So you want to make an album? (part 6)
KeithHandy posted in So You Want... on March 29th, 2007
Installment 6 (to the tune of “The Telephone Hour” from Bye Bye Birdie): Goin’ solo, goin’ solo, goin’ solo, solo for good
By the winter of 1990, Episodes had come infuriatingly close to finishing album #1. We had final mixes of five songs, and rough mixes of two others. Altogether, there were three songs by myself, one song co-written between myself and guitarist Garrett Lechowski, and three songs by the other guitarist, Scott Helfrich. The aborted album never had a title — not even a working title. We never had any idea what would have been on the cover.
The disintegration of a band is an emotional event, and everyone will remember it differently, so this is only my take. Oblivious that anything was amiss, I received a phone call from drummer Thom Delooze, who explained that he was giving us a courtesy/warning call to let us know he was leaving the band and moving to Boston for a (non-musical) job offer. The call started out politely enough, but devolved into an ugly argument about money, and by the end of the call he was threatening to go out of his way to saddle the rest of us with a negative reputation and make it “impossible” for us to get gigs.
More puzzled than concerned, Scott, Garrett, and I gave their friend Chris Michaels a crash course on Thom’s drum parts to get us through our final gig at Fredonia. He did a fine job, but was not interested in joining as a member, partly because he sensed that there was negative energy between the three of us. I’ll admit that the day before the gig, Scott and I were having a rather flippant (and I thought therapeutic) conversation within earshot of Chris, and apparently aimed some of what we said at Garrett — who, by the way, is a fantastic person, and whatever I said about him, I know I didn’t mean in a truly spiteful way. In any case, words were relayed, wounds were opened, and things were taken hard. Before long, Garrett announced that he was done with Episodes, and the few attempts Scott and I made to regroup with a new bass player (Scott and Garrett had previously alternated handling bass duties) left me cold and unenthused. So, that was the end of Episodes.
Since the studio engineer was a friend of Thom’s, it didn’t occur to us that we might be able to salvage the sessions. As a result, other than cassette-quality copies, nothing remains. Judging from the cassettes, though, little was lost. Certainly not any spontaneity or “magic”. I also never thought Scott’s songs and my songs had any kind of yin/yang relationship, or would have benefitted in any way from residing on the same album together.
Bandless for the first time in years, I placed an ad in the Buffalo newspaper looking for creative musicians. I wanted it to be open-ended, so I didn’t specify what instruments or what kind of music. In mix tape fashion, I tossed together a quick demo cassette, alternating between my Episodes tracks and various home demos, and drove my ‘81 Monte Carlo all over the general Buffalo area to meet everyone on my list of responders. It was the musical equivalent of speed dating, and every bit the absolute disaster you would expect it to be. If I was willing to mentally re-visit all the freaks, hacks, and dabblers I encountered on that adventure, it could spawn an uncomfortably hilarious and horrifying side-series all on its own. Strangely enough, the image that sticks out most in my memory is of a clean-cut, ordinary-looking guy in a clean, nice house. He put my cassette in his boom box and played it at such a low level that we could barely hear it — forcing me into the awkward position of having to ask his permission to turn it up. He sat silently and expressionlessly throughout. At the end, when I asked if it was something he was interested in, he said “sure” in a rather polite and automatic way. As soon as I returned to my car, a line went through his name.
The idea of not being in a band at all was terrifying, and I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say it’s probably one of the top five factors leading to my onset of anxiety attacks in the summer of 1990. I won’t begin to list all the ways I avoided facing up to it, but eventually we have to meet ourselves. Without the “of band X” tag.
I know I was sorting out a lot of heavy stuff over the next few years, and it’s still hard trying to pin it all down, frame it neatly, and bridge the gap between Episodes and Open the Window with something readable. I’m thinking as hard as I can right now, and I can’t remember deciding to do an album as Keith Handy. It’s like I blacked out while a part of me went into a deep freeze, and the only way I can remember it is by re-experiencing something painful…
