Friends

So the last series was really self-centered, but this whole time it was all with the intention of putting out a collection of songs by my friends.  Most of the are the fascinating characters mentioned in my previous articles.  I have been lucky enough to be surrounded by geniuses my whole life, most of them musicians, and many of them collaborators.  Though some may be over or under-represented in this set, I tried not to have any favorites, I merely wanted all the major projects represented.  Alameda and Basking Ridge probably make up the majority of the lot, but people I know from college (the bridge to all, I suppose) and LA are in there too.  Now for the long explanation int eh only order that makes any sense:  Alphabetical...

Colin O'Brien-Lux is a Maryland-bred performance artist in Los Angeles who has been active in many communities in the city and is perhaps best-known for his Winter 2012 clown show Everybody Nose Nothing Means Anything And I'm Very Worried, which unfortunately coincided with Super River's debut.  Not to discuss my own band too much, but the connection is a major one as Jesse Johnstone did the engineering on the EP Angel Will You Marry Me? from which both these tracks are taken and played drums on one song.  Other drums were played by Miles Marsico and bass came from Andrew Lewis, who played in Skin Rat.  Last I know he was performing as Grandma in a very atmospheric and intimate way that should not be missed.  "Scarf" is one of the most powerful tracks I have heard in a while.

The Darflers is a project led by Alex "Flash Gilmore" Hatatsis that has also featured fromer Funbeatles/Sunfighter Marty Skeels and local legend (and portrayer of Nagatoku in "Gundam Driver") Chris Arnold.  The band had an emphasis on power-pop with green musician Halatsis skillfully pulling off both bass and vocals.  Not much has been heard since, but Halatsis is now in a band with Big/Ewox member Alyssa Polizzi before her move to LA.  "Best Boy" comes from the Spencer's Girl EP, and "Another Lonely Girl" is a demo with lyrics penned by yours truly.  One of my two appearances in this set.

Flash Gilmore & the Funbeatles was Alameda's greatest band, band certainly the greatest live act of 2012.  With firm roots in The Comfy Men, they were comprised of frontman Flash Gilmore, drummer Jerry Ramone, bassist Mick James and guitarists Hazel James and The Glove.  Their uniformed and choreographed shows were a rare spectacle featuring both phenomenal originals and classic covers.  They released the record Debauchery Playground, named after their closing track - the first composed for the project shortly before disbanding in late Spring of 2011.  Unfortunately, the album was recorded months before and the band's playing and songs had improved much in that time, but that's only an issue if you were lucky enough to witness these later shows.  It still stands as one of the best rock records of its time and "The Top" and "Here It Comes" are hardly enough to hear by this unbelievable combo.

Kidz was a project led by Sam Deutsch (who will be explained in more detail shortly) with a collaborator named Mike.  "Move Yo' Body" is a fantastic piece of 90s dance music that shows just how much the artist who cut his teeth in Hurtu/the Shears/Love Athena can do.

The Last Nights was the brief reunification of Funbeatles Alex Halatsis, Paul Igaz, and Arran Rogerson who made a worthy (even by their standards) debut with an improvised set in May 2012.  Before the Hawaii exodus they played a few shows and recorded Dig This from which these two tracks come.  "Dany James" is about the inspirational Oakland artist.  Sadly other classic tracks "Virtual Tibet" and "Guided by C-Mac" remain unrecorded to my knowledge.

Love Warrior was a solo project from Arran Rogerson after the disbanding of the Funbeatles and recorded the album DMZ, a power-pop album mostly about masturbation.

Also from Alameda is One Tribe, the project of Hawaii native Tony O'Toole.  A spiritual figure in the Alameda scene, Tony was the subject of one of the Funbeatles' earliest songs and has been catalyst to much musical growth (in both directions) with most of the Alameda musicians.  Music For My Friends was an ambitious project for him, but turned out to be a success.  It is the source of the atmospheric instrumental "John" and the cover of "30 Century Man," with guest vocals from Alex Halatsis.  "What a Strange Day" is a demo I rather like as well.

pow wow! is the project of Basking Ridge originals Jeff and Eddie Nazareno with roots going back arguably about ten years, or 26, depending on the perspective.  Last year they released the refreshing Don't Stop To Look with a five-member lineup providing big arrangements, tons of hooks, and beautiful harmonies.  The first two tracks are here, but the whole thing is about as good.  The band has had varying levels of notoriety throughout it its career, and their album, one of the finest of 2012 still needs its due.  Unfortunately their future is a bit uncertain, but there is no doubt its members will go onto creating more great music.

Sunfighter is the primary band of former Funbeatles Arran and Sam Rogerson.  They both play guitar and sing and split songwriting duties.  Sweet Machine was another great and overlooked album of 2012 full of catchy guitar rock that evokes all the best stuff and is quite creative in its songcraft.  They toured the West Coast last summer with rhythm section Fed Martinez (drummer in Rogerson's past groups Life on Mars? and others) and Eamon O'Conner, playing with Super River in two instances.  Here are two of my favorites from that record.

