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Premonition

>>I've LISTENED a lot. I haven't PLAYED all that much, so I'm much farther,
>>at this point, from turning what's in my head into something that you'd
>>actually HEAR.

>Well, that may be so, but I'm sure you've still advanced since I last heard
>you. Anyhow, it will just be fun to hear what you guys can remember in
>general. I've recently decided that we'll bust out the video camera and see
>what kind of highlights (and lolights) I can capture.

That sounds interesting. You know I've got a tape of an old band rehearsal, at Cactus Jack's. Well, you weren't there...Okema, of all people, was doing the singing. That was pretty scary, man. Anyhow, I think Julie recorded it, as there's a fair amount of Dave and...well, there's a whole lot of her at Faire on the later part of the tape. I dunno....it was just funny. I know Big Sam has a couple of tapes (or recorded us a couple of times, anyhow), but there isn't really a whole lot of video that we've got.

>>I think of the solo in "Fist On Fist," where we
>>just really opened up that "Running Free" rip off for him to go off.
>>And Pat had the balls
>>to, in the middle of his feature, stop. Not play anything. I thought that
>>was fucking amazing.

>I totally agree! The first time I heard that, I was like, wait a minute!
>Isn't that defeating the whole idea. But then, it's like that break
>actually creates a tension for the rest of the thing. I've always thought
>it was cool because it was just different. different idea, different approach.

He'll do that, take an idea and take it in a radically different direction than you think he will. Or that you'd normally hear. There are a lot of eccentricities in his playing, which go to really defining his style. And it's mostly stuff that he DOESN'T play -- places where he drops beats and shit. For a lot of folks, that sorta thing throws them off. My opinion is that it makes things interesting.

>>Oh, hell yeah. It's funny, though, because when Pat, Sam, Alex, and I sat
>>down to crank out "Aces High," I sucked. It was invaluable for me to sit
>>there and get my ass kicked for a few weeks. In any event, since I was
>>really almost in a "student" kind of position, I wasn't particularly pushy
>>in the early days of the band.

>That's hilarious to imagine, really.

>Okay, I came in late, so educate me on details: who was in the band prior
>to aggregate sum, and when did you enter the picture? I take it Alex was
>there from the start and left, or at least diminished, before I entered the
>picture. If you can, give me a few vague dates. I know I arrived August 89
>and spent that Fall putting lyrics together, whilst we contemplated
>Shoemaker replacing Pat and you had chicken-pox. That Spring, around when
>my brother arrived here, was only the second time we played with Pat there,
>as I recall.

Well, the notion was that Sam, Alex, Pat, Matt Anthony (playing keyboard) and myself were gonna be "the band" and go find a singer. Matt, because we weren't playing synth-heavy music and because he wasn't real eager to learn anything anyhow, didn't last, even in the plan, for more than a couple of weeks. So the four of us plowed away for a few months, with the end of playing at Millikan's Battle of the Bands, which morphed into the first Annual Talent Show. See, the whole thing was on track, had a club sponsoring it (the Industrial Arts guys, who, conveniently, also comprised most of the Stage Crew), and had all the plans together when the administration balked -- felt that there were too many security concerns. So, basically, the quartet of Stiletto (not yet Premonition), Horace Deloris, 2 Miles To Go, and the Gregorian Ponks were going to hack it out on the big stage. Woulda been a hell of a show. Transformed into a less threatening talent show, three of the bands backed out (Ricky's band played).

Basically, when that fell through, we didn't practice too much until the following summer, a period during which Alex basically left and did his Horror Legion thing. Basically, at that point, it was just the me, Sam, and Pat core of the band turning ourselves into an ass-kicking outfit. The history from that time forward you surely know.

Then again, maybe I'm doing a disservice to the whole history. I mean, I first jammed with Sam over a long weekend our sophomore year (about a year before tha band coalesced), when I slapped my bass part on "STW" (nee "The Gretchen Song"), learned "Fade To Black," and jammed on "You Really Got Me" with Sam. And Sam had played with Pat and Alex before that point, so the roots on the band go back farther still.

But, basically, it wasn't until about the time just before Alex left that I asserted myself at all, and wasn't until we were playing in the garage that my ego really played a significant role in shaping the band.

(The harmonics in Traveler)
>>Yeah, the doorbell. I didn't remember the source of that, but it's one of
>>those things that actually locked really well into what Pat was doing. It
>>does sound pretty cool.

>As I remember, one day you hit the first harmonic entirely by accident and
>the second to cover the mistake. Then you fell in love with it.

Sounds about right...I do an awful lot of that kinda stuff. It's that whole improvisational spirit I always talk about trying to play with.

Adam D. Barnhart

Premonition
Excerpt One -- Excerpt Two -- Excerpt Three
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