Breaking news...!

So, the holiday just began, which means that we can start to get together some of the stuff we did last month. The "Pie Tunes"* project (as it will be known until a more respectable name presents itself) will include more video, pictures, and--eventually(!) some new songs for you to download and put on your Ipod. So get ready for that.

One fun part about being on holiday, as they say, is that I have found myself in my parents basement scrounging through old videos looking for gems. This search has, on my first night in town already yielded some very exciting stuff. Almost too much to list... but I will say this:

I found that much of the treasured footage from our first show ever was recorded over. :(

Never fear! It may be best that that show live in our memories only. In its place, however, is "making of" footage from our first album, Pleasantly Surprised! Steve Hunt helped us record it over another holiday vacation--this time in 1994.

Also discovered:

• Random footage of me and Jon Thwaits running around without shirts in the desert
  
• Me and Mat cruising around town in his old green bomber
  
• Mat's last show, recorded in his front room with a crazy "in-progress" version of Vader and a really great cut of 3 Candles--oh, and we try really hard to open with the theme song from the A-team. This show gets cut short.
  
• At said show, our 6th member is also present: The "Psychedeli-deck." just wait and see.
  

The problem is: all this great stuff is on Hi8 tapes, with no good way of transferring it over to the computer. hmmm..

*"pietunes" is a nonesense word my son Seth made up and can be used in much the same way as we OA-ers used to use the word "Danzig." Thanksgiving is a time for pie and, apparently, tunes. :)

what it is to me

Since the opening day of onlyanything.com not long ago I have, along with many of you, been re-examining events from my youth. But not just that, you see, for me Only Anything is a slice in a continuum; a fraction of a larger spectrum; a spectrum that is paramount in defining who I am, where I am now and probably where I will be in the future. Although just a fraction of the greater part of my life, the events of those years, even just between 1993 and 1995 have proved to be the frame upon which everything that followed is built. It wasn't just an excursion or an aside that, once finished with could be viewed as an isolated chapter in my life. It was a path taken that, for better or for worse, I could never return from.

I spent the evening listening to many songs I have written and recorded all since the functional end of OA. For the most part these are songs that I have not thought about for a while. When I start to analyze it, it's surprising just how many songs I have written. There are still unfinished song ideas from years ago that I have not given up on. Rose Reflection (see video a few posts back) is a case in point. I wrote this song towards the end of Only Anything's original hey-day. It was half finished and we didn't get around to working it all out. Just as things are now, I had a lot of songs floating around and not enough time to finish them. I never forgot about it and now more than 10 years later and thanks to the support of Jon Stone it sees its day in the sun. All the while it was unfinished not because I didn't care or my interests shifted but because I've been getting new song ideas and time is short. Jon pointed out to me tonight that I'm sitting on a whole lot of good demos that should get a chance to be heard. For my time and attention it's really a tug of war between working out new song ideas and finishing old ones. For me, getting what I think are good song ideas is not the hard part, the hard part is wrapping up all the loose ends and turning inspiration into a finished song. That being the case I still have a lot of finished songs which I have faith in.

To get things started I have posted 6 songs on myspace and will start rotating them with other finished demos I have. Some were recorded to 4 track cassette tapes and some with a bit more advanced devices but they are just rough demos most of them. I need to dig out some that I hope I still have and send them to Jon for safe keeping as I have a nasty habit of sweeping stuff under the rug once I've moved on to a newer idea. Together we will come up with a good way to preserve and present this material for posterity.

As I'm confessing these things, I'll go ahead and tell you some thoughts I had while listening to these songs tonight. I remembered the bands I've played in and the hopes that I had for all of them, invariably all of those groups have come to an end (with the exception of OA which we're keeping on life support). I have indeed had my eye on a pie in the sky, I have been thankful to feel passionately about music and for the pleasure I've gotten from making it but there are times when I have cursed my obsession, and I do recognize it now as an obsession which I fight against at times but it will never be killed. The lyrics to Rose Reflection which date back to 1996 are telling. It's about me thinking back to when I was in grade school and lived in a house on Rosewood st. Feeling sadness for that part of my life to be over and wanting to somehow preserve it. "and I am not just about to let it go".
"so long ago, back behind the brush and twisted ways", playing around the neighborhood as a kid you find magical secret passages off the beaten path.
The passage: "can't stop for anything, can't cry for anyone, amidst this summer scene, were we just having fun?" is then shifted in time to when I wrote the lyric and my acceptance that the band's days were numbered. I knew I wouldn't want to give it up just like I didn't want to give up being a kid. I wondered if everyone else in the band just looked at it as having fun when I knew and was afraid to admit that I had a huge emotional investment in it and couldn't let it go.

