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39 to 40: Getting the Band Back Together

For an indication of an early midlife crisis one needs to look no further than the band reunion.

In 1997,  9 out of every 10 people you met on the street played in a Ska band.  Threefold Cord were 9 of those people.  Having all met while attending North Park University in Chicago, we quickly set out to break the record for the number of band members you can fit in a Nissan Sentra  (7, don’t tell the cops).

Image of a crazy bearded man wailing on guitar

Recording an EP and two albums in six years, our mission was simple: to share the love of God and make as many uncoordinated people as possible dance throughout the U.S. and Canadian side of Niagara Falls.

Often spelled horribly wrong on show flyers, the name Threefold Cord comes from the verse Ecclesiastes 4:12:

Although one may be overpowered, two can withstand one; a cord of three strands is not quickly broken

 

 

Professional definers define Ska as:

Ska (/ˈskɑː/, Jamaican [skjæ]) is a music genre that originated in Jamaica in the late 1950s and was the precursor to rocksteady and reggae. Ska combined elements of Caribbean mento and calypso with American jazz and rhythm and blues. It is characterized by a walking bass line accented with rhythms on the offbeat.

I would have just said it goes chucka-chucka-chucka real fast with horns.

Now let’s be clear, we were neither Jamaican, Caribbean, Calypso or had much in the way of rhythm or blues.  When you picture any of these genres, you see cool people with beautiful dark skin playing music in colorful shirts on a beach or cruise ship.  We were a bunch of pasty white guys practicing in a frigid multi-purpose room on a northside Chicago campus.

 

Probably not what our Jamaican forefathers had in mind

 

Imagine a long game of telephone where the message becomes distorted and much different than the original.  We were the distortion.  We began as third wave ska and evolved into what one friend and wanna-be music critic called “post-ska.”  Whatever dude.

Threefold Cord had a full horn section with trumpet, tenor sax, and trombone; a rhythm section with bass, guitar, and drums; and two random dancers.  Yes, two guys not physically graceful by any means whose sole job was to dance.  And dance they did.  Inspired by the Mighty Mighty Bosstone’s dancer and backup vocalist Ben Carr, we wanted to up the ante with Lead Dancer and Rhythm Movement.

We played a lot of gigs in a lot of church basements, clubs, coffee shops, and lawns over our six-year existence.  We wrote several songs (some of which you can download by clicking here), played at CHIC  (Not to be confused with a baby bird convention or a gathering of Chick-Fillet enthusiasts, CHIC is the triennial youth conference for the Evangelical Covenant Church),  and somehow convinced North Park to sponsor a nationwide summer tour for the first and last time.

We played 35 shows across the country in two months ensuring we’d have tinnitus for the rest of our natural lives.

 

 

About every few years after our final show we’d start a conversation that ended with “Hey, we should get back together and stuff and write some stuff someday.”  But something happens when you approach 40 that makes you realize your somedays and stuff are limited.

We’re Getting the Band Back Together!

In early 2016 we started talking again about a band reunion and this time it actually happened.  Spearheaded by random dancer turned lead guitar player-songwriter-sound engineer-pastor, Matt King, we exchanged several text messages, and if you can believe it, a few phone calls.  We started dusting off our songs, and before we knew it, we had two shows lined up.  It helps when two of the band members become pastors and can book you at their church.  We descended upon western Iowa from all corners of the states, and after an obligatory chest bump or two, we got right to work.  The shows were fun and full of the same uncoordinated arm flail dance moves we were accustomed to seeing in the past.

 

 

We played two shows and even got invited to play a short set at a neighborhood BBQ with a few other local bands.

 

 

One of the best parts about the reunion was for the fathers in the band to have the opportunity to share this important part of their lives with their kids.  With nine guys now all married, there are a lot of mini band member lookalikes running around.  After the shows, a few of them even started talking about starting a band of their own.  We’ve officially passed the madness down to the next generation. (Sorry next generation.)

Despite living in five different states, we continue to write and record music together long distance.  The reunion inspired us to keep the creativity we love flowing.  Here’s one of our new songs called Potato Gun, a song that has a story of its own….but we’ll save that for another time.

