Dave and Jill’s apartment was a hang out for us because it was close by and there was usually some kind of partying going on.

Dave and his Chopper 1983 (outside of Jill and Dave's apartment in Twinbrook)

One party that I don’t remember was one that I attended. Early that same day, I found out that our family dog, Benji had to be put down. We had him for so long and I was so close to him that I became very depressed. I went to the party anyway, but had Dave pick me up a bottle of Segrams7 on the way to the party at their place.

When I got there, I offered to share it with several people at the party who declined electing to drink beef from the keg instead. This left me with a bottle all to myself which was a big mistake. I started taking shots off this bottle and chasing them with beer. What happened after that I don’t remember, but I was enlightened with the stories in the coming weeks from other attendee’s. apparently, I polished off the whole bottle by myself and proceeded to become an out of control raging idiot. Of the stories that I was told, I punched Dave in the face, and took a swing at another friend who had just gotten out of jail. He would have killed me, but he was a good friend and knew what was going on. As I threw my punch at Dave, I was quoted as saying “Sixty Fourty Mother Fucker.” To this day I don’t know what that meant.

After I laughed hysterically at a girl who had just projectile vomited onto the walls and floor of Dave’s apartment, I proceeded to fall down a flight of stairs. Dave and Johnny (the friend I took a swing at) took me away from the party and to Rockville High School to try to sober me up. They took me to the track field and tried to walk me around. I broke away from them and started to run across the football field. While running across the field into the end zone, I tripped over the goal post which had been knocked down the previous weekend by Kenny (Johnny’s brother) How did I know this? I knew because I was out drinking with Kenny the week before who decided to take his Buick off-road and onto the football field to do some doughnuts. If I weren’t so drunk the night of the party, I would have remembered that the goal post was on the ground. Dang!

Anyway, a root canal, a major hangover, and several stories later, I was ok. What a weekend!

Jackie didn’t want to hear the noise and didn’t want to have any trouble with any of her neighbors. In spite of that, we did sneak in a few jams.

One in particular, was one we that had when Jackie was not at home. When we arrived the old farts next door noticed that we were unloading the drums and amps and proceeded to call in a loud music complaint the to police. It was done before we even started. When the police arrived, we were still unloading my station wagon and Pat literally had his amp in his hands when the cops pulled up. The cops quickly realized that the complaint was total bullshit, rolled their eyes and left. We never saw them again that night, and played until we were ready to stop.

Jam Session on Howard Ave. (Steve's Birthday 1985) Dave, Steve, And Pat

We left our gear there throughout the weekend and played on and off for duration. (I think Steve’s mom was out-of-town) I set up a Reel to Reel tape recorder and recorded some of the jams that we made. I still have a cassette of it somewhere. One song that stuck out was an instrumental that Steve made up. A pretty Lullaby type song, on which I was virtually hitting  the plumbing pipes over my head to get a percussion ring effect. I think I titled that song “Lullaby Go Away!”

Another day, the mail man came by to make his delivery and struck up a conversation. He was also a guitar player, so we invited him in for a jam. He must have parked his mail truck in front of the house, because a while later his supervisor showed up. (The same cranky old farts next door had obviously made another complaint. Why, because they were cranky old farts that had nothing better to do but harass us kids.)

Steve's Birthday Jam 1985 Steve and Pat

 Anyway, when the supervisor from the post office came in and asked what was going on, the mailman told him “I’m on my lunch break.” The supervisor had no problem with it so he stuck around for a song, then  he left.

To sum it up, We didn’t have very many jam sessions at Jackie’s house, not because we would have been a Nuisance to the neighborhood, but because the neighborhood was a Nuisance to us.

Russell and Dave 1982 (Dave jamming on the Bradley Les Paul)

Dave shelved his “Kappa Continental,” guitar and started playing the Bradley. Eventually, either I or my brother Pat bought the guitar and owned it for a while, then it was sold to Steve. When Steve bought his Fender Stratocaster, he sold it to Zach. This is where it met its demise.

Zach owned it for a while and cherished it. He apparently cherished it too much. One day he and his girlfriend Darla had a big fight, and as he told me, she complained to Zach that the guitar ment more to him than she did. So in a fit of rage, Zach smashed the guitar and destroyed it. He attempted to make another guitar out of the body of it which was dubbed the “Brad-Les-O-Caster,” because he unsuccessfully attempted to put a fender style neck on it.

The last time I ever saw the remnants of the guitar was in Steve’s basement on Howard Ave. The body of the guitar was propped up on a shelf with “Don’t Piss Me Off,” carved into it with a knife.

We played at the Webber’s house for many years while Jill and Dave lived there and had a lot of good times there. I don’t believe that we would have ever moved on as musicians or even be currently playing together today if it were not for Shirley and Hal and their patience and support in those early years.

Hal Webber was a character. He was a very excentric man. The Webbers were of American Indian decent and looked very much that way with their skin tones and features. Hal wore his hair long in a pony tail and always had a very serious look on his face. I often thought I was being brow beaten and berated by him when he was just screwing with my head. More times than less, I didn’t appreciate it but never said anything because they were cool enough to let us jam all the time in their basement. Hal owned a Rolls Royce. Once in a while he would take us for a ride in it around town. We really felt like rock stars riding in the Rolls! I tried to light up a cigarette once in the Roll’s, but Hal stopped me and said that the only thing that can be smoked in the Rolls, was Reefer. One time he took us all out to see the “Blues Brothers,” movie in the Rolls. It was a fun time and a great memory.

