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 Why on Earth do I do this? I'm not a thrill-seeker. I don't climb mountains. You'll certainly never see me bungee-jumping. But there is some thrill in making music. It's not an instant adrenaline rush. It's more of a long-term 'raising the bar' on my quality of life. I guess it stands to reason that this music is my favorite music in the world. So I listen to it all the time. I never get tired of it. Although I find flaws everywhere. Always the critic.
But I still don't know why I do it. I guess I could blame my mother. I always blame my mother. She is clearly musically inclined. She has a voice that puts me to shame. Apparently my dad had some skills too. He played the bugle when he was in the Air Force. Who knew they did that? Then there was Butch. He was my mom's third husband. He was the drummer in a country band that I was allowed to watch play, despite the fact that they were playing in bars and I was still a young teenager. I was never a fan of country music, but when I experience any kind of music live, there is just some kind of connection. The guys in the band were always, well, just plain cool. Mark, one of the guitarists, was a jazz player caught in a country band. He'd go off every now and then - break into jazz scales. Very inspiring.
Mom and Butch got me my first electric guitar when I was about 13. I spent the next few years learning the basics. And changing guitars. I can't remember how many I had. I'd get one, then sell it two months later to buy the next one. Peavey, Ibanez, Cort, Washburn. I really wish I had kept them all. Memories.....
Then I picked up a barely-used Ibanez Destroyer II in 1985 for $400. I made the money working at a liquor importer silkscreening 'bullseye' signs for liquor stores. You remember, those signs that would hang in the windows of liquor stores that showed off this week's special price for a fifth of vodka? Yep, that was me. A 16 year old, who had never had a drink, was a vital key in the alcohol marketing industry. Back to the plot though.
I still have that Ibanez and I still use it for recording. It's quite beat up - all of the dings and chips from running into mic stands and other guys' instruments have left it looking like it's been through a battle. But it's still the sweetest playing guitar I've ever owned. The only guitar that I've played that surpassed it was a Les Paul I had the pleasure of using during a studio session. Problem is, it's hard to justify two grand for a guitar when your just sitting in your basement pluncking around with it.
Well, as I was developing my chops, I hooked up with Brian Seachrist and Charles Schwien. We all went to high school together and had similar musical tastes. Brian played guitar and Chuck played drums, and together we had just enough talent to make noise that sounded vaguely musical. Even then we were playing originals. Clap, Back to Africa, and Wok the Wabbit were all songs that, perhaps deservedly, never made it to vinyl. Our 'sessions' weren't exactly structured. Sometimes it seemed that Brian and I were bent on driving Chuck crazy. I remember more than once, Chuck just leaving the room as Brian and I made as many weird noises as we could with our guitars. Poor Chuck. Didn't even have a bassist to sympathize with.
I got into my first 'serious' band (is there such a thing?) in 1987. One of the guitarists in Butch's band knew a bassist who was looking for a rock guitarist. So I made the contacts and next thing I knew I was part of a rock-n-roll three piece. Somewhere along the line, we settled on the name Detonator (go ahead, laugh). Mike Jerrels played bass and sang(?). He was the most solid bass player I ever worked with. He was also tone-deaf. But he knew each song so well. I played everything by ear - he played nothing by ear. Quite a mix. The problem was that I was to 'shy' to sing - so Mike boldly stepped up to the mic. With the exception of Henry Rollins, tone-deaf people should not be singers. I will say this - he had style. Pete Hirsch was our drummer. It was really neat to see his development as a player through the few years that we played together. Let me put it this way - we covered Rush and he played Peart's part very respectably.
This was the first time that I really got to play my own structured originals in a band format. Alibies and Apathy were two originals that found their ways into our cover sets. They weren't brilliant works of art, but they may actually get recorded someday. Let's just say I have a soft spot in my heart for them. Kind of like your first car, no?
Mike was well aware that his vocals weren't the greatest, so throughout the 'history' of Detonator, we went through a number of lead singers. There was Kyle. Good guy - bad singer. He was minimally better than Mike. Had that 'if you can't hit the note, scream it' mentality. Then there was Rosemary Lacovera. Jersey girl. Attitude. Great pipes. But she never exactly fit in. I think there may have been some friction, or miscommunication, between her and Mike. We ended up bringing Brian in for the final incarnation of the band. It was probably the best we ever sounded, but we were getting a bit burnt out. Not sure why. Time has faded the reasons. Regardless, we called it quits. The last I heard (and this was a while ago), Mike was playing bass in his church band and Pete had sold his drums and become a competitive jet-skier.
After Detonator detonated, it didn't take long for the band bug to bite me again. I hooked up with a drummer named Russ Bicek (via Mike, if I remember corectly) and brought Brian and Chuck in to jam with. I think Chuck came up with the 'Speed Gypsies' moniker. Hot summer Saturday afternoons in a closed garage in central Florida. Sometimes with the dryer running. Lots of fun, really.
We were playing a lot of covers with a handful of originals that Chuck and Brian and I had come with. At the same time Chuck and Rosemary had been working together to record some originals. I worked some with Chuck and Rosemary and Brian recording those songs. I wonder what ever happened to those recordings?
