BLAST FROM THE PAST
Alright everyone. You're in for quite a treat. The other day I remembered I had saved a lot of pictures on Yahoo several years ago so I went back through them to see what was on there. There were some in there that had me on the floor laughing. These pictures I'm going to show you will provide a small snapshot into winter/spring 2002 for me and you'll understand that the levels of ridiculousness around here know no bounds.
So let me take you on a journey down memory lane.
In December 2001, myself, Brandon Johnson and Dave Kiesel (better known as Red Five Standing By) went into the studio to record a 6 song EP which we titled "Would You Date A Robot?". It was a first for all of us and was a great learning experience. We didn't have much money so we had to work quickly and it all came out pretty rough. But we were pleased. This is a picture of me recording vocal tracks for the record. That's my friend Mike looking on for moral support and a little entertainment of his own. Apparently I was attempting to work a little Cobain magic with that shirt. My high school girlfriend gave me that shirt my sophomore year. Why do I wear things so long?
This is David Dreeson. He was recommended to us by the guys we shared a practice room with ... who incidentally hated us because we never paid our half of the rent on time. What kind of rockstar pays up on time? They were oddly responsible for a group of guys who stayed high most of the time. Anyways, our chance connection with Dreeson has led to a long friendship with a cool guy and great engineer/producer. At the time we were recording in his taken in garage. Now he has a full studio set up at his place in Austin and has recorded several records for Dave and Brandon as they have continued making music. Brandon is currently working alongside Dave at the studio to bring in new business and to make them all pay a fair rate as Dave tends to do everything at cost just because he loves to help people make music. I love that about this guy.
We had a song on the record called "No Good With Girls". It sort of became our theme song. An anthem if you will. Some saw it as a form of self deprecating humor. But I'm here to tell you. We really were no good with girls. We were however great with ideas for making songs unique and funny. We invited several girls into the studio to record lines we had written for the end of the song. So as the song winds down you begin to hear these girls throwing out all the excuses we could think of for not wanting to hang out with us. For example, "I only date football players." "I don't date musicians." So on and so forth. You get the idea. So this is our friend Brandi (on the right) and one of her friends whose name eludes me at the moment. They were really cool about the whole thing and did a great job. It was only about a week later that Brandi would begin her longtime hatred of me for writing a song about an experience I had with her best friend Ashley. I think this was the last time I ever saw her smile around me. So sad.
A couple of reasons why this picture makes me laugh. First of all, notice how Dave is playing the guitar behind his head. Think you've seen this somewhere before? That's right. It's a move that Marty McFly pulled at the Enchantment Under the Sea dance back in 1955. Dave was doing it because we were closing this show with our version of Johnny Be Good ... as we often times did for a crowd full of screaming fans. Funny thing number 2 ... you see the red sign on stage that says, "Red Five Rocks ... Sucks"? That thing kicked so much butt. We had this thing were after a song we would put up points for whether we thought we rocked or sucked. Sometimes we asked the crowd what they thought but we were kind of afraid they would all yell "SUCK!" so we usually just judged ourselves. Of course "suck" always jumped out to an early lead but "rock" came thundering back as we closed out the show with the aforementioned "Johnny Be Good".
Whose seen Spinal Tap? I hope you all raised your hands. If not, then shame on you who have not beheld the glory that is The Tap. Go now and watch this movie to end all movies and then come back to this post so you will understand this picture. This is our friend Graeme. He is 6'7" tall. Here you will see him dressed as dwarf (I know it looks more like an elf, but we made the costume ourselves ... and seamstresses we are not. So just go with us on this one) dancing around a tiny model of Stonehenge dangling from the top of the stage by a wire controlled by Brandon behind the drums. While this is going on we are covering the song "Stonehenge" by Spinal Tap. I don't think there was ever a greater moment in Red Five history than this one right here. As a musician you always want to make the best music possible. As a performer you always want to put on the best show possible. In order to do so you usually need to do something that no one else is doing. I'm pretty sure no one else was doing this.
This I believe is a little later in the same show. This was at The Backroom in Austin which was sort of home base for us when it came to playing shows. Notice Graeme in the front without his elf suit. That's my friend Aaron from high school in the crowd. Not sure if I realized he was there or not. Surely I did. That's Princess Leia on stage with the Red Five t-shirt. Product placement people. Product placement. Looks like Dave and I are doing one of our simultaneous drum riser jumps. Apparently I'm about to slam my head into the back of the sign that we used to conceal the tiny stonehenge earlier in the show. Never felt a thing. It's rock 'n roll you know. Just comes with the territory. That does remind me of the time Dave did the same thing but he hit a steel pole above his head. I thought he was going to pass out on stage. Good times I tell you. Good times.