Danny Carrera was a class mate of mine. Danny and I became good friends throughout St. Mary’s and even through Rockville High School. Danny also played guitar and I jammed with him several times as well. Danny was a pretty good lead guitarist from what I remember as well.  Danny and I networked out and played with a bunch of other musicians in Rockville High School including Mark Strausburger and Shawn Williams who formed the band “Indestroy,” who got singed to a record deal along with Drew Andreani who played lead guitar on their first album. Another musician that I used to jam with from RHS was Mark Curcio who formed the band “Pure Evil.” I believe they also got signed to a record deal.

 I remember one jam session that I set up with three heavyweight lead guitarists back then. I managed to get Victor Carrera, Russell Strahan, and Johnny Tsakanikas together for a jam at Russell’s house in Bethesda. These three guitarists had heard of each other, but had never actually met, so it was an interesting jam. I played drums and I think Dave might have been there playing bass while we watched these three awesome guitar players  trade licks! I wish I had recorded the session.As I recall, I think we blew out the speaker cabinet for the bass guitar on that jam session. (somebody may have been playing guitar through it at the time)  

Danny recently located me and sent me a friend request on Facebook. It really was nice to hear from him again. I also found a friend link for Victor and made contact with him as well. Victor is still a serious musician and he is playing with a band, the “Charm City Devils.” They appear to be in the studio recording a new album in Nashville.   It’s great to see someone who was as dedicated as Victor, reach a level of success! I know we did our Vortex of Insanity Cd with Hellhound Records, but I would hardly call it a success.

Victor Carrera playing with the "Charm City Devils," band.

We had a great time seeing our friends after about 12 or more years apart. We spent the majority of the time reminiscing about the old times and still managed to get some jamming done in between the B.S.ing and the partying.

We did manage to get about 9 song ideas accomplished by the end of the week. A couple of them were just “tongue in cheek,” goof off’s that Zach had come up with which was just like old times. One song, a filthy love type ballad called “Dumpster Girl.” The other “My Junk in your Face,” was an impromptu rap song that he made up over his disgust with some of the touchdown celebrations that football players make in the NFL. I had tears rolling down my cheeks from laughing so hard at Zach as he cut his initial vocal track to that song. It was hilarious!

Steve and Zack

Steve had a bunch of rhythms up his sleeve. He has a voice recorder that he keeps with him all of the time. Not really for recording his voice (although there was a few rants on it) but for recording rhythms. If he is playing around with his guitar anywhere, and he comes up with a good idea, he just whips out his pocket voice recorder and catches the idea. It’s a great idea. The recordings are great, but you get the ideas down while they are fresh!

Terry Huntsman

I mixed down the 9 song ideas, and gave everybody a copy. Dave and Pat really liked what they heard. Dave was even so inspired that he started jamming on his bass during our recent jam session, and came up with a brand new song called “Bad Clam.” Bad Clam is a surf punk instrumental.

Billy (me) on the kit

All in all, we had a great time reuniting, reminiscing and jamming. Steve and I even took a day away from that to travel to Nashville Tn. to visit the Country Music Hall of Fame. Steve was blown away when he found his name on the Walk of Fame. It was actually Steven Curtis Chapman, who Steve had never even heard of. Steve knelt for a picture with the plaque while covering the middle name “Curtis,” which he didn’t share with the star, with his hand.  It was interesting although we had never heard of most of the people in there. We are rock n rollers, we never really got into country music. Well, with the exception of the country song that we recorded a while back.

Steve with his Country Music Walk Of Fame star!

We got together last month and recorded a new song. The song was not an original song of our creation. We were asked as a favor to do the production of the song for a friend of  ours.  He wrote several songs and send them to us as mp3 files attached to an email. We were humored and impressed with a couple of them so we took on the task. I was really excited by the idea mainly because we have not been inspired for a long time. This song has not been copyrighted as of yet, so I cannot divulge the topic or the content. However, I can say that I think it is a very original idea. I think we were all inspired because it is a country rock song which gave Pat the opportunity to use his acoustic guitar. (We haven’t been able to do acoustic guitar songs along with the band until now) It was a learning experience for all of us because we were able to record multiple tracks on my new 24 track digital work station. Dave recorded a lead vocal, as well as three additional backing vocal tracks with different octaves. Pat recorded three guitar tracks including acoustic guitar and steel guitar via his Les Paul with a guitar effects pedal.

We had a lot of fun with that production. We took our time with the process so we did not have the pressure that is usually present when you in a recording studio on the clock. (In a recording studio, your paying by the hour, so you’ve got one eye on the clock which makes your get stressed out when things are taking longer than expected)

The writer of the song wanted a finished version of the song without any vocals because he wanted to cut the vocal tracks himself. We took the liberty of completing the song with Lead and Backing vocals. I then mixed down a version for him without the vocal tracks. I hope he likes the finished product. That being said. If he want’s any more song’s recorded for him in the future, he’s gonna have to pay! ……………………………………… Hey, were musicians!

I’m hoping to get back on track when I finally leave the midnight shift, and start working on the day shift at work. I think that the midnight shift was draining me.

I’ve really got to get some of the music posted to my Myspace, site so readers (if any) can hear the music that we have, and will produce. I need help with this mission!