Eventually, Rosemary and I hooked up and wrote some songs based on her writings. Looking back now, it was fun stuff, but I was just learning how to write and record. I wouldn't say I was making the best music of my life at the time, but I was certainly as busy, musically, as I have ever been.
By the mid 90s big changes were in the works. Chuck had moved to Georgia, though we kept in touch and continued to work on musical ideas together. I had effectively lost touch with Brian, although Chuck kept me up-to-date. I had just gotten married. And then: I up and left for Colorado.
That was not really a tough decision. I had been to Colorado a few times and always loved it. There was nothing better to me than cool air, mountains and a lack of humidity. What I would find out later was that Colorado Springs was virtually a black hole for music. The town had a conservative reputation - the streets pretty much rolled up at 9:00PM. But, I wouldn't trade it for anything.
Meanwhile, Brian was going to school to become a recording studio engineer. Man was I jealous. I'd have given his right arm to go to a recording school. Chuck followed a similar path, but specializing in digital video editing.
Not long after moving, I met up with Jim Oliver, a very talented musician who was interested in forming a duet. He was more into Elvis and Lennon while I was into Rush and Ozzy, but we gave it a shot anyway. We met when we each answered an add posted by a local drummer and bassist looking for a singer and guitarist. Neither of us got the gig, but we kept in touch. A few months later we were working out several sets of cover tunes using a drum machine and MIDI accompaniment. Jim played rhythm guitar and sang while I played guitar, bass and performed some vocals. This was the first time I had ever played bass in a band format - I really enjoyed it. We played a few gigs, had some fun, but ended up walking away from it for various reasons. A few year later, I ended up playing a couple of guitar tracks on one of Jim's solo releases.
Then I did the unthinkable. I took a job as a DJ. I know, I know. DJs are the scourge of the live performance industry. But, you never know what it's like until you try it, no? It was fun. But it was a lot of work. The gigs were usually done solo - so you had to load, drive, setup, play DJ, breakdown, drive, unload, all in a single evening, for not-so-much dinero. I met some good guys while I was doing it, and I learned some good front-man skills from working solo, but there was certainly a lack of accomplishment when the show was over.
I went back to my little corner of the house and started working on originals again. By this time, I had ditched my cassette four-track for a recording application on my PC. What a world of difference. I had the tools to make better recordings than had been done in the 60s. I often wonder what Hendrix would have been able to do with a modern recording setup. This is when Tail End Charlie was hatched. It was just a name, a label, that I could attach to the music I was working on. I wanted to be able to make original music without any constraints, such as 'will I be able to play it live?' Chuck was supplying me with lyrics (I ain't no lyricist) and I was slowly gathering enough mediocre equipment to consider producing a full-length CD.
Then I started jamming with some guys. The band bug bites again. It was me, Dave Tickle on drums, John Hoffman on Bass and Chris on guitar and vocals. We covered a lot of grunge and hard-rock. We never had a name. Jammed together for, let's say, two years. And never played out once. Again though, we did have fun. Eventually John and Chris, both in the Air Force, were sent to Korea and England, respectively.
So, back to Tail End Charlie. I finally got enough songs together to complete the first CD, 'Don't Quit Your Day Job'. It was good. I was very happy with the performances, but, listening to it now, I can tell I was still learning how to record properly. I am STILL learning.
I had stayed in touch with Dave after the other guys had left the country, and he had met a guitarist that he wanted to jam with. So, in 2002, we got together to jam in my basement. Again, it was good. The guitarist was Jimmy McGarvey, and he had some good licks and great chops. I immediately decided to take up the bass and make it a three piece - Play Hooky was born. I recorded some of Jimmy's licks and started to form songs out of them. It was really fun. The first time I had ever worked with music where I was not the guitarist. I really fell in love with the bass though. Kind of like getting a new toy.
Before long, we had enough material for a full CD. We played a couple of basement shows for fun, but ended up parting ways with Dave in 2003. We spent the rest of the year looking for a drummer and recording the first CD. By Christmas we had our first professionally re-produced CDs. Chuck was cool enough to do the cover art for us. It was strange though. I wasn't as excited about it as I though I would be. I figure that was due to the amount of times I had heard the songs while we were recording and mixing. But, it was still pretty cool.
The drummer search really beat on me. We had contact with at least nine different drummers over a year, and none of them worked out. We were looking for the right mix of skill and attitude, and that chemistry just never surfaced. To be honest, the entire search was draining.
All the while, I continued working on the second Tail End Charlie cd. Chuck had been writing lyrics and songs during the past few years and he would regularly forward the material to me. I would take his lyrics and put them over my music, or, sometimes, simply re-record one of the songs he had written in 'Charlie-style'. The music was getting more complex too. So was the recording process.
My drive for perfection was really starting to frustrate me. How can you get professional studio quality recordings in a basement without a sound-room? And cheap equipment? Trust me, it's very hard to justify to your wife the need for a $1000 piece of equipment to bring out the dynamics in your vocals. Or the need for 'another' guitar. Hell, it's hard to justify it to myself, much less my wife.
Regardless, I will keep plugging along. Despite the frustration, I feel compelled to continue. What else am I going to do? Sit around and watch football?
Keith Varney,
Colorado Springs - 2004
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