I use the word "band" in an extremely loose sense, in that there were only two of us: Me and my friend Nate. We called ourselves SRO, which of course is an abbreviation for "Standing Room Only," which in itself is funny in that we never played a single show in which you couldn't find a seat.
All told, we really didn't play that many shows in the first place. Our busiest time was the summer of 1991, when I was a junior at John Carroll University and Nate was a sophomore at Case Western Reserve University. We played something like 8-10 gigs that summer, I think...maybe fewer, I don't know. Like all things, the number tends to inflate as I get older.
I like to think we were an entertaining live band. There were only two of us, so we kept ourselves pretty busy during our shows. Nate is a keyboardist, but seeing as how he only has two hands, he couldn't possibly cover all the parts in our songs by himself. So he always brought his desktop computer to every show (this was before laptops, remember), and the computer would control our bass, drums and other elements as needed.
I, meanwhile, played saxophones, wind synthesizer and miscellaneous kindergarten percussion toys I picked up at various music stores when I had a few extra bucks in my pocket.
A wind synthesizer, for the uninitiated, is an electronic instrument that you play by blowing through a controller, like so:
(NOTE: That's not a picture of me. There are subtle differences between me and the guy shown here, not the least of which, I'm guessing, is talent.)
Anyway, that controller is fingered like a saxophone – so it wasn't a huge adjustment for me – and you can vary the volume and pitch of what you play by blowing harder or softer, and biting on the plastic "reed" in the mouthpiece.
The controller is hooked up to a digital tone generator, allowing the player to sound like just about anything at all, from a tuba to a distorted guitar to a bagpipe. It was always a fun conversation piece.
Most of the songs Nate and I played were originals written by Nate himself. Nate is, was and always will be a genius. Like one of those literal geniuses whose natural insight and intelligence is obvious from the moment you meet him. More than anyone I've ever known, Nate combines a left-brained knowledge of mathematics and mechnical principles with right-brained passion and creativity. The result was some really cool tunes, most of which he cranked out over a three-year period from 1988 through 1991.
We recorded one album. No, really, we did. It was called "Sandlot Tunes," and it included several Nate originals along with a cover of "Linus and Lucy" (the piano song Schroeder plays in the Charlie Brown Christmas special that everyone dances to). I still have the entire 10-song album in my iTunes library.
The recording was done in Nate's basement over several days in the hot summer of 1990. Without Nate's technical skills, we never could have made good use of the mixer/recording device we rented for the purpose, and "Sandlot Tunes" never would have come to fruition.
Eventually Nate and I both married and had kids, and we ended up living several hundred miles away from each other. The last time we played together was April 1994. I've often thought it would be fun to get back together and play some of our old stuff, but I realize it probably wouldn't work for several reasons:
- I threw out my Casio digital horn (a contraption similar to the wind synthesizer) several years ago after it stopped working, and a few of our tunes depended on the sound and feel of that instrument.
- I'm not sure Nate still has the 90s-era sequencing software that powered the computer that drove our live performances.
- We're old and rusty.
- You can't go home again.
Re: that last point. Nothing is ever quite as good the second time around as the first, especially when there are two decades of time in between. So it's probably best to just let good memories be good memories.
But hey, if you're ever interested in hearing some homemade early-90s electronic pop tunes, let me know. I can send you the files!
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