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Other tracks by this artist
Six-Story Sky (Rock) 
Gravity Is King (Rock)
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"Atmosphere-swilling inner-solar somnambulists all, Vandolah live inside the sound of one clap happening, backhanded and stranded like a broken soap bubble. Anchor to the shoals of unbearably beautiful homeliness and slide gently through the weather, won't you?"
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1st show was with "Johnny and the Vandals". That was me, Bryan Ellis, Jory Pearson, and Scott Hinz.
It was at Mike's Coney Island's parking lot in Swanton for a Cruisin' car show. Songs included "Peggy Sue", and "Sea of Love". Maybe some Chuck Berry's too. Can't remember what year but if I had to guess I'd say the summer of 91.
First show in a bar was at the "Cypress Rock Cafe" on Lewis Ave. We were called "Grey Matter" by then. I think we opened for either "Burden's Landing" or " Brokedown Palace". Brian Bocean was in the band. I think he still plays at Maxwell's brew over by U.T. The drummer changed from Scott to Ben Steinbart. We were into grunge I guess. Covers I remember include "Lithium”,” Man in the Box”,” No New Tale to Tell","Girlfriend","Honey Please(Firehose)",there was a guy named Damien who would come up and sing some Pearl Jam songs. Ben Steinbart was and still is a big supporter of P.J. There were lots of fights and underage drinking. Gnats in the bathrooms. Stabbings. Whenever we would have a show with "Fist" it would inevitably end up in tables and chairs flying and bones breaking. "Fist" was a band who sounded a bit like "White Zombie". I also remember Uncle Knucklefunk, Cottonmouth, Aces High, Andromeda, Tony the monkey boy, Roger Stein, and Cigarettes. I think I saw Mark Hutchins there once booking a show with Ton's "Peel out" cassette. I remember him wearing a trench coat. We had many shows at the Cypress. Eventually our name changed to "Slide".
We started playing at "Frankie's". I remember this intense feeling of "making it" when we had our first show there. I don't remember who we opened for but I remember Rob Croak(the owner of Frankie's) coming in while we were playing and watching us for a second and then leaving. I thought he was unimpressed and he probably was. We persevered and our sound improved a little bit. I remember selling tickets to the "Bijou" which is now the "Asylum" downtown. That was a big room. Kind of hard to fill a big theatre like that. We used to sell between 100-200 tickets for $3 a piece for Ali who had a studio over by Southwyck. He was a slickster. Had a bunch of Metal bands in frames in his office. I remember playing a show with Lance Hulsey on congas at the Bijou.
Eventually Bryan Ellis's tastes started to clash with Jory Pearson's. I think Bryan was into shoe gazer stuff like My Bloody Valentine and Medicine and Jory was more Gin Blossoms and Replacements. We all sat down in Jory's basement and decided it was good for Jory to pursue his thing. Jory went on to form The Hansons. This was before the "MMM-Bop" Hansons and also before Beck. I think their name came from the Slapstick movie Hanson brothers. Keith Nedermeier played a Hofner bass with them. Ben Steinbart drummed for a while.
Ben also kept drumming with Bryan and I. I think Larry Hinz was going to be the new guitarist(he was actually supposed to be in Johnny and the Vandals but he wouldn't ever practice with us) and he may have jammed with us a couple times. Eventually Mike Orange was in. He was in "Flow One Tree". Mike had a nice keyboard with sampling and cards. State of the art stuff. I don't think he had too many lessons but there were lots of cool sounds he could make by holding one note down. Mike eventually brought Jason Beebe over and said that if Jason wasn't in, he wasn't in. Jason had been on tours with "Majority of One", a hardcore punk band. Dirk Hemsath was their singer. Dirk went on to start "Doghouse Records". Those guys silk-screened some t-shirts when we changed our name from "Slide" to "Glide". They did damn fine work. Jason eventually stayed and Mike flaked. Jason and Brent Sterling did the first "Glide" logo on the computer at Dan Roger's Sporting Goods. We all worked there for a while. Steam pressing numbers on jerseys and silk screening. I don't really remember what my job was there. I think I took orders or something. Those were some good times.
