Five Years

First published Summer 2008

We’ve resisted the urge to write band bios over the years, but we’re currently in a spot where reflection, preparation, and uh, distraction, all feel okay.

Carter and I met when we were brought together as a rhythm section for the Chapel Hill band Cold Sides in early 2002.  They had just released an album and were looking for a new direction and the ability to play some shows to support the album.  We played as a rhythmic 4-piece guitar rock band over a six month period (Carter on bass).  Fun times, but though we were great at improvising noisy rock jams together, the music we were creating wasn’t hitting.

That band split up and Carter and I spent about a year improvising sprawling bassy, dark rock music at my house out in the Carolina corn fields.  There were turkey vultures, great sunsets, and good dude-bonding.  Carter switched back to playing guitar, good ideas started to flow, we learned how to really improvise and arrange songs together, and the Monsonia sound or whatever was born.  This stage of our band-life ran from August 2002 to August 2003.  Tracing back to this point, we consider this August to be our 5th anniversary.

We jammed with a couple of bass players, and brought David Alston into the fold.  David learned to play bass by playing along with Gang of Four, but he was into a broad spectrum of music and his playing was deep, rich, and lyrical.  We played well together, and maintained our weekly jam/rehearsal regimen and started playing shows in January 2004.  We recorded a 3-song demo at my house and enlisted Nick Petersen’s help with improving the quality of the sound.  Nick and I met in 2000 when we both lived out in neighboring ramshackle houses in the woods on Jordan Lake.  Our first show was at Go! Room 4 and Nick was running the club that night.  I’m pretty sure he was working for our show there later that year too – in the last days of the club’s operation.

We haven’t played very many shows over the years, but we’ve kept rolling slowly but steadily.  We’re focused on being friends, being productive, and creating good music.  Not just rocking at bars and talking about our frustrations at other bars.  We’ve viewed ourselves as a small band, but a focused and positive band, and try not to screw around too much.

We’ve done a handful of out-of-town shows and hope to do more, but we’re mostly focused on creating new music – practicing every week, being good friends, laughing about our song names, and twisting riffs and grooves until we feel they’re not mediocre.  That’s what we’re about really.

We recorded the Monsonia EP in the summer of 2004 with Nick at Track & Field Recording, and we released it ourselves in April 2005.  We came back to the studio shortly thereafter to record a song named “Old Man Winter” for the Consensus compilation on Red Strings Records benefiting Carter’s college radio station, WQFS.  Nick engineered the recording and John Byrd mixed the song.  We started viewing Nick as very much a creative collaborator.  He was already basically a part of our band thing, in the best way.  We really felt good about the recording of that song – it really built on what we had done for the EP and we got excited about writing and recording new music.  However, it would be awhile before we could get that together.

David left the band in the fall of 2005 and Carter and I forged ahead as a duo.  We kept a few of the old songs in the set, but though we could have played others as a duo, we were more interested in creating new music.  We played a handful of shows as a duo, and this worked out ok, but we severely missed the bass.  We jammed with a few good players in 2006, but basically just sat on our hands until Nick could make time to join us.  He did.  And clicked.  And locked right in.  That was in August of 2006.

Our sound changed subtly as we worked out a three-way collaborative process.  Nick’s playing added so much to the songs we had been playing as a duo, and the new songs were even more exciting.  We recorded Growler at Track & Field in June 2007 (sorry it’s taken so long to get this out!) and we think the flow of the album really benefits from being comprised of a mix of songs that were written before and after Nick joined.  The album was tracked live with Nick hovering (okay, dancing) over the board while he played.  We overdubbed some extra guitar for fullness, dynamics and counterpoint, and vocals.  We enjoyed the luxury of the recording situation and didn’t really expect to nail 8 songs, but the takes flowed and we did all the recording over a 3-day weekend.   We took our time mixing and remixing (we have busy schedules, and wanted to take the time to do this right), but went for an open, natural band sound, and gave it our talented friend John Crouch for mastering which made it sound even better.

Shortly after recording Growler, we started working on new music.  It’s heavier, tighter, and more collaborative.  It’s all less showy individually in favor of band action.  We’re excited about our new music, much of which we’ve played at shows this year.  We also have two brand new songs and are working on more.   We tracked three of these songs shortly before Track & Field (temporarily) packed up this past Spring, and we’re going to resume recording this Fall.  Our current goal is to build the next record from 2-3 sessions total, in differing rooms and environments, to give it some sonic variety and to once again benefit from working with material that has its genesis in different stages of our band-life.   We’ll see how long that takes.  Again, we’re a slow moving machine, but we’re staying focused and we feel good about the future.

We also feel good about Jim Potter’s (Splash Page / Growler) and Jeremy Boyd’s (EP / posters) artwork that have represented us over the years, and all of our song names.  Nick’s on a roll with the song names lately…