I’ve always looked back at one of my favorite memories in my life with hope. Hope that it wasn’t the height of my musical career, but more of a stepping stone.
It was the night that I crossed off my bucket list. The night my most successful band, “Strychnine”, played in front of a sold out Webster Theater.
The Webster Theater in Hartford, CT is no great triumph. It holds maybe 3000 people, so the fact that it was “sold out” doesn’t hold much water. And “Strychnine” was definitely not the reason the place was sold out. No, that homer would go to “Taproot” and “The Union Underground”. “The Union Underground” was known for their “Rob Zombie” like sound with”Turn Me On (Mr. Deadman” being their claim to fame and “Taproot”, regardless of being at band I liked a lot, never really had that hit song. Again and Again was about as close as they got.
At the time, it was enough to sell out The Webster and there was a slot for a local opener. I got the gig because I had put together a monthly show in The Webster Underground which was the Webster’s mini club/bar next door and it was a pretty successful show.
I always think back to the moments on stage. When I was tuning and my singer randomly yelled “All you make me loose my mind”. The entire place yelled back “up in here, up in here” and we dove right into “Livid”, one of our fastest paced songs. A small circle pit erupted in front of the stage. I must have had the biggest grin on my face.
Stuff like that defines me. Random moments that turn into something awesome. Playing music was always full of them for me.
Getting the band to play that show is a whole other story. It was likely one of our last shows.
I think back on this memory quite often because of the way I felt. Music was my world. I always had some sort of music playing in my head. Sometimes it would be something someone else wrote, but more than often, it was something unique. I even used to sometimes sing a bar or two of it into a little recording app on my phone. One day I went looking for something in it and realized the list of recordings was in the thousands.
At some point, that music stopped playing. I stopped listening to music in general and began listening to talk radio or books on tape.
I blamed it on the lack of any really good music being made and being tired of listening to the same old songs from my favorite artists. But I missed it. I missed driving down the highway in my 350z blasting Sublime and singing along to every lyric. I missed picking up my daughter for our biweekly visits and playing Rancid the whole way to my house singing back and for with her the lyrics to “Salvation”. I missed picking up an acoustic guitar at a party and being able to just play for hours with anyone and everyone.
It was a great feeling and definitely made life so much more enjoyable. I want that back. I want to pick up an instrument and have a ton of music I’m excited to play.
Part of why I started playing music in the first place was because I didn’t like all the music out there, so I decided I should do something about it.
3/11/21 – “Torn Between” – I found an old tape from 3/5/95 of a band I played with called “Torn Between”. I dug out an old cassette/CD unit I was given a while back and hooked it up to my sound system in my music room. I was able to get everything working, but it felt like the cassette/cd unit was on it’s last use.
I formed “Torn Between” right after I dropped out of high school. my friend Rich, who ended up playing guitar in “Torn Between”, had a band called “Muzzle” that played a few parties and would practice down the road from where I lived. I always wanted to play in “Muzzle”, but I think I was too much for that band. They were on par with a sound more like “Nirvana” while I was leaning towards a sound like “Helmet” or “Fear Factory”. In the end, I joined a band called “Cheese” who sounded even more like “Nirvana” than “Muzzle” did.
“Cheese” and “Muzzle” would both desolve as members went off to collage and moved on with their lives. All that is another story for another day. As a result, I posted a flyer at a “Daddy’s Junky Music” instrument store near my house that I was looking to join or form a band that had no boundaries on what we could do.
I received several phone calls, but two stood out. The first was from a guy named “Shane” who was a singer. He was a well known member of our local Hard-Core scene and was friends with the guys from “Hatebreed” who was a local band, but were known for creating our Hard-Core scene.
The second was from a drummer named Derik who had played in several bands before. He generally seemed like a really cool guy who shared a lot of the same tastes in music.
I decided to use my friend Frank as the guitarist. He was really good and his Step-Father taught us everything we knew about playing up to that point.
We all met up at Frank’s house one night just to hang out and see if we wanted to give this a shot. We smoked some weed and drank some beers as we talked about music and what we all wanted to do with the band. We decided to meet at Derik’s place to play a few days later.
It was almost clear immediately that Frank never played with a drummer before. While this was my third real band, Frank had only really learned to play “Metallica” and “Nirvana” songs out of books or playing along to recordings. Playing with a drummer is very different. So we decided to find another guitarist to fill us out, so our first couple practices were very unproductive, but we did lay out the foundation for a couple songs.
As I was getting ready to head over to Deriks to play one night, Rich stopped by. I wanted to show him what I’d been doing and he agreed to stop by.
We started playing and Rich started showing Frank some ideas. It didn’t take long before Rich was playing Frank’s guitar and rig as we started pricing together song after song, each one better and better.
Frank kinda hung out and just let Rich take over. By the end of the night, we had the inevitable conversation that we wanted Rich to play rather than Frank. We let Frank know and asked Rich to join.
