karl.tsakos.us/blog

Well, after spending the majority of my life playing either guitar or bass with friends I’m in what I would consider a real band. For the first time ever, we performed our original music before an audience. Mind you, it was in the basement of one of our band members at his birthday party, BUT THAT ISN’T IMPORTANT; WE PLAYED!

This song is truly a team effort. As with any band, everyone brought their style to the song and really wrote their own parts. But more then that, no one person is responsible for the entire song. I came up with the riff you hear at the beginning and the overall chord progression for the song. Independently, Shaun wrote lyrics and shared them with Dave. Dave modified the structure of the song and wrote a bridge while also modifying Shaun’s lyrics and then stuck them together. Along the way there were of course the suggestions from everyone that were either integrated or ignored as is the way these things happen.

Lilting, 2010 from Karl Tsakos on Vimeo.

First time ever performance by The Tappan Sea at Dave’s 40th birthday party. Band members include David Kopperman, Edz O’Leary, Amy Delia, Shaun Johnsen, and Karl Tsakos.

When I was in third grade there was a major debate taking place. Which was the better band? Queen or Kiss?

Well, of course when you are a third grader you know everything for certain. And I, like many of my friends, knew Kiss was the better band. And, we weren’t afraid to argue that point despite not ever listening to the music of that or pretty much any other band.

Of course when I say debate, I of course mean everyone versus Jeff Wilde. At least I think his last name was Wilde. There were two Jeffs in my class and I’m almost certain the one I am thinking of had that surname. The Jeff on the side of Kiss, the side I and all right thinking people were on, was a skinny kid with ruffled, brown hair. Jeff Wilde, on the other hand, was a slightly plump kid with a blond crewcut. He was all alone on the side of Queen.

Now, I knew I was in the right because my older brother was a Kiss fan. He purchased their albums. He even had the Love Gun album which came with a cardboard gun. The gun was designed with a flap of paper which would pop out with a loud snapping sound when you flicked the gun. It even had the word “BANG” written on it (just so there was no question that you heard a gunshot). How cool is that?

On the other hand, Jeff brought in evidence of his fandom one day in the form of a Queen album. I remember it well. Even though it didn’t have any cool toys with it, it did have a picture of a giant robot holding the limp and crushed bodies of the band in it’s cruel hands. Now I know that is cool.

No, this debate never went any further, no school yard fights. I think it was pushed aside for a more interesting topics such as the Yankees (another favorite topic of third graders).

Today, I believe I can name one Kiss song or two – maybe. But, I can name several Queen songs and albums. In fact, I consider them one of the best bands of all time for their musicianship and creativity. I guess I will concede this one to Jeff Wilde.

*For the record, I don’t know anything about the Yankees anymore either.

(Continued from “Rock On, Part1: The Early Years.”)

After things had settled down, my friends from college, post college friends, and siblings would get together every Tuesday for ten cent wing night at a local bar. Sometimes we would get together afterwards and have acoustic folk jams at my brother’s and my apartment. Tom was still around and usually played with us. This common song reference actually resulted in one of my first public performances. Ridgefield, Connecticut was having a street sale where all of the stores opened their doors and setup stands to attract patrons. Tom was friends with the owner of the local music shop who happened to have a band setup on the sidewalk for people to try the instruments. Tom and I picked up the guitar and bass while the owner played drums and his son joined in on keyboard. We played for around an hour and attracted a small crowd.

My musical endeavors got even folkier when wing night dissolved. We discovered that my sister’s friend Liz also played guitar and sang. We wound up playing mostly cover songs and some original stuff with her. Every Thursday we would play open mic night at Jimmy’s Seaside in Stamford. Always the same group of people both in the audience and on stage. Often My brother would join in on vocals. This venue is where the tradition of picking a new band name for each performance started. The only name I can recall off the top of my head was “We Know a Cop.”

