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Personnel

The Junk Buddha Project (1999-2001 C.E.)

Mike Baker - Bass, Guitars, Production
Josh Cochran - Synths, Organ, Tape Machines, Programming, Production
Ernie Gray - Voice, Guitar, Bass, Production
Hypothetical - Turntables, Samplers, Production
J.A.Z. - Turntables, Samples
Damon Scott - All Percussives, Triggers, Loops
Boo Maga - Production / Post Production

Guitarist Needed?

I had just ended a period of life working as a forklift driver and was back in college to pursue philosophy at MTSU. Real world experience had demostrated that life was where the scene was and I was excited about being back "on it." Not to mention, I was back in the rather insulated structure we know as university; a stark contrast from proletariat existence.

A lot of parties go on in Murfreesboro; it is a college town. I had just moved into the old section of the city (where I would continue to live for 6 years in various rental properties).

One night my girlfriend/roommate and I heard about a party going down at a place on University Street (or is it avenue). When we arrived, there was live music nonstop all night in the front room of the house. There was a kit, some instruments lyings around, but most of all, an electronic hodgepodge of devices that looked like mission control. At the helm was Josh Cochran, who played a variety of things, including a PC, but mostly an old beat up Yamaha organ synth and a lat 80's early 90's Ensonic synth that would load patches from a floppy disc.

I hadn't had a chance to play for a while, and had nowhere to do it in my little apartment. I switched fom guitar, to bass, to drums, all the time just trying to see how I could join in on the experimental noises that were going on.

Drugs, booze, party going on all around, all I cared about was jamming with this great setup. My girlfriend literally had to tear me away from it.

On the way home I said to Gabrielle, "I'm going to start a band with that guy Josh."

What I was interested in was the synthesis of traditional music with the growing electronica buzz that was everywhere. House, jungle, experimental, etc. Bands were everywhere in Murfreesboro , but there was a significant lack of groups that utilized electronics. I had a limited experience with much beyond multitrack tape machines and mixing boards, but I had just gotten my first decent computer, and was beginning to produce material on linear editing programs like Cakewalk.

Having been influenced by experimental music such as Einsturzende Neubauten, Can, and Brian Eno, Drum & Bass was a revolution for me. I had been into early 70's Miles Davis that touched on the concept of hyper-breaks since the early 90's, and had been exposed to A Guy Called Gerald, Photek, Underworld, and other 'pioneers' in 95 and 96 through fellow R&B Crisis Center member Mike Shoun>.

I was obsessed with techniques of linear editing that I heard on the Can:Sacriledge compilation, and other electronic compilations I was able to purchase rather blindly from my local record store. By the time Ronnie Size had released the two disk New Forms, drum and bass had evolved into an identifiable new afro-reggae fusion with hip-hop and electronica. It was unquestionably as "new" as hip hop was in 77, or Reggae was in 68'.

I ran into Josh several more times, and we discussed the fusion of Drum & Bass with live music. At that point Drum & Bass was still penetrating the US mainstream from the UK and metro areas, and I was convinced that it was going to have a huge impact on the vocabulary of jazz and rock music.

In fact, my previous work with the band The Alexis Wax saw my input of a hyperkenetic drum and bass passage on one of our live favorites that unquestionably sounded similar to some of the later Junk Buddha material.

I think perhaps I saw an early incarnation of Junk Buddha at the Boro at some point, and convinced Josh to let me sit in on a practice. They were looking for a guitarist, or a soloist, so I polished up every lick I knew and worked out guitar parts for board tapes from a previous show.

Damon Scott, the drummer had been involved in a reshuffling of local talent. Having seen Fraulein and Weasel on several occasions, one being the Penisaurus night, I knew his power, but immediately recognized that his developing style was moving towards jazz, and away from "bash bash".

