Humore me...
1983-1988ish?, Suzuki School violin. 1993, first guitar and lessons, and eventually a 4track to record my own ping-ponged epic versions of grunge/pumkins anthems on, until I realized I could make songs up too.
180minutes of 4track mixdowns later, Guilford College, used some of these demos to form PETE: 1994-1997, with Matt Pruden (vocal), Nate Holder (drums), and Neal Sandin (bass). Pete had no formal releases, played few shows, but was nevertheless quite prolific, having written at least 25 songs, many going on for over 5 minutes, and developing ever-more obtuse but always epic "indie" rock song-structures.
1997, began experimenting more with solo 4track works, mainly inspired and influenced by a couple of Gastr Del Sol albums. Summer 1997, free-rock with the WEAVEXX collective, including Linc Hancock, Ben Spiker, Johny Walker. Fall 1997, Paris semester abroad spent missing playing guitar, but got to see a lot of great music -- especially a lot of Feldman at the Festival d'Autumne.
1998, back at Guilford, guitar and first-time-drumming in PRINCE or PRINZ, Linc Hancock's band, including Nathan Stambaugh on bass and Mark Bernstein on drums. Also 1998, began playing guitar with Rob Maggard (piano & guitar) -- this music was related to Steve Reich, 'post-rock,' but always improvised.
1998-1999, moved to Chapel Hill and played more with WEAVEXX; lots of minimal, slow-changing, krautrock-influenced (before I'd heard krautrock), mostly instrumental jams, not to mention the humorous bits, culminating in a show involving almost all the collective's members at the Local 506. Hopefully there's a cdr floating around that contains a selection of some of the best moments, including the groundbreaking "Chantee Agu." 1999, spent a year living and playing guitar with Rob Maggard (guitar) and Nate Holder (drums) as THE MUSICAL GROUP, which in my estimation was mostly based upon interests in free jazz, math rock, and the stuttering sound of Storm and Stress.
Also 1999, joined Linc's new band with Stephen Pedersen (guitar, vocal), THE WHITE OCTAVE, on drums. TWO was Stephe's songs arranged by the rest of us -- Finn Cohen joined on 2nd guitar in 2000. I think TWO's music had 2 main reference points: Chapel Hill indie rock and classic guitar rock. TWO's proper releases: Tritone records 7", Deep Elm cd, Initial cd and Moment Before Impact 12" and 7".
2000, began playing with Zeke Graves as part of HUNTER/GATHERER, with Eric Cope on drums. H/G started with Zeke's "Prehistoric" cassette and developed into COLD SIDES. This was mostly Zeke and I singing and playing guitar, Eric Cope on drums, and David Nahm on bass and piano -- very dark and textural, Sonic Youth would be a good start for comparison. Also 2000, began playing soft drums with Eric Roehrig's side-project ERIE CHOIR.
2001, after more and more touring, THE WHITE OCTAVE recorded our 2nd album with Bob Weston and then did a couple more tours and ended when Stephe moved to Omaha -- we did a lot in two and a half years. Also 2001, COLD SIDES' debut cd for Moment Before Impact recorded, and Erie Choir (with Zeke on guitar and Linc on bass) began recording for an album, both with Jerry Kee.
2002, I began spending more time on COLD SIDES' music as TWO had no more engagements. Eric Cope moved to Ohio, and Zeke and I began playing with Andy Willard (drums) and Carter Browning (bass). At this point, we wanted to play more rhythmically exciting music, and we did a little bit of touring, but things eventually did not work out with Andy and Carter. Zeke and I then spent a month or two over that summer hatching new ideas and 4tracking them, and put together a cdr-ep called "Beware the 21 Families." I didn't realize how in vogue our ideas were or would prove to be (the post-punk revival, etc.), but nonetheless we got a lot of good work done and in a pleasingly casual way.
2003, Dave Cantwell joined COLD SIDES on drums and Eric Roehrig filled-in on bass until we found our friend Neill Prewitt to be ideal for bass. Cantwell is an expert-monster drummer, and while Neill was new to the bass, he opened a new dimension up for enthusiasm and better discourse/communication -- we recorded a cdr-ep called "Corrugated Sibilants." Somewhere around this time I got back together with Linc and Finn to work on Linc's songs, as GOLD CHAINZ, with Casey Burns on bass. GC was a sort of update on Linc's band from Guilford, PRINCE/PRINZ, and seemed to challenge me to play more classic-rock drums than I knew how to. GC also peformed a couple songs of Finn's, which would later play out in the development of THE NEIN.
2003 (I think), THE NEIN came about through Finn's demo tapes and Casey Burns (bass) and I (drums) working on them. 2003, COLD SIDES records "Perpetual Hypeness Machine" with Jay Murphy for Charlie Hearon and Jon Terrell's frequeNC records. The 12" is one side big live band sound, the other side home demo versions -- this gave some validation to all the 4tracking we'd been putting time into, but it was also great to document the sound of the 4piece band, especially because Cantwell left the group later that year.
2003-2004, after attending Erstwhile Records "AMPLIFY" showcase in Manhattan of electro-acoustic improv music, I decide to book a monthly local showcase of 'experimental' projects at Chapel Hill's Nightlight, called RECESS (noun and verb connotations). Among other satisfying things, RECESS put me in contact with Chuck Johnson and Randy Ward, both of whom had played music much longer in town and had develped some really unique sounds and techniques. COLD SIDES eventually collaborated with Randy Ward and his home-made mechanical electronic contraptions before he became very ill and passed away.
2004, after making a couple cdr-ep's, THE NEIN signs on with Sonic Unyon to put out 2 albums, and we begin a somewhat long recording process for our first album, "Wrath of Circuits," which we finished and released in early 2005.
2004, COLD SIDES began recording the post-Cantwell things we'd been spending time on, but stopped when we were unhappy with the rough mixes. After that, COLD SIDES was mostly focused on being part of the frequeNC sound system, along with Chuck Johnson (aka PYKRETE) and dj's Nasty Boots and Juan V. Our parts in this were based around Zeke's sequenced tracks (dubbing moves).
THE NEIN does lots of touring 2004-5. We actually went to the west coast (where Dale had many old friends) and headed back through Canada. 2005, THE NEIN does a split 7" with Cantwell, Gomez and Jordan for Sit n Spin records.
2004, our good friend David Nahm (who once played bass and keys in cold sides) puts a band together for his songs called AUDUBON PARK including: Ben Spiker (from weavexx) on drums, Matt Kalb on 2nd guitar, Finn Cohen (from the nein, gold chainz, the white octave) on bass, and myself on synthesizer and tambourine. AUDUBON PARK is eventful indie-pop, and the most relaxed fun band I've been in -- we've recorded 3 cdr ep's and have a great blog (audubonpark.blogspot.com).
2006, Casey Burns leaves NC and THE NEIN for Portland, Oregon; NEIN takes tour with Josh Carpenter (from Asheville's Piedmont Charisma) playing bass and keyboard.
2006, I begin playing drums with MATT KALB, and 3 other people have come on board: Bob Wall and Ben Ridings and Erin Sale (also of Piedmont Charisma). This group doesn't have a name and hasn't played a show yet -- we have 2min 30sec of music after 4 practices! May, 2006, I just played drums at a PHYSICS OF MEANING show; maybe I'll do more with them later. (as of May 22, 2006)