I couldn’t wait to go to practice. When I was home, I was playing our songs, trying to come up with new ones, or listening to recordings. The band felt like exactly what I was looking for. I bought a new bass and rig. Started taking bass lessons. I was finally happy with what I was doing.
We played an open mic just to get the feel for playing a live show one night. We got a lot of good feedback at the time, but looking back at it now, these people were probably saying “what is going on with these kids”. Our style was not really something many bands had attempted yet and definitely wasn’t very accepted.
We decided to add a second guitarist so we could fill out our sound a bit. Rich was more of a rhythm guitarist and we wanted someone who could solo. We auditioned a few, but only one guy really stood out, but he had another band and was kind of a dick. We all had talked about getting a DJ or keyboard player and one day Derik brought in a kid named Corey to DJ.
I really don’t know what I was expecting because it wasn’t something that had really been done before. as we played through our songs, Corey added a sample here and there with some Mix Master Mike like scratching that not only filled out the songs, it added more color to them. He was the missing element.
Corey had experience managing a band too. He knew of a bigger rehearsal space, a giant wear house where we could play for like $75 a month.
He wanted to get us in a studio recording an album. He wanted to put together a press kit. He wanted to make the band a business. It all sounded great.
We moved into the wear house and began playing. We threw a giant party where our band and our friends band “Unclops” played. (Another story) Everything was going great.
Great until we go to practice one day and we were working on a new song. It suddenly felt like no one was taking anything serious anymore. Shane began singing “Jesus saves” and other stupid lyrics over the new material.I got very frustrated with it and just kind of buried it.
Outside of the band I began dabbling with hard drugs. Not habitual, but not something I took seriously either. I also wasn’t the only one. I’m not going to call anyone out, but I’ll say there was a few nights where we spent a few hundred dollars on coke and would have spent more if we didn’t have to keep going out to get more.
The “Jesus Saves” practices continued till finally I got fed up enough to grab my bass and walk out of practice very pissed off.
At our next practice, I showed up and could hear music being played. I could here bass. I assumed it was Shane or someone messing around on my rig, but when I walked in, I saw a complete stranger playing through my rig.
They all stopped and Shane immediately put himself between me and the guy playing bass. I asked “what the fuck is this?” And Rich answered me with “You said you quit, so we found someone else”. I explained I never said any such thing. I was just upset about the “Jesus Saves” sessions and needed to cool off. Corey injected his line of “well you seemed to concerned with drugs so we thought it best you get some help” and I attempted to take a swing at him that was stopped by Shane. I ended up grabbing my gear and leaving very pissed off.
What upset me the most is no one talked to me about it. I didn’t see it coming. If I was the cause of any kind of problems, I likely would have fixed the problem or walked away if it couldn’t be fixed.
“Torn Between” ended up recording an album. I think they may have played a couple of shows, but it didn’t last very long after my departure. I remained friends with them and would have supported them if they had continued.
Regardless, I hold those memories of “Torn Between” pretty close to my heart. So when I found this old recording, I was hopeful it might help find that inspiration I’m looking for.
I rewound the tape and after about 5 minutes I realized it was still rewinding. I pulled the tape out to discover it had broken at the beginning, so I opened up the cassette and doctored it up. The tape was so fragile that if this unit didn’t destroy it, the cassette was going to keep breaking till there was nothing left to fix. I knew I had maybe one chance to play it, so if I didn’t make it digital, it would be gone forever.
I hooked up my recorder to the sound system, hit record, and then play. As I began hearing the songs it was like an instant visit to the drummers basement where we were playing in 1995.
As I listened more and reminisced, I started remembering the feeling at certain parts of certain songs where we’d all come back in and nail a note all at the same time. Or when I’d try something completely new and it’d work.
I’d often wish we would all just get together for one night and play together again. Most of us a way more experienced and “Torn Between” was way ahead of it’s time. It won’t happen though. Shane made clear that he had no intentions of ever reviving the band or taking part in any reunion of any sort in a call Rich and I placed to him years ago. He didn’t seem even slightly happy to hear from us.
Derik, on the otherhand, seemed to like the idea, but it just never happened with out Shane.
This recording may well be the last remaining recording of the original “Torn Between”. When I flipped the tape over and found some recordings on there with Corey, I got very excited. I knew this was the last chance to make these recordings digital.
I managed to get a recording of everything on my recorder before the tape ended and broke once again. I might be able to get the tape working again, but it gets a little shorter every time it breaks. Eventually there will be nothing left.
Update : After writing this entry I called Rich and told him about the cassette. We talked about where everyone is at now and he mentioned that Derik had posted a few videos of “Torn Between” on YouTube. It was versions of the band with out me and Rich, but they were still playing our songs which was very weird.
Derik also wrote something about the band attached to the video stating that “Torn Between” had 6 different line ups and that the changes usually had something to do with drugs and drama.
I left a comment and considered reaching out to him, but chose to leave it alone. It was too weird of a feeling knowing they went on to play songs Rich and I primarily wrote. Lyrics were Shane’s but he put those same lyrics over a couple versions of those songs before landing on the final version. It was just weird.
LYPHTED.NET 
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