Mike Baker was the most proficient guitarist in the band; and though it seems contrary that I would be playing guitar, it made sense for him to play bass, since our music was clearly bass-driven. In a world of blaring guitar bands set to "11," I made a consistent effort to keep the guitar as sparse as possible, using effects to create pads and atmospheres. I wasn't even interested in guitar music at the time, unless it was jazz. Mike's frenetic bass filled the space, and his playing was constantly growing and expanding: evidence that he was a brilliant musician who could play about anything.

It's no surprise then that Baker went on to work successfully in professional bands in Korea, and on Cruise ships, playing a wide range of styles on guitar and bass.

Technically, Junk Buddha was an exercise in reformation. Everyone in the group had been through the local mill once, and we all came together with a similar ethic. We were not flaky (I was ultimately the biggest flake), but were focused and driven toward hitting on something new, and I think we did, if not for a brief moment.

Recently, a guitarist named Reeves Gabriels moved to my neighborhood in Nashville and I drunkenly approached him at the local pub to say something to the effect of, "How did you old bastards beat us to the fusion of Drum & Bass with Pop/Rock?"

Well, gee, retarded Nashville kid, I dunno, we are like just better than you... Actually, he was very laid back and nice. But I digress...

My first show with JB was at Sebastians, a second floor bar right upstairs from Spongebath Records where most of the local musician scene would hang out. Damon, Josh, and Mike Baker were all persistant and resourceful about booking gigs, so it gets kind of blurry. But I remember that I played that first show sitting down the entire time and playing only jazz/blues and light textures - Josh covered most of the instrumental melody and I was mindful to embellish, not embattle.

Those first rehearsals and shows I fronted myself to the band as a player first, who could sing over some things if need be. In truth, I had never been picked up for my guitar playing in any previous group. I was always hired on because I could carry a note into a microphone, and wrote lyrics. It wasn't like John Lennon trying out for Weather Report, but I wasn't exactly over my love for traditional pop.

I admittedly had ulterior motives. I knew the band was amazing without me as an instrumental group, and if I could just convince them to "translate" one of my lyrical arrangements, then I knew we might have some market potential outside of the jam scene. This little campaign would ultimately give the band access to different audiences, but also compromise some of the original identity the group and many fans felt was critical.

I had been working on a song on my acoustic for a while that had a chord progression that sounded like a 60's flamenco bossa nova by Barry Manilow. It was really a very sappy progression that sounded nothing like any existing repertoire .

I brought it into rehearsal one day and nervously thought I could run it by with pseudo-political lyrics and all. Within a couple of hours, No One Knows was pretty much finished. We were rehearsing in the garage of a house that Josh shared with other roommates. I remember walking into the kitchen after we played that song and saw our friend Cory and her visiting parents. I distinctly recall the look on their faces.

I knew we were doing something right.

Recordings and diffusion...
Junk Buddha was a great live band; but what was exciting for me was what we could do with our shoestring budget recordings, both as a band recording at home, and with producers such as Jason Bullock. The recordings that we were able to pull together we released in limited private runs as CD-Rs. Sadly, we never invested in having a professional duplication of our material made. However we went to great lengths to put together well packaged demos for all local radio and press.

Vanderbilt's WRVU and Murfreesboro's WMTS were good to us, and played our material on rotation or during dj sets. Hearing your music broadcast over Nashville radio is an overwhelming experience. I was driving on I-24 one day and heard No One Knows on RVU...

I felt like I was literally outside of myself for 4 minutes of my life.

Press was generally positive, especially that from supporter Brian Spencer, who gave us gracious and invaluable leverage as a writer for the local Nashville Rage. But not all press was good, specifically one Nashville Scene writer's comment about the "Jeff Buckley obsessed vocalist" on No One Knows. I took it in stride, though:

Three-four years prior, a girlfriend of mine in Johnson City Tn, emphatically told me that I had to listen to this guy, Buckley.

"Your singing styles are extremely similar," she said.

I was singing in a local band, and she was a huge fan. She showed me the cover to "Grace" and upon seeing the ridiculous pretty boy cover photo, I laughed and ignored her, assuming it was some glossy major-label crooner crap for chicks (well, in some ways it is).