SWade is the former alias of Sam Deutsch, one of the most talented and unpredictable artists I know in any regard.  That made selecting tracks from him very difficult.  He can write great classic pop songs, experimental pieces, piano ballads and just about everything in between.  Lately his focus has been on Dark R&B, though with plenty of breaks in between.  He is currently using the name 50 Grand Sam and working on an EP, but just released the song "Hollywood" yesterday which you can purchase on iTunes, and I implore that you do.  These two are different though - "Could This Mean Space?" is an experimental synth pop that is as edgy as it is catchy, and "A Best Friend's Love" is a funny folk-rock demo.  Just two of my favorites among a whole lot.

Volcano Divers is Liam Carroll, from Liberty Corner, not Basking Ridge if you can believe that.  First appearing in this blog as Batwolf's butler Dr. Alphonzo Vengeance (yes, we had a doctor for a Butler), he has recorded a lot of noise-pop in this form and here are a couple of my faves.

Will Stratton is another old friend from Basking Ridge.  His real name is Will Lulofs and he was a member of Batwolf, the Tangles, and previously Time Well Spent.  He is recovering from Testicular Cancer and planning to return u-time to New York in October.   There will will be more about that in an upcoming article.  Last Friday was his benefit show, featuring a closing performance by the man himself in accompaniment of the BENEFIT ALBUM which I will also discuss in more detail.  Having the most professional career of all (four albums released on real labels) it was also hard to choose material from him, especially considering how much of it has Basking Ridge references.  However I chose one from his first, another from his second, and a demo of the title track for the next.  I am sure it will change a lot before the album is released, but I like this version.  I also used to like the demo version of "You're a Real Thing" more, but that has changed.

As mentioned before, Zero the Astronaut is Alex Adler's solo project after Ways ceased to be.  With so much material he started narrowing it down and went into the studio to record a debut single of "Solitude" and "Misery City."  He played all the instruments except the bass on "Solitude" which, not surprisingly was me.  The songs show both his sides - heavy and complex and soft and stoney, but both have a great deal of raw emotion.  Adler is an excellent songwriter who is firmly in the tradition of the best American rock of the 80s and 90s who has a lot of potential, particularly in his ability to not fear the obvious.

DOWNLOAD: THE BEST OF FRIENDS

I hope you enjoy all these tracks and artists as much as I do.

Roots, pt. 5: The Comfy Men

C-Mac, Marty Skeels, Alex Halatsis, Arran Rogerson, Paul Igaz

The Next four years were pretty empty musically.  There were some bands that kept the end of high school interesting that I will discuss in more detail later such as Down/B, the Hispanics, and The Tangles, but once I left Basking Ridge it almost seemed like my days as a musician were over.  That was of course until my first visit to Alameda.

The previous Summer was when that small Bay Area's music scene really began to blossom and I was lucky enough to visit Paul Igaz and Alex Halatsis in the early days and get back to playing some music.  The musicians involved were the three of us plus Marty Skeels and Arran Rogerson.  It should be by now known that the other four went onto become Flash Gilmore & The Funbeatles, one of the finest bands of our time.  This record was made in about one day, I think the second time we played together over Winter break 2007-2008.

It should be noted that the greatest inspiration of this music was not good friends, partying, or seeing "America done right" for the first time, but rather an odd invention designed by Paul:  The Manstroller.  Yes, a stroller for men.  It was constructed out of a regular shopping cart-stroller hybrid and adapted into its new form by Halatsis, Igaz, myself, and local legend Jordan Pollard.

Pollard removes a bar.

I remove another bar.

The Manstroller gave this record - like the Funbeates' Debauchery Playground, a unique 8-track piece, its title, image, and general idea.  It was recorded in Paul's basement, one of the best-sounding locations in which I have ever played music on an analogue 4-track and contains a healthy balance of original songs, improvisations, and classic covers.  The titles are, as is the band name, unofficial and I only name them for reference, and that they are widely agreed upon, rather than the nebulous and forgotten tracks on The Power of Rawk.  Other band name ideas included the Robots and my personal FAvoite, The Gadzooks.

We open with "I Don't Know" demonstrates the band's power of creating a song out of nothing and not caring if it makes sense, so long as it sounds great.  Would you believe?

Next up is the classic title track.  This has been a beloved classic of the Alameda scene since its debut and was even redone true to form by the Funbeatles. It's got some great riffs, and I think is my best work, personally on the album.

Following a cover of "You Shook Me All Night Long" is "When We're 80" a pervy creep-emo send-up about lusting for a much younger girl - especially considering this is a song by 20 year-olds.  It is also quite memorable and catchy.

We moved into more experimental territory with the next track, an improvised song with vocals I call "Where Did She Go?" and then an interesting cover of "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, pt. 1" with great synthesizer from Marty and Alex's aggressive goof-punk that define the record distracting from my sloppiness on the bass.

The record is then closed with two jams.  The first one being quite short with some crazy vocal yelps and a return to the guitar for Marty, and the second being the longest track (though still less than 6 minutes) that I would not hesitate to describe as krauty.

In a lot of ways this band never ended.  With Sam Rogerson in my old place they recorded another record about a year later before becoming the Beatles and later Flash Gilmore and the Funbeatles.  I was a fixture of their audience and played with them on occasion with this band practically reforming for the creation of their song "Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead" and the idea of a few more.  Then that ended and we had Sunfighter, The Comfort Creatures, The Darflers, The Perennial Babymen of Alameda, the Last Nights, and many more.

DOWNLOAD:  The Comfy Men - Manstrollin' (2008)

Next up:  Pre-Super River days in Los Angeles with Ways.