Life In The Hive pt 1

Around the time of recording the band's demo in 1991, I was a bit of a mess.  I had effectively dropped out of school so I could 'party' with pals all day (I ultimately got my shit together and graduated), get high on whatever was available to get high on and create music and art.  This was a creative high point for me - I was putting together comics, making psychedelic line drawings that were getting some attention in the community and the band had a rented out practice room (that smelled more than a bit of piss, but was a good place to get drunk and jam all night) and a few shows under our belts.

Anyone who's seen my Youtube or Vimeo page knows I'm no stranger to the ways of The Pink Floyd and those epic, bloated conceptual double albums of the 1960s and 70s.  So my stroke of genius (heh) was of course to write a hardcore punk theme album, with a story that could be told both musically and visually but would not compromise on the down and dirty simple and loose structures of punk and the violent rage and 'moshability' of thrashcore.

The concept was called 'Bees' (as you will see, I had a thing in my head for always titling albums with a four letter word - my har-har inside joke) and the story is as follows:

Our hero has isolated himself in a small apartment type room (the cave) refusing to exit into the outside world, surviving only on food and drink and smoke and whatever he can order by phone and get delivered to his door.  His only entertainment and joy comes from drawing images on his walls with graphite pencil.  From his window all he sees is a large bee hive hanging from a tree limb and a steady stream of bees entering and exiting and doing their mindless thing.  Eventually he becomes paranoid of them and believes society as a whole have become giant thought-controlled bees who have been programmed to capture him and make him into one of their mindless drones.  For some reason the authorities (it is not revealed, but one can assume it is neighbors or family or his landlord or someone) kick in his door and he kills the first person to enter his room.  During the grand finale of the story our hero has been placed in some sort of  facility where he can be contained and perpetually drugged - which he perceives as having been brought into the hive for removal of his free thought.


A lofty concept, with obvious nods to other such concept albums - dealing with madness, isolation, violence and rebellion.  A string of songs were written by 18 year old FM, and were presented to the band with some positive reaction.  The opening track is actually what I considered a rather hard edged yet epic acoustic song which sort of sets the scene and the general feelings of our hero towards those bees out there beyond his window.  Here's the original solo acoustic demo of the track as recorded within hours of writing in 1991:



This song was a huge departure from the Too Baked To Skate punk we were playing previously, and the band (although sympathetic to the project) didn't really see it as something they could get behind.  There does exist a practice tape with a full band version of the track, but it was never formally recorded.

From here, the album was to take an unwavering hardcore stance with what I considered fairly brutal lyrics.  Each song was bridged with a hard spoken word segment that sort of led from one part to the next - a la Henry Rollins or Jello Biafra or Kurt Brecht.  Only one song - titled 'Society' was ever put together as a true hardcore song before the band fizzled out.  Only one recording exists of a band practice in late '91/early '92 where the 'Society' lyrics are completely illegible and the sound quality almost unlistenable.  If I can lay my hands on it, I may post it so you can at least hear what it was to sound like and the truth behind the intent that this was to be a true hardcore punk project.  That song had a level of complexity we had not achieved previously with lots of rhythm changes and catchy mosh riffs and all of us were really proud of it as I recall.  But it was not to be.

The Bees concept would stay with me for a few years and even today (at age 38) I am considering revisiting it.  The next couple of posts, we'll discuss what became of Bees and it's ultimate recorded structure and expansion.

And the beat goes on.

I was 7 years old. The year was 1980. My family was making the long drive from Woodstock, CT to Buffalo, NY for my cousin Wally's wedding. We made the trip in one day. I don't recall how long it took, but I'd have to estimate (based on what I know now) that it took about 7 hours. Who knows, maybe more. It was a pretty uneventful trip, and as I barely remember most things before I was 10 or so, it's remarkable I remember it at all. Why do I remember this trip? It's during this ride that I wrote my first song.

I still remember a few lines. Nothing groundbreaking; I'm no Mozart. But it's a cute little tune:

We went through the river,
We went through the rain.
And then we turned and came back again.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
Came back again.