It wasn't until later that I heard him at a party, and was floored by the jazz and r&b influences that were so familiar to me. I considered the reviewer's underhanded comparison and compliment, as Buckley was in a league of his own.

Other recordings were studio translations of live material. "As Star Grows Thin" and "Angels" were by far the strongest of those, being distinct melodic compositions. Star was Josh Cochran and Mike Baker's music that I randomly developed lyrics for live by singing through a crude vocal harmonizer. Angels was 100% Josh's song that was a response, or continuation of the metaphysical theme of No One Knows. I was admittedly a buddhist at the time, and Josh was following the path of Christhood. We would have long discussions about it that were enlightening for both of us.

I never talked about what "No One Knows" was about, because I was essentially hitting at the Platonic or taoist/elusive aspect of personal enlightenment, and that the Ultimate Truth is that which cannot be spoken. But what I didn't ever mention to anyone, including Josh, was that the song was loosely about the story of Christ, and how humanity was on a cyclical journey, "driving nails through time."

"The fool upon whose grave you're dancing, will be born again.."

Nobody ever mentioned anything about that to me... I just kept my mouth shut. I thought it would be better to let them make their own associations.

The final verse was a bit different: it was speaking directly to the history of the Americas, and the bloodshed that brought us to where we are today.

Other material, such as Master The Science, Phelix, and others were live favorites that always brought the house down, but I never felt like I had much to do with their inception as much as I delivered them and played my role in the collective, which was the sound of the band live. The band was capable of pulling off things live that never quite made it into the studio. This is not an unuasual phenomenon: multi-track recording can really stifle the collective dynamic of a performance.

One of the last recordings the band made was "Shining Like The Light of the Sun," which a continuation of the eastern/alienated modernity theme. We recorded that under the helm of Alex Boegnik (JB Member aka Hypothetical) at MTSU studios, and I admittedly had not finished the composition going in. I hated the recording and could not listen to it after the fact, because I thought that I needed to finish the final section -- that it needed something. It stayed on my shelf for months, until I finally pulled it out one night, smoked a joint, and listened to it. I realized that I was far too hard on myself; the track is intentionally very sparse, and its maturity and outstanding performances by the band point to a direction that Junk Buddha would have taken had we stayed together.

While the vocal performance is passable, the lyrics were unquestionably the most important I had written to that point, and signified a closure of a theme that I never revisited. After that, the Bush Regime, Sept 11, the Iraq War, and a polarized public sphere sent me reeling into a materialist escapism that verged on nihilism.

Looking back, I was really just too big for my britches to be preaching like that. Mike used to always talk about how pop connected to the common man, and gave them a break from the toils of the day: entertainment. I am much more in tune with that concept now. Pop music is supposed to be fun. Taking oneself too seriously is a symptom of being in the idealistic 20's.

Change the world this week?

The subject matter of my next project stuck to themes of sin and fatalism.

From Lo-Fi Magic Boxes: by Josh Cochran

As some of you may know before junk buddha was junk buddha it was the lo-fi syndicate, a sort of acid-jazz funked up group consisting of Josh Cochran (anemone) on keys, Damon Scott (yodadrum) on drums, Joe Hermance (who went by mojo at some point in his career) on percussion, groove box, and sampler, James on guitar, and Creighton on bass. I'm not sure what ever happened to those two or what their last names were, but I assure you they were in the band.

We didn't so much play shows as shows came to us. Myself, Damon, Joe, and Chris Costner (DJ Cheddar - whom I had gone to high school with) lived in a ginormous white house on University Street nestled in between a bunch of doctors' offices and the hospital. Hence there were no neighbors at night, hence we could make lots of noise, and hence there were some ridiculous parties.

This place had two living rooms, a mostly finished concrete basement where Costner kept his turntables, and a sizable backyard, and did I mention we could be as loud as we wanted? So we played our jams whenever we had parties and people genuinely seemed to dig it. We had guest musicians (ie partygoers) which could of course sometimes go either way, but it was all subject to our approval.

