Delaware bands: If you live in or around the First State, be sure to pick up the August issue of Out & About Magazine, which not only includes a very nice write-up about my recent Delaware Music Podcast, but also lists The Situation in its third and final installment of Mike Pollack’s A History of Alternative Rock in Delaware. Totally honored to be included along side other heavy hitters such as Zen Guerilla, Smashing Orange, Walleye and Spindrift. Much thanks to Out & About for showing so much love. Good looking out.
And speaking of podcasts, look for #3 to drop sometime later this month. Stay tuned.
A great new podcast collects Delaware’s lost bands
| In June, we began a three-month look at Delaware’s alt.rock history, collecting stories of local bands who flirted with leftfield sounds but never the mainstream. We wrap up that series in our music department this month. But the conversation isn’t over. Unprompted by us, Joe Castro, a Philly-based artist and former member of the Situation and Nero, has compiled a podcast, “Something to Be Proud Of,” documenting Delaware’s great lost bands from around 1990 to now. It plays like the soundtrack to our series, but Castro goes a few steps further, digging up bands we overlooked (Schroeder, Caterpillar) and intercutting sound bites (Wayne’s World) that put our state’s relevance into perspective.
“I thought it would be a shame if this music got lost,” Castro writes on his blog, mightjoecastro.com, where the podcast can be downloaded for free. (It’s also slated to be available on iTunes.) “Even though most of these bands never really broke through nationally, or sold a million records, the songs here meant a lot to me growing up, and they meant a lot to the hundreds of kids who came out to see these bands over and over again in the local church halls and school gymnasiums. They’re a part of our youth and our history, and that’s something worth savoring and sharing, no matter how corny you think that sounds.” Not corny to us at all. |
Part 3
| In June, after months of begging for submissions, we began our loose documentation of alt.rock’s history in the First State. We admitted in our first installment that “we define alt.rock as leftfield music—often punk, indie, electronic, and/or psychedelic—outside the mainstream.” We couldn’t include everyone, and we left out more recent bands in favor of a historical approach. Parts one and two profiled Boysetsfire, Dead Loretta, the Elk-Tones, Facedown, Gangster Pump, Infection, Jake & the Stiffs, Licorice Roots, the Metrosexuals, Mother Nature’s Blacklight Rainbow, Petland, and the Scenic Route. Here are the final six bands. Thanks for the memories, everyone.
The Situation Long before Jersey Shore, Delaware had its own Situation. (Bad, we know.) The two couldn’t have less in common: From 2000 to 2006, the Situation (the band) played a tight style of Britpop in the vein of the Stone Roses and the La’s, punctuated by the connection between guitarist Joe Castro and lead singer Chris Tucker, who passed away, sadly and suddenly, in 2008. Smashing Orange One of several bands formed by visionary guitarist, vocalist, songwriter, and producer Rob Montejo—other projects have included Love American Style, My Wig Is On, and most recently, the Sky Drops—Smashing Orange has proven the most successful, with the band gaining a sizable following in England and a record contract with MCA here in the States during the shoegaze craze of the early ’90s. Snakegrinder In the early ’70s, influenced by Haight-Ashbury, a bunch of musicians who’d played in various local bands congealed into the jam-friendly Snakegrinder, recording their only album, …and the Shredded Fieldmice, in 1977. Notably, Snakegrinder birthed the reggae-fused Amazing Space (who had ties to Bob Marley) and Dick Uranus, a punk band whose song “Vice Squad Dick” was later covered by industrial artist Foetus. Spindrift All things Spindrift revolve around long-time frontman Kevin Thomas, who took the psychedelic-rock outfit from Newark to Los Angeles in 2001. (They formed in 1993.) Much of Spindrift’s recent energy has gone into The Legend of God’s Gun, a feature film and accompanying soundtrack that pays tribute to spaghetti westerns. They also released a new album (The West, in 2008) and landed a song (“Indian Run”) in Quentin Tarantino’sHell Ride. Walleye With Railhed, Walleye enjoy notoriety as one of only two Delaware bands to sign to Jade Tree. (Railhed, for what it’s worth, included Jade Tree co-owner Darren Walters.) The punk rockers parted ways in 1997 but stayed local; Nick Rotundo runs Clay Creek Studios in Newark and Shane Evans plays stoner metal in Onita. Zen Guerilla Heavy on psychedelic-rock and warped-blues elements, Zen Guerilla gained a sizable following in Newark and Philly in the late ’80s and ’90s, eventually releasing albums on influential labels Alternative Tentacles and Sub Pop as they drew comparisons to Butthole Surfers. Wikipedia says they moved to San Francisco and broke up in 2003. Who did we forget? What did we get wrong? Email mpollock@tsnpub.com and tell us off. We’d like to include your story in a future issue. |