Like I said, I was 7. I don't recall writing any other tunes until I was 11 or 12. I was in Junior High School, and I had recently befriended the coolest guy I had ever met in my short little life: Vinnie Murray. Vinnie was awesome: he had a blue jean jacket that was almost completely covered in assorted sized safety pins. Where safety pins were missing, he had drawn the most amazing images of anarchy and punk rock. Vinnie was a black guy with a six inch tall mohawk. He skateboarded, was admired by all the little white girls (and had his way with them at will), he drank and did drugs and he was an incredible comic book artist. He was an inspiration.

Vinnie and I started putting some comics together. I had my characters, he had his. They got together and wreaked a path of death and destruction everywhere they went. We were like gods in our minds. Vinnie and I used to hang out at the local Record Breaker record store. When I say record store, I mean REAL VINYL. Now, up to this point, the only records I had bought were Chicago 17, Huey Lewis's Heart of Rock 'n Roll and all the Wierd Al Yankovic I could get my hands on. Vinnie introduced me to the independent/punk section of the store. My first trip in with him, I walked out with D.R.I.'s Dirty Rotten LP, Iron Maiden's Live After Death (a choice made solely on album cover art) and Black Flag's Damaged. A week later I was back for The Circle Jerks Golden Shower of Hits, Metallica's Kill 'em All and The Cro-Mags Age of Quarrel. I was hooked on punk from this point until I discovered John Coltrane in my early 20's. It was awesome.

Vinnie and I tried to write some songs together. Here's a small sampling:

Too Baked To Skate

It's Saturday afternoon,
Had too many bongs.
Try to thrash around,
But yer too far gone.

Road starts to spin,
Board begins to shake.
Do a skull grind,
Because yer fuckin' baked.

Not exactly Shakespeare. But songs like this made us legends. A band was formed but it got to Vinnie's head. He got into some trouble with the law (arson) and was ultimately placed in a facility to get the help and attention that he required to be a functional and productive member of society.

A second band was formed called Chemical Persuasion. I played guitar and wrote the songs. We played a few shows and had a good time. We played for beer money. Eventually we got a band room that turned into a party room and we started falling apart. Those were ugly times. Then my sisters accident and it was over. I pretty much holed up for a few years. I was the reclusive artist. I was depressed, and the king of excess. I barely showered, drank until sick, ate acid until it didn't work any more and smoked anything I could wrap a rolling paper around. I had a death wish. I gained almost 100 pounds during this time and lost nearly all of my friends. I dropped out of school and spent all day creating. Everything I did was awesome (whether it was or wasn't).

I remember drawing this picture of a mirror. The reflection is of a man who has just slit his wrists and blood is dripping into a reflected sink. Across the page in splashed red ink was one word: SUICIDE. I drew this picture and left it hanging on my easel when I went out partying. Some friends and I dropped a bunch of acid and climbed this mountain. We spent the whole night up there in the wilderness. When I got home in the morning all spent and gross, my mom was nearly in tears as I had not called or left a note. She thought I had gone off to kill myself.

I wrote a bunch of songs during this time. I recorded all of them. It's actually pretty positive stuff. I think it's the music that got me through. I haven't played any of these tapes for anyone ever. Not even the missus. But I listen to them sometimes when I'm down. They remind me how good things are now and how far I've come. When I met my future wife, the clouds magically lifted and I was suddenly happy. I wrote songs for her. I made beautiful things again. I wooed her with poems and art and insight into my vision of reality. She came to love me and I, her.

The band got back together in the late 90's. We wrote some songs and played a few shows. Then kids and a real job and time dried up.

I've since started another band. A few guys from work play instruments. The drummer lives 40 miles away. The bass player lives in Ireland. We have only played together in the same room once. Since then, we have made music online. I write a song and record a demo. The drummer lays down a drum track, than the bass goes in. If necessary we pass it around a few times to tweak and mix and such and then, VOILA!! a finished song. This band makes me happy. I get to be creative without a major investment of time away from the family. And it's the best sounding music I've ever written.

What's next? Who knows. A show? Maybe. Right now it doesn't matter. Right now I'm happy.