A Tale of Two Bands
1992 was a special year for
me musically. I had just completed my
freshman year at Notre Dame and I was itching to get home and back to work on
my music. That summer I played in not
one, but two bands.
The first was Panic
Station, a metal-funk band comprised of myself on bass, Steve Lipinski on guitar and Dan “Idi” Almodovar on drums. We sounded a little like Extreme from the Pornograffitti album, which was fairly successful at
the time. But we had a problem. We didn’t have a singer.
Panic Station tried out a
few singers, but none of them worked out.
We kicked around the idea of having me sing lead, but the bass parts I
was playing were very busy and it was going to be difficult to do both at the
same time.
At the same time, I had been
playing bass in my friend J’s band, The Get Me Ups. We had recorded a few songs in my basement
studio during the Christmas break, but I was basically just a fill-in because
their previous bassist had run off to
Long story short, J sang for
my band and I ended up becoming the regular bass player for The Get Me
Ups. Both bands played at Obsessions in
Click on the links below to hear those performances:
|
Panic Station |
The Get Me Ups |
|
Live at Obsessions |
Live at Obsessions |
|
July 3, 1992 |
August 14, 1992 |
|
|
|
Here are a couple of video clips from the Panic
Station gig:
Love Me
or Leave Me/Mr. Brownstone (Medley)
My
brother Brian filled in on keyboards
Here are the only “studio”
recordings we did for Panic Station…they’re basically rehearsal tapes.
Panic Station essentially
disbanded for all intents and purposes when we went back to school in the fall,
but The Get Me Ups marched on.
We recorded a full-length
album, Cheap Feel, a few months
later.
Click on the links below to hear tracks from Cheap Feel:
Bonus Tracks:
Look Ma, No Plans (Rehearsal
Tape)
(Unfortunately, I have no
video/photos from any Get Me Ups performances)
The Get Me Ups played a
couple of more shows in 1993 before going our separate ways, though the members
of this group (J Kennedy, Tom Sullivan, Scott Porter, Harry Douglas, and myself)
have gotten together in various other incarnations over the years since then.
J and Tom formed Beauty, whose CD I co-produced and
engineered in 2000, while Scott went on to form the NYC-based band Frank, initially inspired in no small part
by Beauty.
Frank continues to play regularly in the
city.
Harry lives in the
J, Tom, and I are now
working on the Ghosts Sessions.
Scott Porter, Chris Schultz
(from Beauty), J Kennedy, Tom Sullivan, and Me in June, 2005
For additional information
about any of these bands or musicians, please email mailto:abuoye@altown.net?subject=Music
inquiry