Hondo – Rock with some country, emo, and math tendencies. Four distinct voices bringing fragments to rehearsal sessions and jamming out ideas together. Jay Pemberton: Guitar and Vocal / Dana Owens: Bass and Vocal / Mike Merva, Guitar / I played the drums and recorded. Listen online via bandcamp … But FYI someday I will finish remixing it now that I know something about it.

Helles-Dostoevsky Septet – Actually we were a duo of guitar and drums, being Mike Merva and myself, and we were RIYL Nels Cline Trio or any form of progressive rock. We recorded four tunes and two improvisations with Ian Gorman in the early ‘oughts… We ought to make that widely available sometime.  We went on tour once, highlighted by a sparsely-attended gig at The Knitting Factory in NYC, and a wonderful college campus gig in upstate NY or eastern PA with the Arco Flute Foundation and a guy who played a Light Organ. Also, we played a restaurant sharing a bill with folks who used to be in The Range.   Oh, that Cutlass Wagon sure took on a lot of miles!

RU486 – This was a punk rock group I joined, playing bass, ’cause I figured I had at least as much skill as that took, or I could work myself up to it. All credits for this group go to Matt Cole (Guitar/Vox) and Nate Higley (Drums/Vox).  I just wanted to play bass and rock out.  Matt put this together, if you want to check out the record we did with Ian Gorman at the legendary Big Green Lamp studio when it was on Dutton St., -or- if you want to check out my sweet look back in ’00/’01!  I am pretty sure this era is one of two high water marks for my dumbassery, and I’d like to apologize to most of the people I’ve ever offended at this time.

World War Four – The music of John DeBoer, backed with a full band. We mostly played around Kalamazoo, but did go out traveling a bit. One memorable gig was in Minneapolis, where we played kind of a crust/punk venue with some groups certainly more edgy than ours in musical style (probably not so much lyrically.. John’s words can sure cut like a rusty shiv). To end the night, a food fight broke out and while it was quite a sight, unfortunately John’s amp wound up with a few cups of mashed potato in the open-back. More often, we’d just be playing at Kraftbrau and maybe try to make it over to the Green Top afterwards for last call. John posted some of our recordings from a session with Ian Gorman that took place side stage to the Dalton Recital Hall, utilizing Western Sound Studio. There were other sessions as well, and a compilation track. So, probably more music will be posted in time.

Roman Invasion Suite – I was in the group from its inception until sometime in 1998. We released a 7″ called “The Siege of Port Theodora” and we have a track on a compilation album, both of which were released by Longbow Records. In 1998 we recorded a full-length record at WGNS studios in Washington D.C. with the exceptionally patient Geoff Turner. It was recorded in the midst of a very difficult tour (thereafter referred to only as the “Tour of Job”), and upon returning it felt to me that the band could not work with our combination of personalities. The WGNS record can be found in poor MP3 quality on the internets at present. Some of us have reconnected and every so often it seems like a great full-res version of the WGNS record will be released in time.

Always more to come!