We started to amass large groups of people coming to see us. The shows at Frankie's started being packed. They started giving us some opening slots for national bands. We did some shows with a band called "Catherine" from Chicago. They invited us to record in Chicago at their studio. We went for a week and recorded an E.P. We had a lot of fun and did lots of intoxicants. I threw up in the middle of some takes. We were proud as peacocks of our new recording. Roger Taylor from "Fizban's Magic" offered to put the Cd out on his label "5th dimension records". I think we pressed 500 copies and sold out pretty quick. Things were going very well for us. I was on a bowling league with Rob Suchan and Jeff Lavalette and Mike from the "Leftovers". Rob went on to be in "Koufax". He's a big leager. We had a show booked with the Verve and Xebec but the singer from the Verve got sick.
We started practicing in Bryan's dad's garage off of Eber. Brian Bokesch started DJ-ing with us. He would scratch records over some of our existing songs. He also added the hip hop dimension to our new ones. Our songs weren't hip hop. I think we were sort of American Brit pop. At least we thought we were. Bryan Ellis was having trouble getting the symphonic sounds out of his head. He was planning on moving to Chicago. Ben was still into the natural rock of Pearl Jam and was a bit reluctant to wearing the headphones we asked him to wear. The drum machine was kind of against his code I think. Jason was always on the move booking and promoting and calling people. I was dying my hair yellow and getting engrossed by Magic the Gathering.
So Glide ceased to be. Bryan left and planned on going to Chicago. I think if we all would have backed him we could have gotten out of town and tried to start to recreate what we had here there. I think it takes some time to make something like that though. You have to really move someone to keep them coming back. I don't know.
One night while sitting around playing Magic the Gathering with my buds, I said "Hey let's start a band", and The Measles were born. The Measles lineup included:Matt Schutt on drums,Jason Lockard on Bass,Chris Geisel on Keyboards,Larry(finally)Hinz on guitar,Dan Kosmider on guitar, and me on guitar too. We had a lot of fun. Maybe too much fun. I wish I would have done more with that band by way of recording/making t-shirts/mailing list. We weren't the most polished band musically but we were friends at the core. I think that matters maybe more than anything. Watch "The Lord of the Rings" and see what I mean. We played Signatures Loft which later became the Bottlerocket, and I think we had some shows at Frankie's. We were living in a house and having lots of parties and I was working at Pronto as an office courier for Xerox/Owens Corning. I recorded a bunch of our live shows and have recently talked to some of the Measles about reforming with a new name. The Mumps.
The Measles got cured and some of them got married. I started a new band with Brett Jan and Michael from the Static Rituals. We got Ben Smith on drums. Ben is aka Ben Swank. were going for a Devo-esque thing and we named ourselves "Synthettiquette". We played one show and Brett was hyper and drunk. It wasn't really my thing (being completely out of control) but I felt cool. I think Ben(Keith Moon)Smith was into it too. Now Ben Smith/Swank is in the Soledad Brothers with Johnny Ryewick. I think Ben was living with the White Stripes for awhile. Brett and Michael eventually parted but Brett still plays shows with their Static Rituals moniker.
The house I was living in hosted many bands and had a practice session almost every night. I think Tuesdays was "The Riot Squad". They were a hip hop band which included Brian Bokesch, Todd Swalla, Jodi Moss, Bryan Ellis, Jackson Starr, and Thaba Russell. There was also "Streamlined". That was an experimental group with Karen Fowler, Todd Swalla, Bryan Ellis, Lindsay Stiles, and sorry but I don't remember Eric's last name.I wanted to be in Streamlined pretty bad and I guess I was if you count tambourine. Then Eric was out and Tory was in. Tory asked if he and Todd could practice with Jessica Bailiff. She and Tory were dating at the time and she needed a band to support her Cd's. They broke up at one of their shows at the Main Event and she asked me to drum for her. I was ecstatic. My girlfriend and I had just broken up and I was jumping to all kinds of conclusions. Assuming too much. We never made any music. She wound up dating Jesse Edwards who was playing guitar with her. I don't know if shoe gazer is my thing anyway. Would have felt cool though.
