The story of the Melbas
It all started back in 7th grade for me, Joe Melba. Someone lent me the Stone Temple Pilots album "Core" and it changed my life. So, the logical thing was to start a band. The only problem was that I couldn't play any instruments and had no idea how to sing. So, I recruited my friends Pete Bucci and Matt Borkowski. Thus, Pain and Agony was born with Pete on a cheesy Toys 'R Us guitar and Matt on an old snare drum. It was not pretty.
So we played for about a year or so, making three "albums," "Not the Three Stooges," "Lithosphere," and "Trilogy III," which consisted of poor comedy, horrible skits, and atrocious, ripped off songs. We started a fourth, tentatively titled "Have Some Corn," but the magic was gone. Pain and Agony broke up...but then reformed a few weeks later under the name Tokin (blame the name on being young and impressionable and seeing "Dazed and Confused" one too many times). We put together a tape, this time featuring Matt playing on a $100 drum pad instead of the snare drum. We still sucked. I ask myself, "What the hell were we thinking?" when I listen to those tapes today.
Eventually, that all fell apart. In the summer between freshman year and sophomore year, me, Pete, Brian Stevens (bass), and Steve Dusenberry (drums), put together an atrocious cover band called Then. We played our one and only show at St. Sebastian's Festival, playing stuff like "Anarchy in the UK" and "About a Girl." And yes, we still sucked. The video is damn amusing, however. It features me in full grunge regallia, high tops, flannel shirt, Soundgarden t-shirt. It also features headbanging....lots of headbanging...from both me and Pete.
So, the next year, Pete, Brian, Steve, Paul Fleetwood (second guitar), and Jon McLean (vocals) put together another bad cover band, this one called Zone Seek. I sang one song with them, an offkey version of "On Your Own" by the Verve. And yes, it still sucked.
Then, things kinda actually started to pick up. Somewhere in our junior year of high school, I learned how to play guitar and bass and Matt (from Pain and Agony and Tokin) bought a real drumset. So, we brought Pete in on guitar, had Jon sing, and I played bass. We wrote some songs and Common Thought was born....and you know what, we weren't that bad. Of course, we weren't that good either, but we weren't horrible. Over the next two years, we played a bunch of shows in weird places (churches, forensics tournaments, barns), recorded a tape, and had tons of fun. Alas, we played our last show in August of 1998 (because everyone was going away to college) at a battle of the bands in Cranberry that featured me in ripped black tights and us almost getting beat up by some heavy metal kids.
Also, during that time, me, Matt, and Nate Beatty (bass) started a one day only piss poor punk band called Waiting for Chloe to play at the North Catholic talent show. We had two songs, one of which was a Common Thought song that I wrote and the other being a horrible Nirvana-esque song called "Nothing." We played only once, at North Catholic's talent show...we were loud...very, very loud....but not much else...but I had a lot of fun playing with Nate and that planted the seeds for the Melbas. Plus, I was getting more and more into punk, so it only seemed logical to start a punk band when Common Thought ended.
So, with college starting and me being bored out of my mind, I started the Melbas, with me singing and playing guitar and Nate on bass. We recruited Chairman Mao to play drums, as his band the Talismen, had just broken up. Now, over a year later, we've played a bunch of shows, put together two tapes, "Beer and Chicks" and "tomorrow...", toured the world, and slept with many supermodels. Life is good and we don't even suck...well, much...
Sadly, after our show on April 18th, Nate was eaten by a big scary monster. After a brief period of grieving, we replaced him with Ordinaries and Loser's Club alumnist Jeff Degenerate...so everyone should say, "Hi Jeff."
Oh, if anyone wants a laugh, i'll dub up old Pain and Agony, Tokin, Then, or Common Thought audio tapes or Then, Zone Seek, Waiting for Choloe, or Common Thought video tapes. All you have to do is give me a blank tape and tell me what you want...