 

 

See you in the next conga line,

Anthony

20 Years Later

 

I’ll tell you what’s really strange,  seeing a band play live 2 decades after seeing them the first time.  I’m sure many Rolling Stones fans have had this experience.  Boston/Journey/Chicago fans.  Huey Lewis and the News who is playing with Jimmy Buffet next week fans.  Even Up With People  (Yes,  I saw them in 6th grade and to this day still catch myself humming their signature tune from time to time mostly when I’m nervous).

There are plenty-o-acts still around 20,  30,  and even a few 50-years later.  A testament to the staying power of music in a person’s soul once they begin to make it.  And in some cases,  a testament to a good plastic surgeon.

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1 Day. 2 Bros. 3 Record Stores.

Thoughts in abstraction or pure listening satisfaction
Moods reflected through a speaker’s till
Shelves lined with the packaged beat
To rouse or soothe the savage beast
All strapped in tight awaiting a thrill

Sometimes you just have to stop what you’re doing and go to a record store.  I’m not talking go on your computer and download songs,  I mean a real life place where you have to get into a car or transportation of choice,  open a door that leads into a room,  say hi or silent cool head nod the person behind the counter,  and sift through physical copies of recorded music.

I realize these places are few and far between.  While the vinyl resurgence has inspired music enthusiasts to clear attics and basements and Ebay of record crates and throw caution to the wind to live their store owning dreams,  it’s not like the days of yesteryear when you could go to any strip mall with a poorly lit sign and expect to see a record store next to a Blockbuster a few doors down from Lou Taylor’s School of Tae Kwon Do.  Those days are over.  Lou is still there,  ponytail and all,  but rather than motivate students by spinning Eye of the Tiger on his Sanyo stereo,  he streams the Survivor Pandora channel through his wireless speakers.  And where the record store used to be?  Probably a Supercuts.  They took over the space right around 1999,  the year Prince told us we were supposed to be partying.  Supercuts survives,  but the mom & pop record shop doesn’t.  Future historians will implode their retina imbedded WiFi antennas when they read that fact about our civilization.

But not to worry.  Help has arrived.  By people you have to believe are in it for the pure love of music.  This is what reinstates my faith in humanity.  When someone is in it for the joy of paying it forward.  If you’re a record store owner and have survived the past 15 years or have opened your store recently I’d kiss you on the cheek if you didn’t have a sharp beard.  Thank you for keeping the dream alive.

I’m glad cassettes and CD’s were never sold out of vending machines.  However,  it does seem like a missed opportunity.  They could have had an automated voice make music snob friend remarks for whatever you purchased. “VanHalen was better with Roth,” or “The album you’ve selected is ok,  I’m a bigger fan of their earlier stuff.”  Like most brilliant ideas I’ve ever had,  I’m 20 years too late.

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Last week my brother Mario and I  (Yes, I have a brother named Mario which means between the mid-80’s and early-90’s I was called Luigi.  Either that or people would just start humming the Super Mario Bro’s theme music.  To this day if I hear that music I get flashbacks.  I’ll just yell “No I don’t know how the princess is doing!” and run away.)  drove to Bloomington, IL to hit three record stores in close proximity.  We listened to Punk Rock out of reverence for the genre as well as the need to stay awake driving through repetitive fields of corn and soy.  Scenes from central Illinois roads could be used in lieu of melatonin or by hypnotists wanting to put someone in a deep trance.  With Illinois State University nearby,  small stores as well chain restaurant cohorts all have a place at the table in the college town consumer food chain.  Going to three stores in the same day felt like walking into a breakfast buffet for the first time and wondering how you’re possibly going to pace yourself and still have room for the waffle bar.

All three had a healthy selection of new and used records,  music posters and memorabilia,  and that record store smell I wish they sold in a Febreze scent: something like burning incense at a Jiffy Lube.

When I shop for records I’m drawn to Blues,  Reggae,  Classic Rock,  and Comedy Albums.  For whatever reason, I really enjoy listening to these on my cheap record player,  maybe because it’s the sound of their original element.  Yes,  all of these songs are available digitally,  but it’s the difference between seeing an animal at the zoo and one in its natural habitat.  One farts and is self-conscious because strangers are starting at it,  the other breaks wind and thinks nothing of it.  I can’t believe I just made that comparison either,  but while I appreciate new records,  I’m still drawn to older releases with vinyl as its intended expression.  The great thing about vinyl is that old music can have new life.  I’m discovering artists who have been around for decades and have a greater appreciation for the technology available to new musicians who can instantly share their songs.