Think about that and the mood that the music brings to it as you listen to it and maybe the mystery of Jon Thwaits will unfold a little bit. Then go over to myspace and listen to Circus, written between 2002 and 2004. Only Anything was over and other less inspiring musical projects had come and gone and I was still searching. I didn't intend for the lyrics to be taken as relating to my life, you can tell the lyric is written as if it's talking about another person. I imagined some fictional female character that I was writing the song about, however the mood totally is autobiographical. As I was finishing the lyric, Marisa was hoping I would slant the feeling to a more optimistic note at the end of the song, I did. I ended up as the fictional female character and she ended up as the one offering encouraging words: "look to the sky, you'll be alright". This is one of my favorite's of my own songs. And on that note I'll leave you.

Jon Thwaits

OA in 08! part III (Too Much to Ask)

Here is the third and final acoustic jam from our last day jamming in Tucson: "Too Much to Ask"! We started a fourth, but didn't complete it. Perhaps i'll do a bonus shoot from Champaign to give a preview of our last tune "San Jose." For now, enjoy this!


Too much to ask from Only Anything on Vimeo.

OA in 08! part II (Watershed)

Here's the second in a series of acoustic jams filmed at the end of our weekend of rock. This is the tune I was talking about earlier--the one that has a bit of a country vibe. It still does and I'm ok with that.

What it doesn't have quite yet is a polished bridge. I miff the melody on that last "Everything is going to be alright" bit. But whatev. Jon's mandolin playing is sweet--he actually plays it, rather than just thump on it. Enjoy!


Watershed from Only Anything on Vimeo.

OA in 08! part I (Rose Reflection)

Well, the weekend of our rock-fest has come and gone. I think I speak for all involved when I say that it was a memorable occasion. Over the three (or so) sessions, we recorded (or began the recordings for) four new songs and used the collective talent of eight musicians!

Here's just a taste:


Rose Reflection from Only Anything on Vimeo.

Get excited for much more!

Reunions, and Album download!! UPDATE!

It has begun.

After a most heinous 4-hour delay at the Peoria, Illinois Airport, the Stones have--at long last--arrived in the glorious warmth of Arizona.

Mat, Jon T. and I officially commenced the celebrations by eating good food, playing some tunes, and doing some archive work--all over the course of 2 hours.

Mat produced a virtually pristine CD copy of our final album, gloriously titled "Album" which was produced in 1997. We ripped the album at the highest mp3 quality possible and are making it available, for the first time ever, for mass distribution.


I have done some work here already discussing Album as a project, but what is important for this official "release" post is this:

Album consists of three kinds of tunes: favorites that we wanted to make available on CD, remakes of favorites that we wanted to make better, and four new songs.

Much more will be said about some of these tunes. But for now, as a gift to you, faithful reader, on this the first day of Thanksgiving-palooza, we present Only Anything's final "classic" release: Album.

Click the link in the left sidebar for all 13 tracks, plus a 14th, unlisted, live, bonus track!

Also, the photos (link in the right sidebar) have been updated and now appear in chronological order!

Upcoming Jamboree

In response to the last post: OK Jon, so the song is "folksy", let's not go throwing around the term country or our records are likely to get mis-categorized in the record shops. Every good hard hitting band does well to go off on a little acoustic tangent now and then. That's the reason why I have a mandolin in the closet and I'm dusting it off just for your song. So in case everyone is in high anticipation of hearing what Jon Stone sounds like singing country I'll dispell that notion and try to replace it with the slant of Only Anything getting down to some folksy roots, and it sounds like we'll be doing a little blues too.

Now to fill in a few details:
The other musicians joining the jam for this occasion may or may not include:
Jeff Scott (drums), Trevor Thompson (guitar), Dave Bertoglio (harmonica, guitar?), Jesse Henderson (guitar), and maybe some other suprise guests! assuming that they can be persuaded out of their turkey induced festivities.
I, having recently taken up drums myself, will be dabbling in that area but primarily will play my usuals: guitar and bass.