We did some pretty ridiculous stuff during the relatively short time we were a band, but I promise you nothing topped what you are about to see next. We were needing some press photos and of course we didn't want to do anything that was currently being done by all the other bands out there. Again, not so good with the girls. But great with wild ideas that involved girls. We were always playing off the whole "No Good With Girls" thing. And I guess we were also in a sports mood at the time so we decided to do a sort of sports spoof typed theme. We found several female friends that we (it should be noted that I have to stop every few lines because I'm still laughing hysterically as I write this) convinced to play the part of cheerleaders and headed out to the football field at Westlake High School. We started with some ideas of what we wanted but this quickly got out of hand and we ended up with hundreds of hilarious pictures from the day. In this first shot, notice the attempted bad ass looks on all our faces. That part makes me laugh as does the fact that we rented those letter jackets from a costume store (which we pretty much kept in business during those months) as does the fact that we were able to talk those girls into doing this. What a bizarre day.
This is Dave and I watching Brandon get beat up by the cheerleaders. I don't know which is funnier. Brandon being beat up by girls or Brandon posing as a football player. Both hilarious. We thought this would have made a perfect 8x10 for a press kit. Don't you think this would have gotten the attention of club owners when trying to book shows? Sadly, I think this may be the first public showing of these pictures. In true rockstar fashion we spent a full day on a photo shoot and in the end didn't have exactly what we were looking for. Thanks to Taffy, LeeAnn, Stacey and Jasmine for being good sports and great cheerleaders. And to Brandon, Dave and I for being less than average excuses for football players.
Several months later I took a sales job in Houston. This marked the beginning of the end for Red Five Standing By. We played shows on and off the rest of the year, but in the end it was too much of a challenge to keep it going and Dave and Brandon were working on new material for a new project that was taking their time and focus. Since then they have gone on to work on several projects ... the latest being their band Hundred Year Storm which was signed to Floodgate Records this past year. These are a few snapshots of where it all began though. And although at the time I was really wrestling with a lot of decisions about my future and in the coming months would take my life in a drastically different direction ... I can still say that spring 2002 was one of the great times of my life. Our goal for the time being was to make rock 'n roll and to have a great time doing it. We made some great friends along the way and lost a few as well. The memories are wonderful and the laughs even better. Hope you enjoy finding them as much as I did.
So let me take you on a journey down memory lane.
In December 2001, myself, Brandon Johnson and Dave Kiesel (better known as Red Five Standing By) went into the studio to record a 6 song EP which we titled "Would You Date A Robot?". It was a first for all of us and was a great learning experience. We didn't have much money so we had to work quickly and it all came out pretty rough. But we were pleased. This is a picture of me recording vocal tracks for the record. That's my friend Mike looking on for moral support and a little entertainment of his own. Apparently I was attempting to work a little Cobain magic with that shirt. My high school girlfriend gave me that shirt my sophomore year. Why do I wear things so long?
This is David Dreeson. He was recommended to us by the guys we shared a practice room with ... who incidentally hated us because we never paid our half of the rent on time. What kind of rockstar pays up on time? They were oddly responsible for a group of guys who stayed high most of the time. Anyways, our chance connection with Dreeson has led to a long friendship with a cool guy and great engineer/producer. At the time we were recording in his taken in garage. Now he has a full studio set up at his place in Austin and has recorded several records for Dave and Brandon as they have continued making music. Brandon is currently working alongside Dave at the studio to bring in new business and to make them all pay a fair rate as Dave tends to do everything at cost just because he loves to help people make music. I love that about this guy.
We had a song on the record called "No Good With Girls". It sort of became our theme song. An anthem if you will. Some saw it as a form of self deprecating humor. But I'm here to tell you. We really were no good with girls. We were however great with ideas for making songs unique and funny. We invited several girls into the studio to record lines we had written for the end of the song. So as the song winds down you begin to hear these girls throwing out all the excuses we could think of for not wanting to hang out with us. For example, "I only date football players." "I don't date musicians." So on and so forth. You get the idea. So this is our friend Brandi (on the right) and one of her friends whose name eludes me at the moment. They were really cool about the whole thing and did a great job. It was only about a week later that Brandi would begin her longtime hatred of me for writing a song about an experience I had with her best friend Ashley. I think this was the last time I ever saw her smile around me. So sad.