Actually, I’m not sure that was what happened next. It’s quit possible this next bit happened first but to be honest, this period of time was sort of amorphous and didn’t have any one particular style or outlet. Anyhow, I started to play lead guitar with my sister and Liz playing rhythm guitars. We tried a couple of bassests and a couple of drummers. We played at someone’s party once, and I can’t recall who was playing bass and drums. I think it was Kemmet on bass and Teague on drums.

Towards the end of that incarnation, I believe Jim M. started playing bass for us. As that band thinned out, it became just Kia, Jim M., and me. We started writing some original music. In our search for a drummer, we came across my other friend Jim D’s friend Dave. I didn’t really know it at the time, but this was the first time Dave had played drums in a band. He had played other instruments in several bands, but never the drums. This band actually gelled and we managed to make some multitrack recordings. We were all set to publish them with a fixed band name, “Rex Mundi” until we learned there was another band using that name. We decided to take the name of the CD for our band as well. Thus we were “Vufu.”

“Vufu” came to an end when my sister had her first child. That’s when Jim D. Started singing for us. The band became Me, Jim D., Jim M., and Dave. We eventually added Sean as a percussionist. The band also lost it’s name. We had become what could be best called an eclectic cover band, doing everything from country to metal. So it made sense to re-institute the tradition of picking a new name for every performance. And we did perform. Our band names included: “Piper Down,” “Autopsy Turvy,” “Tranz-Phat,” “Monkey-X Mystery Attack,” and “Hypnotoad.” I’m probably missing one or two.

As was becoming a new tradition, this band fell apart when our bassist, Jim M., and his wife had their first child.

As things were slowing down, Dave had started another band so he could play keyboards again and get out from behind the drums. Dave has had the closest thing to a musical career of anyone I know. His last band broke up because it was too hard to kept replacing the guitarist. This new band consisted of long time collaborator Edz on drums and one of his many guitarists Shaun. Dave asked me what I thought of the music and I said it was good but it lacked bass. He said they needed to find a bass player. I said, “Okay, I’ll do it.” Dave followed my bad impulse with the unwise, “Okay.” I say “bad”and “unwise” because it could have turned out poorly for our friendship.

As it turns out, we were a good match and I became the fourth member of the band. Because Dave didn’t want to be the singer this time, we started a search for a female singer. Thus, Christine joined the band.

I keep saying “the band” because we have yet to all agree on a name (although Dave and I both like “P.C.M.A.”). We will need one soon. We’re almost done recording our first album and then will want to play some gigs to promote it.

So, there you have the history of bands I’ve been in. Look for future installments where I will discuss some of the bands in a little more detail and provide some example recordings if I have any.

I once had a band. No, I had several bands. More to the point, I was
in several bands. Let me clarify.

I wanted to start posting some of the songs from the various bands I’ve been in. I realized to do so it would make sense to include a history of said bands. This history turned out to be a bit longer then I thought so it is broken into two installments. Here’s Part 1.

My first band was a high school band. My sister Kia and her friend Tania decided to write some songs. Punk songs if my memory serves me. My sister played guitar and Tania played keyboard and they both sang. Our neighbor down the hill, Benjy hosted the band and played the drums. I was drafted to play the bass guitar (which Benjy also had). Until then, I don’t think I ever consciously thought of the bass as an instrument. I may have been able to tell you someone was a bass player, but didn’t think of it’s sound as something distinct and not just part of the overall sound of the band. My first bass part was all whole notes, which in punk music is kind of slow. Not bad considering I had never really played a stringed instrument until that point. They told me it was played using the index and middle finger of the right hand, no pick. I gave it my all and during the first few practices played those whole notes hard enough to get blisters.

The band was called “Have a Nice Day” and our logo was a smiley face crossed out with a bloody slash (this was before “Watchmen”). The band was the first of many I have been in that never performed anywhere. It was also one of the most successful bands I’ve ever been in. We wrote or learned somewhere between five and ten songs. We would record ourselves playing in Benjy’s basement on a single microphone to a cassette tape. Then make copies of the tapes for each other to listen to. Needless to say, the audio quality was often substandard.

