Since my last post, a few major things happened. First, back in July, I spent a great weekend with a couple of my old pals from college, who came to town for a recording project.
Twenty-two years ago (sheesh!) at Quincy College in Quincy, Illinois, we were in a band, called Tribe of Lawyers (who knew?) that played a small number of shows . . . let me think . . . we played at the English Club dance, and I think one other event in the Student Union, and one gig at a non-alcoholic bar (our drummer was in AA), which I remember most because a Coke got spilled down the back of my bass amp and fried it. It was a Peavey Mark III, and I didn't think anything could kill one of those, but after that incident it was intermittent for ever after. We played a very eclectic mix of covers and a couple originals written by my friend Mike, including the classic "Bus Boy Blues" which is still poignant.
I continue to marvel at the fact that in that obscure corner of the world, at a school which was by no means a hotbed of new rock music, I met not one but two of the most amazing guitarists I have ever seen or heard, much less played with: Mike Dunne and Barry Stock. This all took place during the 1985-86 school year, after which Barry moved down to Florida and Mike, having graduated, went back to Chicago, but for that one year we had a good time and my mind was greatly expanded, playing with those two guys. Amazingly enough, the year after they left, my friend Dan (referenced earlier) came to Quincy, another incongruous presence at that campus. He also re-enters this tale shortly.
We got together one other time, in the early 90s when Barry was living in Athens, GA, and Mike and I flew down to visit him. That was fun---we drove by Michael Stipe's house. I've seen Mike a few times since then and we've kept in touch, but I fell out of touch with Barry. But Mike had an address for him and I re-established contact late last year. In fact, he prompted me to start this blog.
Anyway, I had been meaning to visit Mike for a long time, and during a phone conversation he mentioned that he had some new songs he'd written, and he mentioned how he really wanted to get a good recording of some of his compositions. And I had a thought: my friend Dan is an accomplished recording engineer; why not set up a recording session here, with Dan on the board, to record Mike's tunes? Dan was up for it, and Mike was up for it. And why not bring Barry up to play on it? So in March I went to Columbus, OH (where Mike lives nowadays) and jammed with Mike and a drummer friend, and we made rough recordings of a handful of Mike's songs. I edited them down and sent mp3s to Barry and Dan, the studio was booked, and an airline ticket was procured for Barry. There was one minor hiccup when Mike's drummer friend bailed on the project a few weeks before we were scheduled to record, but fortunately Chris Castellan from the Bill Tucker band was able and willing to join us for the recording.
Dan, Barry and fat ol' me in the studio.
(This is Barry's picture, but he's in it... I don't know who took it)
Mike adding some keyboards, with Dan in the foreground. (Pic by Barry.)
It went amazingly smoothly, all things considered. We managed to lay down tracks for four of Mike's songs, and had a great time. Barry posted about it in his own blog, which includes a link to lots of his pictures. (In addition to his other talents, Barry is quite the shutterbug.)
We have all resolved not to let another ten or twenty years go by before we get together again. I got an e-mail from Mike just the other day and he said he's already got some new songs...
