How should I start this week’s newsletter off? Perhaps with another cat picture? Sure, why not.
I wasn’t sure what to write about in this issue but ultimately I decided to do something in the vein of the origin story that I wrote last month. I thought I’d talk about my history as it relates to musical projects. If I’m repeating anything that was already in that story, oh well, I have a short memory.
I’ve always loved music. I remember growing up there was always music in the house. Some of it I didn’t like but the stuff that I remember really honing in on were The Beatles and Johnny Cash. My dad was a huge Beatles fan. That kind of rubbed off on me. I loved music and, obviously, still do. At some point I started thinking of how it would be cool to start playing music in a band but, to be honest, never really did anything about it such as, I dunno, learning to play an instrument. For Christmas one year, my dad got me an electric guitar. I learned a couple of things on it but it wound up in the closet. Sometime in high school, a friend of mine suggested that we start a punk band. I thought it was a great idea but wasn’t sure what to play. He mentioned that guitar sitting in the closet. I told him that I never played and did not know how to play guitar. His reply was to just learn so I could play guitar in the punk band. Sounded plausible enough so I pulled it out of the closet and we started writing very bad punk music. That band, called ABF, went through several incarnations but ultimately was together in some form or fashion, and off an on, from 1990 to 2000. With that band, we only released on EP, titled Spot. It came out in 1995. During that time period, I also played in other punk bands, either as the guitar player or as a singer.
I was in a couple of bands during my stint in Alaska but the main one was Ice Station Zebra. That band was originally called Astro Zombies because we played a crap ton of Misfits covers. We also did songs by Social Distortion, Screeching Weasel, Bad Religion, and others. We also wrote a few of our own tunes. I was the singer for that band.
After coming back from Alaska, I played in the final incarnation of ABF but then wound up playing bass for a cover band. One of those bands that plays a wide range of styles such as classic rock, country & western, blues, etc… It was fun playing in that band and I actually made some decent money in that band a few times. It really wasn’t for me though.
When I moved to Seattle, I responded to an from some guys saying that they needed a singer for a band and among their influences was the Descendents. That band became Otisburg. I sang for that band too. During the power trio incarnation of that band, I was the singer and guitar player. That was a great band. I had a lot of fun with them. Otisburg released 2 EPs: 2007s Born Yesterday and 2013s Ubergeek. We also released a 2-song single in 2012 called Sweet Love.
When I moved back to Oklahoma, I tried putting together an Oklahoma-based version of Otisburg. That fell through several times but eventually I was able to get some folks together. Although we started our “career” as Otisburg, we eventually decided to change the name and that band became Get Fired. That band was together in its original incarnation for 2 years, from 2016 to 2017. During that time, we released 2 EPs: 2016s Things That Are Not Rocket Science and 2017s Too Old to Dream. After the original lineup split, I wound up singing for another local punk band. I played a few shows with that band but unfortunately things didn’t work out with those guys. Good group of guys. We just didn’t mesh. Eventually, I found some guys and formed another version of Get Fired. We never recorded anything. Just played a bunch of shows. That iteration split up when I announced that I was moving to Michigan. Between the time that we split up and the time that I moved, the original lineup actually got together and wrote some songs and recorded another EP, 2022s Engineers of Mediocrity.
While in Michigan, I got together with a guitar player and we tried putting something together but it never panned out unfortunately. We might have been able to get something together eventually but, of course, I wound up moving back to Oklahoma.
Eventually, I might get something together again. I’ve been talking to a couple of the guys from the 2nd lineup of Get Fired about maybe putting that back together. Getting a full lineup together has been challenging. Only time will tell if that happens. If it does, I’ll be sure and keep you updated on that.
Anyway, that is a brief history of my “career” in music. I probably left out a few bands (I’ve played for quite a few) but these are the ones that I remember.
Rebel Rock Radio
This week, we dove in the season 3 finale of The Mandalorian. We mentioned that we had re-opened our merch store under the new branding which led to a conversation in the live chat about what sort of products we begin to offer. For example, there was a discussion about offering Rebel Rock Radio undergarments. Lots of fun was had. And, of course, we played some tunes. This week’s tunes came from Problem Patterns, Initiate, and The Short Fuses. Check out the video replay here:
Or, as always, you can check out the audio version at our many platforms by clicking here on our biolink.
Dave did an episode of Australian band INXS on One Band 5 Songs this week. It was a good episode. Go check it out on Spotify here:
Super Mario Bros - Fun movie. Unlikely to make an appearance on my end of year favorites list but still worth going to see.
I’m still working on trying to get caught up on the “current” X-Men stuff. As of this writing, Last night (Thursday), I finished X of Swords. That was quite a massive undertaking. I’m not sure what I’m going to start next. I will probably try and finish the Jonathan Hickman run of X-Men.
This week’s new comics for me included:
Superman #3
This week’s track comes from Melonball’s Breathe album, which was released in late March via Thousand Island Records. The song is a cover of “Your Love.” This song was originally recorded by British pop band The Outfield in 1985 and was on their album Play Deep. Anyway, here it is. Enjoy.
Well, that’s it for this week. Have a good weekend and remember to BE MORE KIND!