| Memoirs of a Local Metal Band
Yeah so here's my first real blog on xanga...I guess. Mayhaps I'll give you all a bit of background on myself. My name is Cliff, and I am 19 years old (20 in March). I'm disputably 6'4" (different measuring tools say different things), kinda lanky, and a complete metal-head. My favorite bands consist of the following: Alice in Chains, Metallica, Static-X, Shadows Fall, Shinedown, Powerman 5000, Tool, White Zombie/Rob Zombie, Pearl Jam, Stone Temple Pilots, Primus, and Rage Against the Machine, just to name a few. I was brought up at an early age listening to classic rock like Foreigner, Steve Miller, Bad Company, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Deep Purple, and Black Sabbath so I guess one can say I know my music. At 8 years old, I really got into Metallica, and my love for the band has sustained through all their albums, including St. Anger. When I was either 11 or 12, I was completely awed by the playing of the late Cliff Burton, and when my best friend Mark asked me if I wanted to learn how to play bass for his new band, I jumped at the chance. I remember it was me on the bass, Mark on lead guitar, our friend Andy on rhythm, and my older brother Curt on the drums. The first song I learned on the bass was "Santa Monica" by Everclear, and everyone was impressed when 2 days after learning it I was able to play it at about 5 times the normal speed. Once I got a good bearing on fretting and picking (I've always used a pick, however in recent years I've been able to use my fingers just as well - I just prefer the sound of a good plectra :D ), we would jam for hours on anything we could find - usually it ended up being Metallica tunes and the 12-bar blues. We had a name (I think it was a toss up between Mao (after the Chinese Communist leader) and Dark Star), and one song that we actually wrote. The name of the song was "Kill, Maim, Destroy", and those were the exact lyrics. The musical score was quite simple - bang on your low E string as fast as you could for 1 1/2 bars, then for the remaining half bar, hit a random fret on the neck. We later made a Pikachu remix of the song, which was hilarious at the time (KILL - MAIM - DESTROY - Pikachu!, repeated until we got sick of it, which suprisingly was not for around 10-15 minutes...we were amused easily back then). Soon, the band parted ways - I mean, seriously...what were we thinking???? However, Mark and myself were still jonesing for the band scene, so we continued to jam every now and then. Luckily, at the same time, our friends Ben and Ken decided to start up a band. Thus, Mark and I jumped at the chance. But who would drum now?? Curt had since lost interest and persued other things - like girls and beer. As we thought on this, our eyes rested on a kid of about 10 years of age. His name - Craig. My little brother. He shrugged his shoulders, and picked up a pair of drumsticks. He had rhythm, so it didn't take long for him to catch up to par with everyone else. So, we had some semblance of a band, now we needed a name. The goal of the band had already been decided - to be a Christian Metal band that people would actually listen to. As such, we turned to the Bible for our name. To this day, we cannot relocate the exact Bible used for our search, but it was certainly a special one. I recall two names on the list we had for possible names - "Balaam's Donkey, and Firstborn Animals". Those were bad. Very bad. Our search was about up, when we decided to jump to the book of Revelation. Lo and behold, on the very last page of this Bible was a title for the very last section in the book, and in it was the word "Doxology". It sounded cool, and had the same number of syllable as "Metallica", so before long, we chose that name. Doxology's original lineup is as follows - Mark on lead guitar, Ken on rhythm guitar, Craig on drums, Ben on rhythm bass, and myself on lead bass (we had 2 bassists, and didn't wanna get rid of one, so an experimental route was taken - so far, so good!) Following this monumental event, came several years of building up our musical skill, as well as our musical equipment. I remember at one point in time, we had a 5 piece drum set with no hi-hat cymbals, only 1 tom-tom, no cymbals, and no floor tom - technically, it was a 3 piece drumset. Wouldn't you know, ingenuity kicked in and we used 2 halves of a pizza box as the hi-hat cymbals, 2 cardboard boxes as a tom-tom and floor tom, and various tin cans and other metal doohickeys haning from a clothesline as cymbals. It was funny, to say the least. It lasted 1 practice/jam session, and we tossed it. Soon afterward, our church decided to get a cheap *full* 5 piece TKO drumset, with cymbals and everything, so we moved our practices/jam sessions over there, and have since stayed. We wrote our first song (with chord progressions and thoughtful lyrics and everything!), and named it "Godwalk", and still play it every now and then for kicks, but it's really not a metal song at all - it's like some "bubble gum candy" song, but it's important to us. Years pass, and every week we jam for hours on end on Metallica tunes and the 12-bar blues (that much hadn't changed much), and then, out of nowhere, disaster strikes. Ken is gone, and nobody knows where he is. We soon discover that his mom left for PA and took him with her, for reasons still unknown. Short a friend and bandmate, Doxology's pace slows down. Jam sessions still took place, but it felt like there was an emptyness to the music. At this time, Mark has graduated High School, Ben was to be in his in his senior year, myself to