In tradition of old times, I will be creating my version of sheet music for my new songs which means an assortment of chord symbols, standard music notation, AABA type song structure diagrams and other notes usually intended to help the band learn my songs. I'll post them up here sometime this weekend for a sneak peak at what's to come.

Jon Thwaits

The upcoming jam...

We've been thinking about it for a month or two and have been stewing a few old ideas and sauteing a few new ones.

Our weekend meet-up is just a few weeks away and I've been awash with the remembrances of the struggle of the creative process. I have these two songs that I'm working on, one old, one new, as we had arranged. The old one is kind of typical, nothing special--it kind of has a Cure-ish twinge. I'm struggling with the melody and the lyric, so Jon's going to give it a spin. The collaboration potential is exciting for me.

It's the second one that's got me kind of perplexed. Blooming from a three-part harmony intro bit, drenched in reverb and Fleet-Foxy in-my-mind, when I got to the business of actually writing the song, I got thinking about road songs...

For some reason, road tunes have always really resonated with me, starting with James Taylor. "Sweet Baby James" is a favorite and more recently I've really loved this version of his tune "Traveling Star." A few other tunes come to mind: "Golden" by My Morning Jacket and John Mayer's "Stop this Train" topped my list of most-listened-tos last year.

Anyway, I had all that road-song stuff floating around and that with my recent foray into the blue, bluegrass, I wrote a bunch of roadie-sounding lyrics to the tune I'd been thinking about. Here's the thing, though: when I put them to music, what came out didn't really sound "Only Anything"--it didn't sound bluegrassy either. Instead, it sounded... um, (brace yourself, fans) like a country song.

I've been feeling pretty self-conscious about it. Jon T.'s new tunes sound so classic and classy... so totally OA.

On, the other hand, I am confident that with a band behind it, my tune might lose its country vibe and evolve to something a bit more... or rather, a bit less Kenny Chesney.

Pleasantly Surprised

I didn't realize it, but as far as I can tell, 14 years later, Pleasantly Surprised was our hit album. I have had several people tell me--people that I really don't know very well--that they had the tape and it was one of their favorites growing up in Tucson (and by several, I mean like three!).

Speaking for the band (or at least speaking for myself), I think that we view Pleasantly Surprised as a precious first effort. We labored meticulously over it. We were very excited when it was released: the process of buying the blank tapes, dubbing each of them and packaging them in those white jackets with Jon Thwaits's artwork--it was all a labor of love that we all had some part in, small or large.

And the songs on Pleasantly Surprised are literally snapshots of our 16 and 17 year- old lives. Hopefully, Jon will tell you here about the Snowman Ring--it's real. Footsteps to a Castle? There's a story there too. There was green carpet and sofa sitting and Hunt on the Moon was about our best friends Andy and Steve Hunt who had moved and left us sad. And of course, the Polish Tavern has a wonderful history attached to it too, one going back several centuries.

Pleasantly Surprised was the story of our lives put to music.

I am happy to announce that it is now available as a complete download in the album/song listing to the left.

Raspberry Happiness lyrics

Raspberry Happiness

Yesterday glimmers the sun fades away
fades into something real
But still I can't find a way to express,
express the way I feel.

It's been so long
and now all my thoughts are on some dumb, stupid song

I scream your name
It's not the same
Why won't it rain?
I'm sad again.

Well my room is a mess
and my eyes need to rest
so I play my enchanted blue
I don't want to think but I do
and I'm sad 'cause I can only think of you

Why does my head feel like it's breaking apart again
You talk of the sky, but it's my blood-blue heart

And so I cry again
And so I die again
Oh I can't breathe
But you, tonight, please don't leave

Don't leave.

Raspberry Happiness

From my fifteenth to seventeenth year I loved to lament. I even loved the word lament (which was the name of a song by the Cure, and the Cure are pretty much the epitome of lamentation). One of my favorite subjects to lament over was girls--with whom I was always having a bit of trouble. I can't blame the girls--many of whom didn't respond when my crush was on or, more likely, never even knew. Those that did respond had the fortune (or misfortune) of dealing with me in such a state.

