tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7755875663056955059.post3483319141362552309..comments2023-12-05T20:55:26.674-06:00Comments on South Bend Power Nineties: The Catatonicstheodorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18156456154797451321noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7755875663056955059.post-26491331080381139522009-03-04T14:58:00.000-06:002009-03-04T14:58:00.000-06:00Chris, I didn't realize you were so mad at everyth...Chris, I didn't realize you were so mad at everything back then!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7755875663056955059.post-16372883993370641222009-02-27T06:49:00.000-06:002009-02-27T06:49:00.000-06:00Ted thanks for saving this tape and creating these...Ted thanks for saving this tape and creating these MP3… just one question, why was the Catatonics/ Nirvana tape in your car? Where you actually listening to it?!?! <BR/><BR/>Chris you did such an awesome job writing this. You remembered so many things that I had forgotten!! (not surprising… it seems like I don’t remember very much.) <BR/><BR/>I was really scared to listen to these recordings. I hadn’t heard them since we recorded them in my bedroom (aka our practice space). But, they’re actually better than I anticipated, and I’m super happy to have a copy of them. If I remember correctly we recorded these songs shortly after we started practicing so we could see what we sounded like and make improvements. So it wasn’t intended to be a “demo”… hence the recording with a boom box. Hopefully we sounded better by the time we played live! (To be honest, there are some songs I don’t remember playing…)<BR/><BR/>So here are a few things I DO remember about the Catatonics…<BR/><BR/>I remember that Chris and I were listening to lots of Garage, Rockabilly and Oldies as well as Post-Punk stuff. I was super into everything happening in the San Diego scene, like Drive Like Jehu and all of the Gravity Records stuff. So our idea was to try to do something mixing these styles together. Unfortunately, we weren’t skilled musicians so we didn’t really know how to play the music we had in our heads.<BR/><BR/>I remember us writing our first Catatonics song at my parent’s house in San Diego. So, my guess is that it must have been over Christmas vacation. I remember this is when we came up with the brilliant line “"Maybe we can watch Who's the Boss, or take all our clothing off!" I think I may still have a notebook with these scribblings somewhere.<BR/><BR/>After winter break when we returned to ND, that’s when we recruited Mike and Dave (Andy had already signed up). We were super excited that they said “Yes” because they actually knew how to play their instruments and Andy and I were just starting to learn.<BR/><BR/>I remember we really wanted to add some keyboard to the songs so we went around to all the pawnshops trying to find a vintage one. We found one called the Wandering Genie that was insane but the guy wanted more money for it than we had. So every week we’d go to the pawn shop and try to bargain with the guy to lower the price. Eventually he got so suck of us badgering him he sold us the “Genie” for $60 just to get rid of us. The sound was awesome, it had keys that lit up in rainbow colors and effects like “Magic Swing Bass”. This was after the “bedroom” recordings were done and just a couple of weeks before our first show so we didn’t have a chance to work it into our mix.<BR/><BR/>Unfortunately, we were together less than a semester and the show that we did play was right before the end of the school year. This is when I graduated so that’s why the Catatonics were so sort lived. I actually had hopes of keeping the group going though. I moved to Chicago and thought I’d drive down to South Bend often enough that we could practice. Whelp, needless to say that never happened…<BR/><BR/>FYI the Genie ended up in good hands. I lugged it around with me for years and when I decided to move to France I donated it Trans Am.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7755875663056955059.post-91603323482774812022009-02-26T14:42:00.000-06:002009-02-26T14:42:00.000-06:00actually, it's this tape that could be, in some wa...actually, it's this tape that could be, in some way, responsible (or blamed?) for the starting of this blog. a couple years back, the dubbed over "nirvana unplugged" cassette that had these songs on it suffered a near fatal melting incident in the back seat of my shitty old ford escort. luckily i was able to salvage it, but i thought, holy crap -- i almost lost that music forever! yikes! within a week, i figured out how to convert tapes to mp3, and soon had a fine stash of ripped-in campus band recordings. when i told a few people i had done this, they were like "gimme gimme!" soon after, this blog was, in part, initiated as convenient vehicle for distributing all this stuff to folks who were interested. <BR/><BR/>so, thanks Geffen, for making shitty melty tapes! hahahaha!!theodorehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18156456154797451321noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7755875663056955059.post-23072238990035900972009-02-23T11:33:00.000-06:002009-02-23T11:33:00.000-06:00Hahaha, well I'm frequently wrong!Hahaha, well I'm frequently wrong!chris ohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12134039810576483549noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7755875663056955059.post-3824384075918006792009-02-23T10:32:00.000-06:002009-02-23T10:32:00.000-06:00You're wrong, Chris. I loved playing in this band....You're wrong, Chris. I loved playing in this band.Mike L.https://www.blogger.com/profile/04510573683045944775noreply@blogger.com