be a junior, and Craig, in 8th grade. We jammed a lot during the summer, reuniting with old Mao/Dark Star guitarist Andy on a few occasions, but nothing extraordinary occurred. After summer, Mark left for Plattsburgh to persue some Molecular Biochemistry major, coming back on the weekends to jam and visit. We all mainly communicated through Yahoo Messenger, and came up with many song lyrics in that time, much of which has been left untouched, for some odd reason. Then, came a time I like to refer to as Doxology's "Dark Ages", because it truly was a dark time full of drama and strife. Fortunately, it all ended and everyone was pretty much happy again. Ben graduated, then left to Utica for college, which was closer than Plattsburgh so there was little concern over his commuting back and forth for practice, Mark decided not to go back to Plattsburgh and started going to the college right here in town, I was a senior, and Craig was a freshman. During the summer before these changes, there was an important change in the band itself. We tossed all the songs we had been working on before, and started developing a heavier, faster, and "thrashy" sound, writing several riffs and assigning lyrics to them. But who would sing the songs??? This question was soon answered by a girl who started singing at our church - Constance. She had a tremendously talented voice, and we immediately invited her on board. About 6 months later, songs were completed and we were ready to perform (after all this time of preparing, we were finally able to play for the public!). We were signed up for several charity gigs and even played at a large Christian Youth music festival called "Youthfest". I graduated High School, and during the summer lost a job due to a conflicting schedule (we had a gig on a day I requested off - they didn't give it to me, so I just went to the gig). Not long after that very gig, Constance lost interest in the band and parted ways. Singerless once again, we struggled on. In October of '03, we landed a live performance over a local radio station. We played "Don't Follow" by Alice in Chains, and "Godwalk", because we had to play an acoustic set and that was the only song we had that sounded good acoustic. "Don't Follow" was a less-than-perfect performance - Mark blanked out on the second verse, and our playing was barely mediocre, because we only had 1 night to practice for it. "Godwalk" was much better because we'd been playing the song for years, but I was embarassed to play it because it's not the style I wanted to portray over the air...oh well. After that performance, we kinda weakened as a band again, because our material was getting old and boring, and yet we lacked the inspiration for new riffs and lyrics. By this time, I was finishing up my first year of college, Ben was finishing up his 2nd, Mark was finishing up his 3rd, and Craig was a sophomore in High School. The spring that followed was lacking in music almost completely - we still jammed, but not nearly as much, and Mark and myself had jobs that were consuming our free time. Then, after about a month of the same ol' same ol', we found a new guitarist that was introduced to us by a "friend" of sorts. His name was Travis. We tried to jam with him once after church on a Sunday afternoon, but his style was way different than what we were used to playing - it was what I wanted to play. His style was very sudden, very harsh, and electrifying - like a mix between Tool's guitarist and Mudvayne's bassist. However, he clashed with us too much, and we didnt jam with him after that. In fact, after that, Doxology pretty much died. We stopped jamming and everything. Soon, Travis wanted to start up a band of his own. He started off by inviting Craig and Ben into it, then after jamming with them, he invited me as well. Now, I was thinking to myself "Almost looks like Doxology is reborn, but it's just not the same without Mark..." so I asked Travis about it, and after some convincing that Mark would not try to solo over everything Travis was playing, he agreed, and Mark was back in. Travis wanted a name for the new band, and I said "It's pretty much the same band members as before, so why not Doxology?". He agreed, and Doxology rose from its ashes, better than ever. Travis had this thing about him where he could just make a riff on the spot and then forget it if it wasn't good enough. We were amazed by this. Once again, we tossed everything out the window, and fed off this new fountain of creativity Travis brought to the band. Somewhere along the line, we picked up a new singer, Amy, but she soon left because college was interfering too much (I had since quit college to further persue my musical career). We knew that all we needed was a singer, and we'd take off like a rocket. To further boost the morale of the band, we played a Halloween gig at a local restaurant/bar, which went smashingly well. Unfortunately, 2 months later, Travis stopped showing up for practice/jam sessions, and has not showed up since. The band has fallen yet again into a slump. I've taken up a full time job to pay rent on a new apartment and to fill empty time slots throughout the week, Mark has become a father to a beautiful little girl we like to call Izzy, Ben is also working full time, and Craig is a junior in High School. I plan to go back to college this fall to finish up my Liberal Arts degree with some music classes under my belt, and not a day goes by that I don't wish for a new singer, a new guitarist, or an old guitarist to come by and join up. We still practice weekly, but for what we do not yet know. |