So, how was this a successful band? I guess you could say it was the precursor to viral marketing, it was 1983 after all. We would play the tapes for our friends or tell other people we were in a band. Pretty soon, people I hardly knew would comment about the band or somehow had heard one of the songs. We had a buzz. And that was that. My sister and Tania both graduated high school in 1984, and thus ended the band.

I didn’t really play anything else through high school. When my sister would come home from college, she would borrow a friends bass for me and we would write some songs during summer vacation. I’m afraid nothing has really survived from that era.

While I was in college (my sister had graduated from her college) we formed another band called “Zod.” We recruited my friend Curtis to be the drummer. He said he knew how to play and that was good enough. We played all cover songs from bands like “The Dead Kennedys,” “Flipper,” and the “Sexpistols.” This band even performed once at some late night college party in some dark room where beer was being served. We sucked. Our friends were nice enough to cheer us on. Really – they were being nice. Our drummer got drunk to calm his nerves which didn’t help his performance or song retention. Kia’s underpowered practice amp screamed through the performance whether or not she was playing. I can’t even remember my own performance, I’m pretty sure it’s because it wasn’t memorable.

Post college, we still had “Zod,” but it again was just for our own pleasure. Kia, Curtis, my brother Yani and some other various friends rented a house together where we had a permeant band setup in the basement garage. By this time our friend Tom, who was a real guitarist, was playing with us. My bass playing had been improving and we were moving on from the three chord punk and playing harder songs like “Thin Lizzy’s” “The Boys are Backin Town.” My friend Paul (whose bass amp I used for the “Zod” gig and used for practice) would occasionally join in with us as well. Even though he was a bassist first, he played guitar as I was playing bass.

Somehow, Paul, Curtis, and I wound up playing alone and started writing our own songs. We had worked up enough songs for a set and Paul scheduled us for our first gig at The Beat in Port Chester as “The Gilberts” (named after comedian Gilbrt Gottfried). The same The beat where Moby had DJed early in his career. We were practicing hard and perfecting our songs for the upcoming first performance. Somewhere around a week before the gig, my sister and curtis had a large fight which not only resulted in the end of the rented house, but the band and ultimately my friendship with Curtis. Looking back, I feel terrible for Paul. We tried to stay together for the gig and even practiced again but ultimately it was too uncomfortable. I think Paul got another bass player and drummer together to play the gig. I don’t really remember as I was distracted at the time.

Interestingly enough, The recording of the last practice survived. It had some great fights and arguments on it. A couple years ago my friend Dave (who I didn’t know in the time of The Gilberts) was looking for an argument to put in the background of one of the songs his band “Copperman” was recording. I mentioned the tape and he went with it. So, somehow without ever performing, the music, or more to the point the arguments of “The Gilberts,” lives on.

In part two I will cover everything post Gilberts to today.

(Continued in “Rock On, Part 2: The Later Years.”)

I always suspected there was something between Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock. And now, thanks to this video (which has been out for a while I know) and some brilliant editing there is video proof.

Seriously, whoever created this video is a genius. The choice of the Nine Inch Nails song Closer and the stylized video made of clips from old Star Trek episodes was brilliant. I mean, I really feel for Spock and his pain. And in the end, the things that happened to Kirk and what he will have to come to grips with.

I’m not making much sense I know, so just watch this and you’ll understand…

(Warning: Explicit content)

Today’s tale is one of coincidence, and it started yesterday.

Last night the band, which I will now start to officially call the P.C.M.A. (formerly sometimes called DeSk), wrote three songs. As the songs gelled, I recorded them for the band to review, but mostly so we would remember them a week from now.

This morning I bounced the songs (mixed them down) to MP3 files to share with the members of the P.C.M.A. As I did so, I had to give them names. These names seem to stick only about half the time. They get changed when we know what the song is about.

