1998 to 2001- The Davenports, Jeb Josh & Finn, The No Names with a side of Blood Couch

R to L- Me, Josh and Finn moving out of the Tim and Billy's space.

I'm not very comfortable writing about my own history on this site, it feels a little narcassitic but it is what the site is all about really. Documenting small musical histories through stories, pictures, videos and of course MP3s. So here is some of mine...

Recently Finn Swingley, one of my oldest and dearest friends, has started transferring old cassette tapes and making notes via the comment functionality on bands. I wanted to weigh in a little here as well in a more general way.

I met Finn the first week I moved to Bloomington in August 1992, we lived on the same floor in Collins in the Edmonson dorm- the "big" dorm with the Chesire coffee house. Shortly thereafter I met his buddy Josh Seib and the three of us starting playing music together almost immediately forming a series of bands all starting with "S"- Sleeve, Soda Jerks, The Staple Guns, Special Guests (I wasn't in that one).

The musical partnership lasted until around 2001 when Josh and Finn moved to Chicago. This was followed a couple years later by a pretty bad falling out between Josh and myself. I won't go into the details here but it was and still is one of the biggest disappointments of my life. He was a dear friend and although I could lay blame on both sides I have to admit it was probably more my fault looking back on it now. Anyway, that effectively ended the music as well as the friendship. We haven't spoken in over 5 years.

Just before Josh and I had that falling out he sent me three CDs. These CDs became what is now the "Jeb, Josh and Finn" page here in the MFT archive. Recently Finn has started posting detailing notes to accommodate the intentionally untitled songs. His notes and my recent visit to Chicago to hang out with Finn really brought back this time and music. Finn and I still see each other often and have made lots of music since Josh's departure but we agree there was something special about how we worked as a group.

The Davenports recordings were done right before Josh moved to Indy. They were recorded at LonPaul's house when I moved there from Chicago around the winter of 1997/8. My buddy Greg Backus showed up sometime in the spring of 1998 and so did Finn, returning from an attempt to settle out in Seattle. We really didn't know what to do but record, it was just what we did, so it became this accidentally project which happened to capture some of our best songs along the way. I'm particularly fascinated by Greg's work at the time. His songs are both cryptic and revealing, at least to my ears. We have posted quite a few of the recordings on the Davenports page. I believe their are at least as many more that will be dug up soon. That was a strange time for all of us. Personally I was really off center, lacking confidence. I realized later the songs I was writing were either about that or about Greg- "Cheerleader". Finn became a regular fixture at these sessions and we eventually did a pretty nice version of his song "Asleep In The Fire Engine".

side note-During this same time I was in The Easy Six with Michelle Marchessault which deserves it's own blog. Also I was in June Panic's Silver Sound with Greg and LonPaul which resulted in an album I recorded in Bloomington "Silver Sound" and then one recorded in Indy with Vess "Horror Vacui". I was also a part of the "Baby's Breadth" sessions but less so since my first daughter Ramona was born during the sessions. I remember having my cell phone close by at all times. Both these projects deserve their own posts if I ever get around to that.-

Once Josh moved to town we started to get a little more focused. Finn, Josh, myself and Simon Hanstad had all lived together in Bloomington in 1996, my last year there. Over the course of that year we all made at least 2 "solo" albums, probably had 5 bands between us and had a constant revolving door of people coming by to play and record including Chris Kupersmith, Lance Drake, Michael Henry, John Strohm, Dave Gantz, Jashub, and many many others I can't remember right now. So hopes were high to build on what we all considered to be a benchmark year in Bloomington separated by a couple years apart.

Right off the bat I convinced Josh to buy a Teac reel to reel 4 track. I had a long history of talking Josh into buying stuff and Josh had a long history of resenting it. So be it, but it got the job done. I knew Vess Ruhtenberg had the same 4 Track and used it for much of the United States Three album "Temps Du Tempo", a classic record in my book. So I figured we go with what works! I don't think we ever got it to sound as good as Vess' but we certainly tried!

At first we set up in Leanne Maxwell's basement where Josh was living. She was a music lover and willing to put up with our almost daily racket. Soon we were writing and recording songs as a three piece and with friends including many tracks with Jorma singing and/or playing bass. Some of these tracks would end up on the Marmoset "Record In Red" album and then others re-made for the first Jorma solo record.

During this time we also formed a somewhat legitimate band which we jokingly referred to as "The No Name Band" since no-one in the band could agree on a name. This band featured our mutual friend Jason Yoder on guitar. For this line up, which actually played two shows, Josh played drums, I played bass and Finn joined Jason on guitar. It was a fun band. I can't recall how we ever did a set list without having names for our songs but I think one person would start playing and the rest would join in. We work collectively and to this day I can only vaguely recall who wrote what parts. It was probably the most collaborative songwriting experience I've had in terms of a band setting. I really love those songs. No words, just music. Towards the end we kinda tried to be a "real" band and no actual songs. That failed miserably and killed the band. I take the blame for that lousy idea.

Another side project during this period was Blood Couch. This was Josh, Finn, myself and Jorma covering The Cure's album "Faith". We first performed the album at LonPaul's house shortly after I moved out. We dressed up, wore make up, the whole bit. And we sounded more than a little like The Cure I have to say. It was a success and we played a second show in Bloomington with members from Panoply doing "17 Seconds". There is video somewhere. Jorma does a good Robert Smith.

Next we set up shop in Tim and Billy's, a salvage shop that LonPaul had rented a space. He worked it out that we could do music in this crazy room across from his. It had 5 walls which created an interesting sound. It was cold in the winter and hot in the summer. LonPaul was almost never around and didn't play on a single recording we made in that space over a course of a year or so. I had once again talked Josh into buying a tape machine. This time it was an Scully 280 1" 8 track. It was a monster! I spent so much time, and money, getting that thing to work. Josh was really good at recording but no so good at fixing gear so it was up to me to keep things running.

That Scully machine was one of my true loves, I worked so hard to keep it going. At one point I even glued the pinch roller back together in order to do a Wineshuggers session (about half of Grand Rapids was done on that machine).

After we moved out of Tim and Billy's- pictured above- we worked for a while in my garage but it was mostly clean up and mixing. Josh and I did a couple recordings that weren't really that superb and shortly thereafter he moved to Chicago to join Finn and eventually came to get the Scully which remained mostly unused. I believe he has more recently sold it to Jim Zespy (who worked on some June Panic records and now lives in Chicago). Hopefully the old girl is still rolling.

Looking back I'm really impressed with what we got done in three years. I also know there is a lot more from that time that we still need to unearth including some 4 track tapes in Josh's possession that I may never hear again. That's ok, I probably have some of his too.