I remember asking a too much crue Zach Ballard to kindly get off the drums, and I seem to recall some sort of hazy conflict with a bluegrass band called Deep Dish, when they showed up to the party wanting to play their own songs and not jam with us. Also, at one point a young Ernie Gray (who a year or two later would go on to become our guitarist and vocalist) picked up a guitar that was lying around, as if it was some sort of prophetic uber-jam.

Anyhow, I think I met Joe through Todd Christopher (astromass) and he would go on to introduce me to Damon, who would go on to introduce me to Mike Baker, Dave Cerchiaro, Jeremy Davis, Alex Boegnik and so on. In retrospect I now realize I formed some of my greatest friendships during these few formative years of my life. I doubt i would be the same person now if it wasn't for the friendships of Todd, Joe, Costner, Jeremy Davis, and Damon.

And I most certainly wouldn't be the same musician.

Some time during the existence of the lo-fi syndicate we began having weekend recording / jam sessions including many of our non-lo-fi friends. I used a yamaha 4-track, a piece of crap radio shack stereo microphone, and cool edit pro on a 486 to capture HOURS and HOURS of these recording sessions. I was near graduation and at some point I forked over all my graduation money (around $1200) to put together (with some help) this dream machine: a celeron 300 PC which had a sound blaster live! soundcard, a 10gb hard drive, 128mbs of ram, and a CD BURNER!

Who cares right? These days almost all computers have cd burners, but back then (which must have been 96 - 97? Anyone?) this was still a fairly rare technology. One night I burned some of my drum and bass tracks and some of the jam tracks to disc. I remember listening to it with Damon and both of us being amazed at how good it sounded and the fact that it was on a real, honest to gosh cd.

Being the industrious and foolish lad that I was I decided to start a record label of sorts, just so I had an outlet for all this music that we were recording and the tracks I was making in (and on) acid. This meant burning cdrs, cutting paper, printing labels, and trying to sell them to anyone who would listen for a measly $3. Out of the 3 "albums" we realised I think I sold / traded around 100 discs. But most of all this meant HOURS AND HOURS of staying up till sunrise, smoking herb, transferring from 4 track, and cutting up audio. It was a lot of work, but it was worth it.

Magic Boxhead was the first of these releases featuring totally improvised performances from Mike Baker and Jeremy Davis on guitars, Joe on groove box (where the album title came from), Damon on kit, Jeremy Zavik (dj JAZ - who would later be the first DJ in junk buddha) on the tables, Dave Cerchiaro on the loud percussion, and myself on organ and sampled bass (a floppy disk fed early 90's ensoniq EPS expanded to a whopping 4MB of sound - I could write a whole article on that bastard as well.)

We were inexperienced and goofing around, but in many ways the tracks that we produced are still some of my favorite recordings. They came so naturally and we had so much fun making them that they had a sense of mellow effortlessness that I have never achieved again.

And so with the magicboxhead / junglejazz recordings, a new computer, and Costner's tutalege on djing and electronic music I began to form a real appreciation for drum and bass. We started trying more and more to integrate that kind of sound and feel into the band.

Before our first show with Fraulein and Weasel, we lost Creighton to absenteeism and a general sense of spaced-outedness. We also lost James to LSD and, well, another general sense of spaced-outedness. I remember trying to flesh out arrangements at practiceand James just saying "man, I am on so much acid" and not remembering anything. But we picked up Baker on bass and Zavik (dj JAZ) on turntables which would really solidify things and push us into the territory that would eventually become the junk buddha.

Our first show was played under the moniker Mr. Guest, cause we didn't have a name yet, and we didn't really feel like a real band. That show would change everything. The crowds response, which though mostly our friends, was encouraging to say the least. People really liked our acid-jazz stylings with a DJ, and the little bit of electronics thrown in on the side.