I wrote a batch of songs about it and started a band with Gene Crawford and Todd Swalla. Gene came from "The Society". Todd came from "The Necros", Solid Gold Hell, Streamlined and many more bands. I wonder if Todd will ever write a book like this one. This was another one show band. We played with the Sprags at the Bottlerocket. Gene ended up pretty toked and drunk and told the audience to "Just remember our name... WE'LL be Back to Rock!!". Todd and Gene wound up fighting onstage and all I could do was laugh. They're both Virgos. Whatever that means.
After "The Three Revolved" there was "Gingertooth". That band was Gene Crawford, Alan Leizerman and Cole from Ann Arbor. All kinds of exotic instruments. Banjos, Bazookies, Kazoos, Mandolins, Violins, Djembes. We did some Transylvanian folk tunes. Mostly originals though. Gene was the primary creative force in that band. He can write songs to make you cry. Laugh too. Gene's a good friend but can indulge too much sometimes. Some of us live faster than others. Or slower. I don't know. I started singing "Cookin" and "The Breathing" with that band. Eventually I stopped gigging with them after we changed the name to "The Last Bastards".
I started hanging out with Scott Hunt and his girlfriend Brooke and we would go out to eat at The Indian Jewel of Toledo. Scott was in The Sprags and they needed a guitarist so I joined. We recorded "Spil Phector" in Scott's basement. I had 3 tunes on the album. We played many shows. We played at the Village Idiot, Rusty's Jazz Cafe(when it was still cool),Western Station, Bottlerocket, and lots of other places. I should have gotten more involved in that band. I wanted to see them take off. They were our competition when I was in Glide along with Gone Daddy Finch. There was a race to see who would get out of town and get signed. We were all good acts. I guess I never entirely felt like it was MY band. It was Scott and Dusty's band. Always will be. Mark Mikel prolly say same thing. Mark's in the Pillbugs. They're on the Proverus label. I should have been too. I persevere in a different way though.
I quit the Sprags because I wasn't representing. I felt more like a hired musician than cool. I like the feeling of being myself and sort of in control. I like to get a little out of control but not Static Rituals out of control and not Sprags in control. I guess somewhere in the middle or beyond. Maybe I'm an artiste. I don't think I'm a genius. I don't think I'm an idiot either. I like honesty though.
I've watched Mark Hutchins play for years. If he's playing a show, I'm there. Now I have to be because we're in the same band. Mark's songs are genuine. I saw Mark when he was in "Ton" at Frankie's. They blew us away. This was back in the Glide days. Every song rocked. They were originally a 4 piece(Todd, Joe Robles, Tony Perales and Mark), then a 3 piece as "Powder"(Mark,Joe and Ed) then back to 4 with "Twin Osmond"(added Paul as a 2nd guitar), Finally back to 3 as "Grace Engine"(enter Skip). One of Mark's other projects was "This Year's Fad". That included Jason from Spiderfoot. All this means nothing unless you hear the music. There have always been good songs coming from him. I'm going to make people hear him. He's not waving any flags or bibles or commercials and neither am I. If we happen to have a giant beer banner behind us when we play it's because we haven't made it yet. Some day there will be no beer banner. Just blue sky. I guess what I'm saying is people like Mark and Becky make the world a better place. There's no bullshit. I feel like all the crap I just wrote about myself is bullshit. I don't have any answers. Just hope I guess.
I hope we find our audience. Might have to be some kind of a revolution though. Wish I would have realized this when I was 18. Not much has changed since the summer of '91 I guess. I'm in the right band though.
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Vandolah Lists the following Influences
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Sloan,Bob Dylan,Simon and Garfunkle,Yo La Tengo,U2,Marvin Gaye,Pixies,Sparklehorse,De La Soul,Beck,T Rex and The Beatles
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Acoustic
