julz
Pre Panangian
Posts: 3
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Post by julz on Feb 8, 2003 19:55:20 GMT -5
Hello boys....its julie. i need some background info on each of you for a comprehensive bio about the evolution of the band. i will draw from your current bio as well as input from fans and things of that nature. keep the ideas rolling in and i will post what i have so far. thanks so much, and hope to see ya'll in vermont soon....
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Post by degicank on Feb 9, 2003 18:05:02 GMT -5
Here is an explanation of my background:
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Post by johnnyjupiter on Feb 10, 2003 10:20:38 GMT -5
Hey Julie...great to hear from you! What kind of background info do you want/need? What we grew up playing? What our influences are? What the history of the band is? The history of the songs? Let us know...
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Post by unoclay on Feb 10, 2003 17:34:18 GMT -5
Hi this is clay. I am not in planet 22 in an 'in the band=famous' sense. however my contribution to this thread, since you indicated info from "fans" and the like are desireable::
i went into the basement of a house. In state college, there are a number of houses which have basements. in several of these basements, i encountered the beards and hands of planet 22. Their beards, it appeared, bobbed over instruments, while their hands made the music come out into air. Or out of the air, whichever seems best. Its hard to forget Kordish and his closey-eyed bobhead mannerisms and way of bringing the third eye. Joe and Jack really stood out in a crowd somehow, and those Gwinn children are a class all their own. I always liked their music because it made me feel like i was visiting a haywire carnival on acid, which was typically only half-true. Plus I always liked hanging out in basements.
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Post by degicank on Feb 11, 2003 8:24:12 GMT -5
Don't forget to visit the Haywire factory at vfw 2/22/03.
Joe's Background: Joe speers was born 12/15/76 at dellaware county memorial hospital. He began playing piano and talking at the same time, able to play Back and Beethoven before 1st grade. Then he went for piano lessons in first grade and after a few lessons stopped playing piano for many years. This trend continued and after a few trumpet lessons in 4th grade he gave that up too, but had begun playing piano a little off and on. In 6th grade we all learned how to play guitar at the Degicank no child left behind program at etr middle school. In 9th grade the Bass came, fender perscision bass from korea. Joe played in "The Blind Pedestrians" with Deg I Cank's Expansion Team Coordinator James Henderson and the Benzing brothers Bill and Dan. Next Joe Played in "Crosseyed" who released three records in the '90's: "Seeing Strate", "Grazing the infinite Plane" and "Greetings from Iowa Where Corn Is King" In '96 Joe moved to State college to form Planet 22 with Josh and Caleb Gwin on Sept.2nd, 1996. I have the Tape and Citation from State colleg police department to proove it. This night's jam also manifested Crazy Dave who came up to see what all the racket was. The first tape missed our first couple Jams but the first recording starts with "Awh Yeah, Fire Jam". After Playing together for 6 months with Mike shriner and josh and caleb we had writtin about 40% of the material we still use today. In the Spring we Met Jack Ray woh came in on sax to really boost the band to the next level. ^ 6 months latter we hired Expert drummer "Tim Wilkins" and went wild!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The next year we hired(we pay manna not $) Kodish, Matt Harrison and Ben Dubois. 2years latter we hired Eli. That is all...
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Post by jxb416psu on Feb 13, 2003 15:00:42 GMT -5
thanks for your responses, keep 'em coming. the kinda stuff i am looking for consists of joe's post, which started as a bio and went into his take on the band's evolution, as well as fans' postings (i really liked clay's post A LOT!)--reactions, responses and things of that nature. i really want to compile a background of each member, talk about prior members, how being on tour affects personal while maintaning success and achieveing notoriety, etc. mostly the point is to shed light on the evolution of a growing underground band while pointedly discussing its merits, successes and failures, through the eyes of members, fans and critics alike.
ANYTHING YOU CONTRIBUTE IS WELL RECIEVED. if i choose to excerpt any posts, i will make sure to notify you and get consent....thanks again j
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Post by johnnyjupiter on Feb 13, 2003 16:15:33 GMT -5
Julz, check out the "Band History" link on the planet22.biz website. It has a pretty interesting documentation of the history of 22.
My musical history is...
My biggest source of musical knowledge has been the music I have listened to. Lessons never worked for me. I took suzuki violen lessons when I was really, really young. That lasted a few months. Then I took guitar lessons for about 3 weeks when I was really young. Then I took clarinet lessons for about 6 months when I was young (the clarinet lessons proved to be the most successful lessons....I stuck with it the longest, and at one point, I could half-assedly play all the melody lines from Sgt Peppers.) Then, in 7th grade, I took piano lessons for 2 months. That was the end of lessons for me.
But the music I had been listening to on the radio up until then - motown oldies and classic rock - was my real teacher. The Temptations, Blood Sweat and Tears, Martha and the Vandellas, Otis Redding, The Beatles, Van Morrison, Joe Coker (misspelled on purpose because this is how it looks when spelled right: "male chickener").... My first CD was an oldies compilation disc with "The Letter", "Runaway", "Blue Moon", blah, blah.... My second CD was Kris Kross...and thus marked the beginning of my year in pop music. but I still consider my selection of pop music somewhat decent (Naughty By Nature, Aerosmith, Digible Planets,...) That was 8th grade...by ninth grade, I was listening to Zepplin, Hendrix, and the standard classic rock selections along with Phish. Through my Phish friends, I found out about the Dead. It has been the single greatest thing Phish has done for me. So for the rest of high school, it was pretty much Phish and Dead.