I've always felt bad about "stealing" Baker from F&W. He is a phenomenal musician and really fit into our sound quite well so I guess I just had to get over it. I guess he's a big boy too and makes his own decisions. But I do want everybody to know I felt bad about it.

So we had the lineup and now we needed the name. Junk Buddha was the name I came up with. It has many layers of significance. Jungle + Funk = junk. Damon used a bolted trash can lid as a snare. The ironies of a religious figure made from waste materials. And the sheer spirituality of the sounds we created, though with the later additions of Ernie's lyrics and political overtones the Buddha figure would become more significant.

At this point we were still pretty much a Medeski, Martin, and Wood rip-off band, being a three piece with a DJ and no lead guitar or vocals. Hearing John Medeski is what made me want to play organ. Before that I had played saxaphone or guitar in bands and either rock piano or new orleans style stride stuff. So being the frontman with the same type of lineup, that influence came through loud and clear. It didn't help that we did MMW covers too.

But that would soon change with our first "rave" "show" and the addition of Ernie to the lineup.

PART 3

anyhow, the continued story:

we made a rough 30 minute drum and bass set recording at the house where Brent and I lived and it got passed on to some people who offered us this gig at main street. there were some really great guys, whose names i unfortunately cannot remember at the moment, who had a weekly show for djs. sometimes they did foam parties, sometimes it was house, sometimes drum and bass, but it was a dj thing with no live bands.

we were trying to expand our sound to fit this scene and had been incorporating drum and bass stylings into some of our songs, but this was to be an entire set of nothing but continual drum and bass. needless to say we were a little nervous of the acceptance level as djs are traditionally sticklers for as ernie calls us, hacks.

So, i made this intro for us...

(i commonly dropped pre-prepared electronic intros into our sets from a portable cd player that doubled as the player in my car. one of those fancy plug into your tape deck, kind of things. proudly touting the fact that it could read CD-Rs, it was technology at its greatest.)

and we were off. the gig was huge. it was a large place with probably the best sound and lights we had to date, we pulled off all kinds of audio trickery from ernie's mini-tape to pickup voices, damons electronic tabla solo (why dont you let the machine do all the work), and all kinds of other coolness that the electronic music crowd really seemed to appreciate.

we previously had a decent following of local jam band hipster types. with that one show i know for a fact we picked up a whole new crowd of young djs and producers who would tell us time and time again the respect they had for what we were doing. i mean these guys were quite vocal about the band and our music.

this new crowd led us to recording gigs in the A and B mtsu studios, airplay on WRVUs mixdown (which is still kicking and i had some tracks on these last two weeks), tracks on the upcoming Datura release, more shows, and a host of other wonderful opportunities.

i remember one night in particular at the boro. the place was packed, half was the jam band crowd and the other half the jungle kids. we had alex, who was not yet in the band, open up for us. and the whole place, diversified social lines and all, was rocking to drum and bass, dancing, and tearing it up. and then we smoothly transitioned from hypothetikal's aphex twin monologue into damon's processed mixing bowels and then into our set. the kids loved it and i have never felt so validated in all my life.

more than likely this is where my story ends. this is how we got started and got to where we really had our own kind of sound. i may go into the recording of the album and some more backstory in further installments, but all this writing is making me have to pee.

see yuns tomorrow,
-josh

jb prequel v1.0 mod 2.0

durango, colorado, summer after my freshman year of college. dr. pennington's office, head of percussion, ft. lewis college. i was 19 years old, i had taken a few drum lessons when i was a senior in high school but had no actual drum kit. i went to dr. pennington, full of youthful exuberance, and asked how i could get into the drum program at ft.lewis, the conversation was something akin to the following:

"hi, i'm damon, i love playing drums and i am thinking about majoring in percussion."

dr. asshole: "can you read music?"

ds: "not really, but i am willing to work harder than anyone in order to get in to the program."

dr. asshole: " well you have to read music, so you can be in ensemble."

ds: "ok, can you help me with that?"

