took its toll, I got a teaching job - and decided to leave the band in the Fall of 1999. I know that I really let those guys down by my decisions. I played solo a bit, and write a fair amount of songs - but as a rule I steered clear of all bands for a while after that. And then I met Jason.
Broadwater Graham
The thing about Jason is that he remains the most motivated, organized, and creative person I know. That guy is just an absolute catalyst, and he makes hay out of whatever is around him. He is impressive. We were introduced by our wives in 2000 - who had become great friends in Graduate school. Like me, he had spent his youth in bands - but his resume was much more impressive (and significantly more hardcore than mine). Either way - I thought he was hilarious, and a pretty amazing guitar player to boot. Once I found out that he had some songs to play
- we were off.
We began to get together and trade songs, both playing guitar and singing. We were playing at coffee houses, and small clubs - and Jason was the brains and muscle behind all of it. I honestly felt like I was along for the ride - and was amazed at how much Jason could accomplish in such a short amount of time. Almost immediately, Jason decided to build his own recording studio from scratch, where we could record an album. He then created his own record company and recording business - not just for us, but for other bands, artists, etc. He was able to book us a spot on WNCW radio, and get a few of our songs submitted, and later ranked highly, on internet radio channels. In the meantime he self-published his first novel, and a book of poetry. Seriously.
The thing about Jason is that he remains the most motivated, organized, and creative person I know. That guy is just an absolute catalyst, and he makes hay out of whatever is around him. He is impressive. We were introduced by our wives in 2000 - who had become great friends in Graduate school. Like me, he had spent his youth in bands - but his resume was much more impressive (and significantly more hardcore than mine). Either way - I thought he was hilarious, and a pretty amazing guitar player to boot. Once I found out that he had some songs to play
- we were off.We began to get together and trade songs, both playing guitar and singing. We were playing at coffee houses, and small clubs - and Jason was the brains and muscle behind all of it. I honestly felt like I was along for the ride - and was amazed at how much Jason could accomplish in such a short amount of time. Almost immediately, Jason decided to build his own recording studio from scratch, where we could record an album. He then created his own record company and recording business - not just for us, but for other bands, artists, etc. He was able to book us a spot on WNCW radio, and get a few of our songs submitted, and later ranked highly, on internet radio channels. In the meantime he self-published his first novel, and a book of poetry. Seriously.
So we had put out two releases of original music, and played many shows before anyone could say "new record." We continued playing out, and began to take more trips to South Carolina to perform, and sell records. We were having a great time as well, as our wives often went with us to shows - and all four of us were great friends. 
Eventually, it came time to start having children - and as I was still coaching high school soccer - the time began to take a toll on me. I was straight up worn out by then - and as much as I loved Jason - I was no longer able to maintain his pace, as far as playing shows and recording. Jason and I decided to stop playing out - and not long afterward he moved back to South carolina - where he turned his recording company into a full grown successful web marketing business.
So now I play (and sometimes record) music for me, and to my wife and kids. Being in bands is still something that appeals to me - but not like it used to.
"And one man in his time plays many parts. . ."
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