One reminded me of something from the ’80s with what to me seemed like a british sound. This was most likely because of the tone of the keyboard. So I named it Briton Memoir. Another wound up in a Ska or Reggae stile (even though it was inspired by a southern Californian song), but the tempo was halfway between the two. Somehow its title became Skaggey.

The last was a slow, mellow piece which featured the organ with the stops set to only play higher overtones. Obviously and predictably it reminded me of the sonar of a bat. But because of the slow, mellow tempo, it has a slight sleepy feeling. So, I called that piece Chiroptera Somnambulist which translates from the Greek and Latin origins as “sleepwalking bat.”

Now, since bats are known to be nocturnal, an interesting effect of a sleepwalking bat is that it would be out and about in the middle of the day.

Here’s where the coincidence kicks in.

Today, Christian and I decided to get out and go for a hike. Since we wanted a change of scenery, we decided to head up to Lake Minewaska near New Paltz, New York. As we walked down the trail by Awostoga Falls, we saw something flying in and out of the trees. I asked, “What is that?” Christian answered, “It’s a bird.” I corrected him, “No, it’s a bat!”

One in the afternoon on a sunny day, and there was a bat flying in and out of the shadows. Of course our first notion was that it was rabid and therefore completely insane. But, the more we watched it, the clearer it became that the bat was completely in control of its behavior. Clearly it was feasting on the gnats so abundantly present along the river. Occasionally it would alight on a tree and rest for a moment before continuing on it’s feast.

Christian noted that it seemed to be flying very slowly. I observed that it was probably flying at the same speed in the dark, but when you see them a dusk the quick glimpse makes them look like they are moving faster. Either way, it was a rare and amazing experience to have the opportunity to watch the little critter at work.

And work he did. We watched him for ten minutes as we walked slowly down the trail. At one point I tried to get a picture of him which proved impossible to do. As I had the camera to my eye trying to find him, let alone follow him as he darted around, he made a bee line right at us. Christian made a startled yelp and we both started and shrieked as it veered off just 6 feet from us. Thankfully, no one was around to see.

Our hike continued for another two and a half hours before we returned along the same trail. We briefly saw him again as he chased some more insects further down the trail.

All I know was that it was clearly not sleepwalking, or sleepflying. I don’t even know if that was normal behavior for a bat. Still, it was a pretty amazing sight.

No he didn’t. That was a lie.

He said do it every night before bed. That’s the ticket to a prolific if not informative blog.

Dave. He’s the one who said it. Blog every night before you go to bed. Make it the last thing you do before going to bed. It’s right there in the comments to my March 23rd blog entry.

Well, what can I look forward to if I do that? A feeling of dreaded commitment. If I don’t do it will I sleep poorly as a result? Am I damning myself to guilt ridden evenings where I feel obliged to do something?

Where has it gotten him? Comments on how many Star Trek universe cast members wound up on the ’80s Twilight Zone. Actully, upon further inspection it is kind of hard to find too much self involved fluff on Dave’s site The Subway Rambler. Well self involved yes (for it is the nature of the blog). But fluff? Yes, okay fluff. BUT! Entertaining fluff. The exploration of the gaudy house in New Jersey is priceless.

The point is, can I be interesting on a nightly basis or just wind up talking about how boring I am? (See, just then?)

Perhaps we could discuss the band Dave and I are in? Neither he, nor I, nor the Telepathic Unicycle (that would be DELETED’s blog) discuss our band. No, not the cover band, the originals band with Dave, Shaun, Edz and me. We’re recording now. Well not right now, but we’ve been recording for the past 6 months.

Ah, does this peek your interest? Perhaps some samples as we get going to keep you interested and wanting more. Then, when there is more, you’ll want it and get it and then all will be happy.

Hurrah!

(No music this go round. You’ll have to come back for that another time. [Give me a break, I just thought up the idea now.])