dr. asshole: "no, most of my drummers learned how to read music in middle school. i don't have time to teach you, you may want to seek out private lessons and learn on your own."

ds: "well, i'm a poor college student and i don't really have the money for private lessons. will you allow me to practice on the drum kit in the rehearsal room?"

dr. asshole; "no, you have to be in an ensemble to get a key to the practice room."

ds: "how about if i just come late at night, or early in the morning, offering to give up my practice time if another student comes into practice?"

dr. asshole: "no, you little shit bag, get the fuck out of my office before i beat you down with a quarter note!"

ok, so i may have embellished a bit, but you get my drift.

armed with anger, motivation, and the legal right to get a line of credit from a willing lender, visa, i headed to a drum shop and purchased a used tama drum set. as i moved out of the dorms and into a house before my sophomore year of college, i now had a place to practice. and practice i did, several hours a day, cutting my teeth on rage against the machine, alice in chains, and stone temple pilots. i even got to play a house party in durango, a rage cover, with super angry hippy chicks rapping the chorus, "killing in the name of."

fast forward 8 months...i decided i really loved music and that i wanted to follow my dad to nashville to go to music school. upon hearing of the excellent music program at belmont, i decided to have a look around. after learning that i was required to take 20 hours of christian based classes i decided to pass on belmont. i was about ready to head back to colorado and probably become a snowboard bum. i was in a studio my dad was working at when i read a front page article in billboard magazine, profiling mtsu, matt mahaffy, fl.oz., spongebath records, and sebastians. i finished the article, applied to school,and moved down to murfreesboro with out ever seeing the city or campus.

i posted a drummer available ad on the cork board at the music store and not a day later, i got a call from tyler mcdaniel. we met at cracker barrel, talked a bit, and i followed him to the 'practice space' at a storage facility (ironically, i believe that the alexis wax practiced next to us, they were fucking loud!) there, i met josh chestnut and luke salberg. i was so nervous at that first 'audition' you see, i had never actually played music with strangers. we blasted through a few songs, and i was struggling to keep up with the frantic indie pseudo punk-rock that was to become the weasel.

i thought i sounded like shit, and i didn't think there was anyway they would want me in the band. but as fate has it, i had been taking some drum lessons in nashville over the summer and my teacher was teaching me indian counting methods, one of which i stupidly pulled out during a song. a phrase in seven over four. for some reason, the fact that i had attempted to bring this in to a straight ahead rock song intrigued chestnut, and i think he convinced the others that they should give me a shot.

fraulien and weasel was born.

i had no friends in the boro, so i started hanging with the band 24/7. me and my red striped shirt met joe, who was living with josh and luke at the time, and we hit it off right away. i think for a period of 6 months, joe and i went to the boro every single night, he bought the $5 pitchers because i was only 20, but i helped him drink every single one. josh's dad also helped me drink a lot of beer, but he must of thought that josh drove all over the south east united states when he got his monthly statement from texaco. through chestnut, we met the famous davis at the pit stop.

funny, chestnut and davis met when they were BOTH actually IN school. I've dug up a terrible audio recording from that show, it included a song called penisaurus rex by tyler, i think that song was performed when we broke strings, which was often. i am in the processing of converting these tapes to digital so i can post cool mp3's like cochran does. anyway, with many parties and many shows in the books, time flew by and i decided to leave the band. right around this time is when joe introduced me to this strange character named josh cochran...

a short meeting in cochran's smoky apartment, he demonstrated some killer organ chops, and said he was working on an electronic album. amazed and perplexed, i walked away thinking that he was an uber talented musician who would want nothing to do with me... as with mr. cochran, i will contunue the saga tomorrow. v 1.1 meeting dirty dave, mike baker, and jaz, and moving into the university house.

prequel v1.0 modified

ahh, like george lucas with star wars, josh and ernie paint gorgeous pictures of the "jb history". and again, like lucas, i have to reply with the "jb prequel" and bastardize the entire story. however, in this story, as in my first, i'll attempt to provide a background that i believe, brought everyone together. be it the university street crew, jb, stolen bones, and most importantly, friendships that transcend galactic light years, and 1.21 jigawatts.