Then I got to college and heard the student station. One DJ in particular changed my life forever. His handle was "Otis Funkmeyer", and he played the dopest underground soul/tribal funk/acid jazz. I still listen to the tapes I made of his shows, and I am still trying to find the records he had. That is when I put my Phish bootlegs on the shelf for a while (still there....we're on "hiatus"). I started checking out a lot more Jazz and some indie rock / progressive rock / punk rock, and the biggest influence on my musical perfomance, writing, and outlook and level of standard: Frank Zappa.
Meanwhile, I learned to drums for my band in high school. But I only knew two other kids who played instruments...one played guitar (Nate Dogg), and one played drums...so I learned bass. That band never did crap, so I went back to the drums and one of my friends learned guitar, so him and Nate Dogg rotated guitar and bass. Our other friend revealed to us that, this whole time, he could play piano and sing but had been to self-concious to play. So we made him join, and we started English Drink (named in honor of our alcoholic English teacher, God bless her baligerent soul). We played classic rock covers, and one original. We had 4 shows during our 2 year existance - 3 high school dances, and Gwinnstock (left for another discussion).
When I got to college, there was a piano in the ground floor of my dorm building. I knew how to play freebird and wonderful tonight from playing it with English Drink (pretty cheesy, eh...). They weren't my favorite songs, but I was addicted to the feeling of pumping piano keys and the tone generated. It feels good. So I played those two songs and one song I made up, and I would play them over and over for hours. Eventually, a few kids who saw me there all the time decided to join me for some jams and taught me some songs (more for their sake then mine). I learned canteloup, cameleon, so what, and all blues. To this day, those are still the only jazz songs I know how to play. But that got me started, and from there I've tried to gather as much knowledge as possible. I still have a way too much left to learn to be spending as much time writing this as I have.
My history with P22 is...
When I was a junior in high school, I would visit my brothers at college and they would always be playing music or listening to music. I would sit in once in a while on drums or bass. The infamous Crazy Dave show was my first gig with Planet 22...I played percussion. But I would jam with them often at the lofts and 103 westerly. My second gig with them was at Cafe 210 for the drunk driver set. I also played percussion then. I knew their songs well enough from hearing them play for 5 years. Before I was 21, I used to carry equipment into the Phyrst so that I could stay and watch them play. I always liked their songs, but I used to think they wrote wierd times etc just to be wierd. It wasn't until I played in 3 relatively 'standard' bands that I realized how f-ing boring it can be to play 4/4 all night. Playing with P22 is like doing a book of math riddles for an engineer...which I also like to do. The third and final gig I played as an unofficial member was at the second annual 432 "Nothing is as scary as our bathroom" Halloween party. I played keyboard with them this time, and after words, they asked me to play full time. The rest is left for another day when I am killing time at work.
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Post by kid on Feb 17, 2003 23:00:39 GMT -5
hey julie. this is caleb. I am using Josh's logon, I hope you aren't confused. Born on August 31, 1978 in Pittsburgh, PA. Started the journey of learning music at a Suzuki violin school during my elementary school years. It was a short stint, but I believe very helpful. At the age of 10, i was formally introduced to rock-n-roll by a master by the name of Mark Kazor, one of my parents college buddies who was living with us at the time. He showed my brother Josh and I the ropes, teaching us songs such as "wipeout" and "Wild Thing". We then moved to heavier doses of Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix. This led us to the church. We, (my drumming brother and myself) began to rock sunday worship services with me on bass. I believe we owe a lot to our friends at the Derry Christian Fellowship Center for allowing us to experiment musically with such simple, yet crucial aspects, like song dynamics. this is where I met my soon-to-be bandmates of "Crow Blanco", the Christian folk/rock band
I'm getting kicked out of the computer lab, I'll be back soon.
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Post by jcg155 on Feb 18, 2003 14:42:41 GMT -5
Hey Julie, Caleb here. I'm back with my own UserID.
Born on August 31, 1978 in Pittsburgh, PA. Started the journey of learning music at a Suzuki violin school during my elementary school years. It was a short stint, but I believe very helpful. At the age of 10, i was formally introduced to rock-n-roll by a master by the name of Mark Kazor, one of my parents college buddies who was living with us at the time. He showed my brother Josh and I the ropes, teaching us songs such as "wipeout" and "Wild Thing". We then moved to heavier doses of Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix. This led us to the church. We, (my drumming brother and myself) began to rock sunday worship services with me on bass. I believe we owe a lot to our friends at the Derry Christian Fellowship Center for allowing us to experiment musically with such simple, yet crucial aspects, like song dynamics. This is where I met my soon-to-be bandmates of "Crow Blanco", the Christian folk/rock band. With each of the members having lived through the 50's/60's/70's/80's/90's and everything that they contained, I was learning a lot more than music. We completed one album ("Crow Blanco" - which means White Crow in some mixture of spanish and english) and played around for about 4 years. I would like to recognize my good friends John, Ed, Tom, Jeremy and Matt. In the middle of this time with Crow Blanco, I began attending Penn State University to obtain a degree in Chemical Engineering and an attempt at German. The steep bike ride straight down University Drive to the Lofts, with my guitar in one hand, brings us up to date (1996). Refer to Joe Speers interview for details after that date, concerning the origin of our meeting, and progress since then. I hope to see you soon Julie. Thanks for doing this, caleb
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julz
Pre Panangian
Posts: 3
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Post by julz on Feb 18, 2003 16:49:23 GMT -5
thanks for your submissions, josh, eli, caleb and joe...i just need jack to jump on here and give me some info are you guys planning any VT shows? PLEASE! i have couches... "slap him...slap yourself...now give me a taste...now all three..." hahaha
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