A couple of reasons why this picture makes me laugh. First of all, notice how Dave is playing the guitar behind his head. Think you've seen this somewhere before? That's right. It's a move that Marty McFly pulled at the Enchantment Under the Sea dance back in 1955. Dave was doing it because we were closing this show with our version of Johnny Be Good ... as we often times did for a crowd full of screaming fans. Funny thing number 2 ... you see the red sign on stage that says, "Red Five Rocks ... Sucks"? That thing kicked so much butt. We had this thing were after a song we would put up points for whether we thought we rocked or sucked. Sometimes we asked the crowd what they thought but we were kind of afraid they would all yell "SUCK!" so we usually just judged ourselves. Of course "suck" always jumped out to an early lead but "rock" came thundering back as we closed out the show with the aforementioned "Johnny Be Good".
Whose seen Spinal Tap? I hope you all raised your hands. If not, then shame on you who have not beheld the glory that is The Tap. Go now and watch this movie to end all movies and then come back to this post so you will understand this picture. This is our friend Graeme. He is 6'7" tall. Here you will see him dressed as dwarf (I know it looks more like an elf, but we made the costume ourselves ... and seamstresses we are not. So just go with us on this one) dancing around a tiny model of Stonehenge dangling from the top of the stage by a wire controlled by Brandon behind the drums. While this is going on we are covering the song "Stonehenge" by Spinal Tap. I don't think there was ever a greater moment in Red Five history than this one right here. As a musician you always want to make the best music possible. As a performer you always want to put on the best show possible. In order to do so you usually need to do something that no one else is doing. I'm pretty sure no one else was doing this.
This I believe is a little later in the same show. This was at The Backroom in Austin which was sort of home base for us when it came to playing shows. Notice Graeme in the front without his elf suit. That's my friend Aaron from high school in the crowd. Not sure if I realized he was there or not. Surely I did. That's Princess Leia on stage with the Red Five t-shirt. Product placement people. Product placement. Looks like Dave and I are doing one of our simultaneous drum riser jumps. Apparently I'm about to slam my head into the back of the sign that we used to conceal the tiny stonehenge earlier in the show. Never felt a thing. It's rock 'n roll you know. Just comes with the territory. That does remind me of the time Dave did the same thing but he hit a steel pole above his head. I thought he was going to pass out on stage. Good times I tell you. Good times.
We did some pretty ridiculous stuff during the relatively short time we were a band, but I promise you nothing topped what you are about to see next. We were needing some press photos and of course we didn't want to do anything that was currently being done by all the other bands out there. Again, not so good with the girls. But great with wild ideas that involved girls. We were always playing off the whole "No Good With Girls" thing. And I guess we were also in a sports mood at the time so we decided to do a sort of sports spoof typed theme. We found several female friends that we (it should be noted that I have to stop every few lines because I'm still laughing hysterically as I write this) convinced to play the part of cheerleaders and headed out to the football field at Westlake High School. We started with some ideas of what we wanted but this quickly got out of hand and we ended up with hundreds of hilarious pictures from the day. In this first shot, notice the attempted bad ass looks on all our faces. That part makes me laugh as does the fact that we rented those letter jackets from a costume store (which we pretty much kept in business during those months) as does the fact that we were able to talk those girls into doing this. What a bizarre day.
This is Dave and I watching Brandon get beat up by the cheerleaders. I don't know which is funnier. Brandon being beat up by girls or Brandon posing as a football player. Both hilarious. We thought this would have made a perfect 8x10 for a press kit. Don't you think this would have gotten the attention of club owners when trying to book shows? Sadly, I think this may be the first public showing of these pictures. In true rockstar fashion we spent a full day on a photo shoot and in the end didn't have exactly what we were looking for. Thanks to Taffy, LeeAnn, Stacey and Jasmine for being good sports and great cheerleaders. And to Brandon, Dave and I for being less than average excuses for football players.
Several months later I took a sales job in Houston. This marked the beginning of the end for Red Five Standing By. We played shows on and off the rest of the year, but in the end it was too much of a challenge to keep it going and Dave and Brandon were working on new material for a new project that was taking their time and focus. Since then they have gone on to work on several projects ... the latest being their band Hundred Year Storm which was signed to Floodgate Records this past year. These are a few snapshots of where it all began though. And although at the time I was really wrestling with a lot of decisions about my future and in the coming months would take my life in a drastically different direction ... I can still say that spring 2002 was one of the great times of my life. Our goal for the time being was to make rock 'n roll and to have a great time doing it. We made some great friends along the way and lost a few as well. The memories are wonderful and the laughs even better. Hope you enjoy finding them as much as I did.
posted by Craig at 8:34 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home