Musical Memory Lane


Lately I've been going through a little bit of a musical renaissance. I've been going to local shows, post videos online, writing songs (not scoring videos) for the first time in years, I've even stopped listening to talk radio as much in favor of tunes. How far have I fallen down the rabbit hole? I spent some time at old local haunts Iowahardcore.com, 515crew.com, and Strangetalk.net. While those sites have fallen into some serious disarray, it's been fun taking a trip down musical memory lane. I got so nostalgic I actually purchased Ten Grand's "This is the Way to Rule" on Amazon (So glad I got to see those guys right before Matt passed).

While tip-toeing through my musical past I came across a little tape (yes, an audio cassette) of basement recordings one Chris Saldanha and I made in June of the year 2000. We had just started a band and the summer prior we went to the Warped Tour for the first time. We saw a lot of cool bands but probably the coolest part of the day was meeting Drive Thru Records Owner Richard Reines. At the time he had a small booth and it was getting very little attention from the crowd, but we spent a good deal of time with him talking music. He was a really cool dude and gave us his AOL Instant Messanger handle to talk later. Fast forward to the year 2000, and Chris and I are in the basement recording a bunch of tunes specifically for Rich. One year after meeting him Drive Thru had pretty much exploded,  New Found Glory was getting a ton of press and all their bands were getting a ton of attention.

The recordings were laughably bad, we didn't have our drummer and we recorded most of them with just a room mic in an unfinished basement with Chris on bass, me on guitar and both of us singing. Still we sent it off to Rich like we were about to be signed for a 6 record deal. He was a gracious dude and let us down gently but I will never forget how cool it was to have direct contact with the head honcho of a record label. A couple Drive Thru recordings are some of my favorite albums like RX Bandits "Progress" or "Resignation," Fenix Tx's "Lechuza," Midtown's "Save the World, Lose the Girl."

It makes me sad to think how bad things have gotten for Drive-Thru records. They've pretty much fallen off the face of the Earth, and while I am no longer a fan of glossy pop punk or their brand of pop-rock, I will always have a place in my heart for Rich.

Okay, here's a taste of that tape... I know I'm going to regret uploading this...

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