Evolution Of Living In A Van

Evolution Of Living In A Van… Here it goes…Are you ready?? (clicks the drumsticks) One…two…three…four

San Francisco - I had been working for FedEx since 1997 when I was fired on September 8th, 2001. Without a job it was dark but the bright side was I still had the band I joined in 2000. The band was a 3 piece called milk tooth. We had played various venues throughout the Bay area. We recorded a demo at a professional San Francisco studio. It was so nice, we had to wait for Neil Young to finish his recording before we could start our recording. We recorded and mixed 8 songs in 2 days. The rough mix sounded great to me, I was excited until I heard the final mix and told everybody that it sucked and the energy was not there. Of course, the drums were too low, they didn’t have the “punch” they once had. But the other band members assured me that the final product would be fixed in the mastering. I was naïve and didn’t really know about the whole recording process. When the mastered CD came back and we listened to it, I was very disappointed. I thought we had a masterpiece while we were recording and the end result sounded like a master piece of shit!!
I was pissed!! This CD was supposed to represent the band and ultimately get us signed to a recording contract. There was nothing I could do. I couldn’t change what was already done.

In early 2002, I went to see the Donnas play the Fillmore. I was outside smoking a cigarette when I started talking to this guy about a band he had and they were looking for a drummer. He was in the same kind of music I was into and I agreed to audition. After the audition they asked me to join. It was another 3 piece called Poisin Jett Gunz. We played gigs around San Francisco and recorded a 5 song demo on a reel to reel 4 track at our band rehearsal studio. I came up with calling the CD “Sloppy Sessions” a play on words for “sloppy seconds”. I had T-shirts printed up through Café Press. We used my digital camera to take all the photos for the cover art and flyers. I mention this because they claim I didn’t pay studio rent or contribute in any way on their myspace page, so they claim and wouldn’t mention my last name for myspace fame. Give me a break!! I don’t care about credit, just don’t say I didn’t do anything but play drums. We also recorded a live CD at the Tempest in San Francisco, that was my last gig with Poisin Jett Gunz. milk tooth asked me to move with them to L.A. and I reluctantly agreed. Poisin Jett Gunz knew I was leaving before the last gig. They wished me well and I left amicably. But they might have been upset when I moved to Los Angeles with milk tooth. It was a hard decision for me to make. On one hand, I had more fun and got along better with the guys (no name fame game) in Poisin Jett Gunz and on the other hand, milk tooth had a more up to date sound and I thought that I had a better chance of “making it” with them. So I went with milk tooth. But I knew from being a former road manager and seeing L.A., I knew I needed a car. In fact, I needed a VAN to load my drum set up to take down there.

Part 2...coming soon…to a blog near you…stay tuned!!

Here are some links for you to listen to both bands I recorded with:
http://www.garageband.com/artist/milktooth

http://www.garageband.com/artist/poisinjettguns


For the record: I recorded the drums on all of the tracks without a click track and did them in one or two takes with no overdubs or punch ins. Thanks for listening!!

Above newspaper article from CORSAIR, a Santa Monica College newspaper 2005
Credit: Jillian Sorkin- Photo Essay www.jilliansorkin.com