Hi, my name is randy brumley. I am a musician/songwriter/singer. I have been playing guitar since I was about 5 years old. I have been making up songs since about that time. Everyone in my family plays music. It's just something you do...

My sister-in-law, Robin (who plays cello with my brother Gary) described it well when she said my brother and I "ran away from home musically." I might just add in different but parallel paths.

There was a thriving country music scene in tulsa in the sixties. It was common to hear my Mom, Dad and Uncle sing on the radio, tv and stage shows everywhere including the Cain's Ballroom.

I would also one day get to play the Cain's Ballroom; not in a country band but as a "alternative" band in the mid eighties. Square Force, a band I cofounded along with Mick Lewis, Dart Steed and Michael Steed was voted Tulsa's best band in more than one "best" poll. We received a great deal of regional airplay with a song I wrote and sang called Enthusiasm, from the Explosive Sampler Album. We released the album Media Blitz, following an unfortunate powerplay which left me out of the band. I'm on the album (a.k.a. phil harmonic) but my songs aren't. The band went on a few years but it was never the same. They lost direction and...I went on to do solo performances and have been in other bands with varying degrees of success however - nobody else in our amazing little band managed to have something as strong and tenacious as that band was. This could be just a *cyclical thing.

I'm sure this is a familiar story to many of you who are musicians. Stories of regret, a band gets to a certain level, the future looks promising and you can't wait to "make it" and you already know what your going to wear! But when it's time to sign the line and make the deals, overambition chokes the life right out of it! You forgot what it was all about. You forgot that you love music and music is about harmony and transcendence and friendship. Isn't it?

Square Force has reformed once as the original band (just a few practice-get together type things) and I have to say it was still magic! More importantly we managed to keep our friendship and special love for each other and what we had as a group... Life goes on...

*The "cyclical thing" could actually be right, because "The Squares" have actually been playing together again and the "Squirl Magic" is still there. We are having a blast! I can't say if and when we'll play out but I don't see why we can't. We'd be even better this time. When I see how sad it is that the Beatles are not able to ever be together again, it makes me even more appreciative that we can...

Songloops Brumley Influences Musings Go Back

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