Let's flash forward a few years. It has been a while and a lot of things have changed and happened. This was originally going to be a post for a different blog, but I have decided to add it here due to the last post on this blog. So, this blog will be all things concerning the album and the actual print 'zine of Sonic Ruin. First post is the one here. I will be doing a post about the future of Sonic and what I am planning for that.
So . . . read on for information about this album thingy.
The true idea for this album started to really fire up towards the end of June, 2023. Just a few days after my mom had passed away. In fact, some of the songs probably started to show up right before she passed, when I was extremely angry about life and the cards my family had been dealt again. I had always used my guitar playing as a release for my anger. As John Lydon has said, "anger is an energy," and often times I used that energy as my driving force.
The actual concept of the album, or the title, was actually first used by me back in 2000 when I got together with my buddy Larry for a one day recording session. It was just a fun little thing where I went to his house with four song ideas that we quickly turned into songs over the course of 4 hours.
When Mom passed, though, I decided I wanted to take that title, Pieces of Time, and actually turn it into something with substance. I wanted to create something that kind of followed my life to a certain degree. At first it would be all done in the spirit of my mom. Basically everything would have her at the core of the songs.
But, then life continued on the course and my dad passed away 8 months later after a short roller coaster ride of patience.
At that point I started to decide that this thing would just switch to being a concept album about life. With that, I would be drawing from my older bands for a few steps along the way. The original idea was to be all new material. I later decided to go ahead and use some of the older songs, as only a very small number of people have ever heard the old material.
Quick history time.
My first band was called Accidental Suicide. We were a punk band that consisted of anybody who wanted to try and be in a band with me, and me. In fact, none of the recordings I have of these days ever consisted of the same people. Eventually, I figured out a way of recording all of the instruments by myself. I would record the guitar, then play that recording back loudly and play drums to that, and record the whole noise. Kind of the poor, uneducated man's way of multi-tracking. I wasn't a drummer and this method was sloppy as hell, so obviously the results were fairly iffy.
The musicians who came through Accidental were, for the most part, much better than I was. My friend Matt Adkins was the guitarist on one recording session. Matt was actually a pretty great guitarist, ala Yngwie Malmsteen. The other musicians were some folks who I still have connections to today, and one of whom actually made an underground name for himself, Mark Shippy. All of these people were pretty much doing stuff with me just because we liked each other, and I think they took pity on my crappy abilities.
After Accidental I formed another band called Balance of Power. Balance was myself and my buddy Doug on vocals. Doug wasn't a musician and didn't really have any interest in it. He wrote some pretty solid lyrics, but it was a passing interest.
The true talent in Balance of Power was the drummer, Joe. I can't remember Joe's last name. But, I can tell you that Joe was the son of John Santucci, who played Pauli on the TV show Crime Story. Joe was a great guy, but again was above my abilities. I can't remember how that one fell apart, but I think it was probably like an earlier attempt at a band where I felt way out of my league and wandered away.
After that I tried forming a new version of Accidental Suicide. Again, this version had some pretty solid talent wandering through it at the time. But, this time things were a little different. By this point I had started taking the whole band thing more seriously, and my taste in music was becoming more varied and I was deciding I wanted to do something other than straight punk. I started pushing my own abilities, and found some like minded people.
Accidental Suicide of this time started to change a bit. My buddy Mike was doing vocals, but I then connected with some other people who I really had a strong connection with. These people, however, were not so keen on Mike.
The name of the band changed from Accidental Suicide to Baby Jane. The two new members of the band, Curt Marcucci and Todd Marino, helped convinced me that we needed to part ways with Mike. If I remember right, Todd was the driving force behind that.
This version of the band changed the name and we became my beloved Misty Beethoven.
Out of all the bands I have done, my heart will always belong to Misty Beethoven. That is the band that, of the other two guys said "We don't care of we are old, lets have some fun and do it again!" I would do it without a second thought. Misty was a solid band, even though my talent was (once again . . . pun intended if you knew Misty at all) the bottom of the barrel. But, we had a connection and the songs were actually great songs. The hold up from me was that the songs never sounded complete.
But, from Misty Beethoven comes the first song that will be used for the album.
"Darling Blue" will be finding its way to a re-recording. The original version of the song is possibly my best vocals. The song also has some lyrics I really loved, and lyrics that were written in about 10 minutes in the studio right before we recorded the song. While I do love the original recording we did, it was lacking what I thought it could have been.
Eventually I formed Fear and Loathing. While Fear and Loathing accomplished more than Misty did, it was the lesser band. This time, I was not the weakest link. At the time I kind of thought I was, but listening back, I don't think I was.
Fear and Loathing consisted of Bob on shared vocals and guitar, Jerry on drums, and Al on bass. Of the four of us, Al had the most talent. He was a brilliant bassist. He just didn't quite carry the image that the other three of us were going for. But, he was such a solid bassist and such a great guy, it was all cool.
Jerry was a kindred spirit. He was the second drummer, following Nick. Nick was OK, but it took forever to get him to learn the songs. Jerry, though, was a great guy who was a perfect fit. In the beginning it was amazing. Through time, though, personal things entered into the picture and Jerry started to become pre-occupied with things much bigger than our silly little band. That, and inside the band I think Jerry was sick and tired of Bob. So, we moved on from Jerry in a pretty uncool way. The fact Jerry still speaks to me is pretty cool on his part.
Read between the lines, and you will understand who I feel the weak link in that band was. I eventually got kicked out of Fear, even though most of the material was written by me and I was the lead vocalist most of the time. But, we brought in a new drummer to replace Jerry and I was removed.
From Fear and Loathing I am going to take two songs, which one I used will be decided later.
"Length of Nations" will be brought into the new album due to the lyrics and what I feel the song could have been. There are certain aspects of the original recording that I feel really hurt the song and took away from what it could have been.
The other song was one that was never recorded properly. I have a live version, and maybe a four track version. Neither version have I listened to in almost 30 years. That song is "Interplanetary," a ridiculous song lyrically, but one of the best vocally and musically I have done. It really was a great tune. It probably won't fit, thematically, but I would love to have a good version of it.
The only other old song is called "Another Life." This one was from the original Pieces of Time recording, the 4-tracks recording done with Larry. This one is actually my favorite I have written. While the song is about a girl, I will now admit that it is autobiographical to a certain degree. Some of my best lyrics, if I am being honest.
Everything else I have going for this album is new material written over the past 2+ years. There are around 20 pieces of songs. A few of these have started to gain names and such.
The current working song titles are:
1. October 10, 2023
2. October 24, 2023
3. January 6, 2024
4. February 17, 2024 (aka "Nobodies Home")
5. February 29, 2024
6. February 29, 2024 9:45PM (this is either the lead song or the final one)
7. April 27, 2024
8. September 30, 2025
9. Another Life - a song I did back around 2000 on a cheap 4-track recording
10. Interplanetary - an old Fear and Loathing song that is ridiculous fun but never got a true recording done.
11. Darling Blue - an old Misty Beethoven song, probably my favorite vocal performance I have ever done, but the song never got the full treatment that I always heard out of the guitars.
I do fully understand that this all sounds awful pretentious and self-important. I am fully aware that there are probably only 3 people in the world who will give a toss about the adventure. But, I am also fully aware that this will help keep me motivated on a journey I have been somewhat struggling with. So, this is kind of a little bit of trying to keep my head into what I am doing. But, I am also aware that while it seems like only 3 people might be interested, there is a chance more people than that are interested in this.
So, if you want to follow along, cool! Otherwise, this is just a running record of what I have done.