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Slips away within the amplified sounds
Places all anxieties in the background
Blocks out the rest of humanity for a sonic remedy
Seals all the cracks and turns up the stereo

No antenna transmitting sessions of rehabilitation
It’s a self-prescribed soundtrack fixation
Doses of escape ingredients and mixtures to pave
The way for the sound waves

It’s hard not to look back on your music tastes over the years without at least a little embarrassment,  but hey,  it’s all part of the journey.  It’s the soundtrack of our lives as our New Year’s Eve friend Dick Clark said.  I’ve had some varied interests,  always circling back it seems to Rock,  Punk,  and Blues.  Here are a few highlights in all their glory from my music listening career:

  • Age 4: Playing “Coming to America” record by Neil Diamond until I was sent outside to ride my CHIPS hot wheel.
  • Age 6: Michael Jackson Off the Wall cassette. I collected Michael Jackson folders, stickers, and magazines and brought them to school in a brown grocery bag so my friends and I could “trade Michael Jackson stuff.” I even had the Michael Jackson doll, which my brother one day stuck in a light socket and melted the foot like a swirld tip of an ice cream cone.  Tears. Rage. You Wanna Be Starting Somethin.

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  • Wearing out the Stand By Me soundtrack listening to it on my Sony Walkman.  Learned at an early age that I can’t listen to headphones while doing math homework.
  • I see the video for “Funky Town” by Pseudo Echo and immediately go to the Beloit, WI Mall and purchase cassette with birthday money or money begged off of parents.  I get a D on my next math test.
  • Dancing around my living room to video for Cutting Crew’s “I Just Died in Your Arms Tonight” nearly tripping over a dehumidifier cord and breaking my face.
  • First CD: “Mama Said Knock You Out” maxi-single with 4 versions of LL Cool J’s hit.  Do the research and learn LL stands for Ladies Love.  Or at least that’s what I was told by someone in shop class.  Second CD: Metallica Black.
  • First Concert: Depeche Mode 1993, Champagne Illinois.  I spend way too much money on a wall-sized poster my friends would make fun of me for having.  I endure. I just can’t get enough…I just can’t get enough…I…I’ll stop.
  • 1994: Punk Rock takes hold.  Not only do I listen, I must also make this beautiful noise.
  • 1995: Start band with friends, write songs, release cassettes…the cycle of life…

 

Adjust the gage on option control
All equalized and ready to roll

Bonus:

The lyrics are from the song “Sonic Remedy” written with my band, Turbo Pascal.  A free download of the song is available here.

Two awesome record stores you should check out if you happen to be in Hawaii or Wisconsin…hey crazier things have happened…..:

Hungry Ear Records, Honolulu, HI

Tin Dog Records, Beloit, WI

 

Cheers,

A

 

 

Navigate

I’ve heard stories of Native Hawaiians who navigated their canoes by the stars.  They found direction by studying the sun, ocean swells, and the flight patterns of seabirds.  I’m lucky if I can find the Big Dipper.  It’s incredible they learned to use elements in nature to map specific destinations.  I’ll try to remember this next time I yell at my GPS for re-calculating when I miss a turn.  Continue reading

Turbo Pascal: Dusting Off Songs From Yesteryear

 

Turbo Pascal formed in the summer of 1995.  Yes,  1995.  Guitarist Michael Marty,  bassist Danny John,  drummer James Treichler and I all met while attending MacArthur High School in the soy bean capital of the world,  Decatur, IL.

After spending countless hours driving around between Pizza Hut and Holiday Inn bus boy shifts expanding our musical horizons to the likes of Screeching Weasel,  Rancid,  Pennywise and XTC,  Mike and I were inspired to start a band of our own.  We got to work with the goal of writing catchy songs that fell in line with the guitar driven anthems of our heroes.  James joined the band after witnessing my failed attempt to do a kick flip on a skateboard wearing work boots. But wait, there’s more!…