--introduction of new characters--

unfortunately, in my last message, i forgot to include two very critical components to the jb and usc saga.

-erik nowakowski

-brian spencer

forgive me if the last message seemed a bit self-indulgent as i took y'all back to colorado. but as everyone who knows me understands the love i have for my home state, many of you didn't realize (or know me, or care) the struggles i went through when i first moved to middle tennessee. alien environment, alien culture, and aliens in general.

ds, walking into city cafe, the first morning in town, "do you know if there is a bagel shop around?"

nice southern lady with thick southern accent, "what's a bagel?"

brian spencer and erik nowakowski were the first people i met (outside of the band) that i felt comfortable being around. i met these fellas at a wmts meeting in the mass comm building, and i don't know why exactly why i approached them but i did. they seemed cool and they must of thought me and my red striped shirt were ok. so we hung out at a few rugby/frat parties and they invited me to a halloween party at their place. never one to shy away from a good time, i probably dressed up as a guy in a red striped shirt and made my way to the party. the plan was to pre-party at pop-culture central and head to another party. well, good time-red shirt damon decides to eat about 6 recess peanut butter cups and drink 6 cups of beer then lock himself in said strangers bathroom, puke in the porcelain god, and pass out in the closet. the ENTIRE time, i was thinking about how i needed to get my shit together, so i didn't piss off these new found "friends" i thought i had.

next thing i remember waking up, looking at a clock that had "michigan time" written in sharpie underneath it, and watching zeb, play tekken on the ps1. i let a few days pass, gave them a call, apologized and hoped to hear back from somebody. hey, i know it sounds pathetic but i needed friends in a bad way or i was going to end up fire bombing the SAE house.

however, funny thing happened, apparently chocolate and beer don't mix, and the same fate awaited all. we all went on to have a good laugh about it and to this day, it's one of my favorite damon passes out in a strange place stories (i have a bunch, ask me sometime).

don't underestimate the importance of these characters! i believe that erik and brian were the first to play a jb tune on wmts, and brian wrote jb's first (and only) feature interview/article for the school paper. in addition, i met j.a.z. at a party they were hosting.

-j.a.z

the first time i met j.a.z., he was spinning hip-hop records at e & b's apartment. i heard a somewhat obscure hip-hop song that he was throwing down and thought i would seem like a "head" if i dropped some names. of course, jaz, being the super friendly dude he is, put up with my bullshit and greeted me with open arms--gangsta style. i don't recall hanging with jaz that much in the beginning but we were always in the same circles.

-hypothetikal

i had a japanese class with hypo, he was always this really chill dude, who again put up with my b.s. (common theme?) he has this super dope tattoo on his forearm that i always looked at. i asked him about it one day and he told me they were turn tables, so that sparked the entire, "hey i'm a drummer and my friend jaz is a dj" conversation. i won't take credit for introducing these two, i believe they met somewhere else but together they went on to throw down some of the sickest turntableism that middle tennessee has ever seen, as well as exposing trash-rap drenched murfreesboro to real hip-hip with their radio show, for true heads--sorry about the non-gangsta spelling.

this is where things get a bit fuzzy for me...i can't remember if i met dave and mike through brian, erik and jaz, or met them through the fraulein and weasel. hmm, interesting side note, as fate would have it, i quit f&w because i couldn't put up with tyler's stupid ass antics any longer. several months later, tyler dove off the stage at main street, cracking his head open and ended up quitting f&w because he had an epiphany after the fall--later naming his next project, "the falling". tyler quitting opened up a need for a new guitar player in f&w, who ended up being mike baker, aka, baceghost.

...as confusing as the emperors take over of the galactic empire, with out the special effects. for those who don't know, the star wars references carry significance as well...

prequel v2.0 a few more tid bits that will tie the saga together...