I would usually attempt some kind of song to handle the difficulty of these circumstances, most of which didn't ever actually become songs (see the poetaster archive to the right). The few that become songs are really quite special to me as artifacts of those emotions and the circumstances that surrounded them.

Raspberry Happiness is one such tune. Written over several drafts (again, see the poetaster file), "Raspberry" (as I believe it appears on the album insert) is about a week long summer romance of sorts that I had with a girl at a summer church conference called EFY (Especially For Youth) in 1994. You may have had one of these summer camp experiences--if you have, you'll know how horrible/wonderful they can be. She was perfect because I didn't really know her. We met, fell head over heals and after five days never saw each other again.*

Of course, I'm being dramatic here--but that was how it felt at the time! Adolescent emotions can be so totally overblown. I ached for weeks afterward. My family went on a trip to northern Utah in the weeks following and the raspberry milkshake shop that we would traditionally go to--that bastion of childhood happiness and comfort--had lost its appeal.

Beyond that, the only other specific thing I remember about the history of the song is the line "you talk of the sky, well it's my blood blue heart." It is in reference to a poem that she wrote in a letter with the line "blood blue sky."

*We actually did see each other again very briefly later that summer, but didn't you like the dramatic effect?

Raspberry Happiness

Special Announcement

Jon Thwaits and Jon Stone are planning a special Only Anything project to begin next month when we are together over the Thanksgiving break and continuing until completion.

The project will entail work on six songs:

• First, we will each select a song from the catalog to revisit and rerecord.
• Second, we each will select lyrics or poetry from our personal archives and attempt to bring those lyrics back from the dead in the form of a new song.
• Finally, we will each write and present a new song for the project.

It has yet to be determined how time together will be spent on these songs, but we are in talks with musicians in the Tucson vicinity about providing some beats, equipment, collaboration and space for the project.

Stay tuned!

The 6th Anything

Early on, Kelby helped us out on the drums. After learning the ways of drum machines, synthesizers and midi programming, he saw the band who I believe was known as "Footcheese" at a party and was awestruck at the raw and rude acoustic drum sounds. Kelby hooked up with Jared Peterson, the Footcheese drummer, to get a few pointers on the drums. Then came a very serendipitous moment: Kelby was house-sitting for the family Hartnett over Christmas 1993 and it turns out that he did some drum-sitting also. Jared set up his drums at the house and left them there for Kelby to go primal with. Then enters the newly electrified Only Anything, wanting nothing more than to turn the dream into a real rock and roll experience.
We pulled ourselves away from watching Cure Show and drinking egg nog to go do our own version of Cure Show. We jammed like we never had before; Forest, End, Disintegration, Lullaby. We blew a speaker, we roused the neighbors, we made merry the day after Christmas.
Kelby played with us at a few of our first shows and by the time he got the mission call, Joe was ready to step in permanantly. It all came together so perfectly. Coincidentally there was another house-sitting rock and roll experience, but this time the Richins were out of town. Jon, Kelby and I had a recording session at the house and we did a bunch of covers; Violent Femmes, The Cure, The Smiths. This time (unlike the Hartnett situation) the vacationing family was well aware that rock and roll was going on while they were away, and no neighbors complained.
Growing up with Kelby gave me musical advantages: I learned to play on his guitar, we used his mixer for all the Only Anything recordings, he stepped in on the drums when needed and I'm sure there was some constructive sibling rivalry between us which pushed me to rise to his standard. So here's to you Kelby, and your part in the OA legacy.

J. Thwaits
aka DangerBoy

Starmaster's Window (UPDATED!)

Song writing was, at first, an aspiration in Only Anything and not really a reality. Our first few public performances consisted of us playing covers of our favorite songs with no original material whatsoever.

When we decided collectively to begin writing, it seemed that we were all on similar creative levels and would produce songs--some of which never really became songs that we performed or recorded--with relative frequency. Most of these songs were kind of silly, though: "Life is a Circle," & "Cornflakes" are the two that come to mind here (I'll work on getting the original lyric sheet for "Life is a Circle" up here too-- I just found it. Update: Either John H. or I should do "Life is a Circle" the honor of its own post.)

By the time we got more serious about the business of writing the songs that we would record on our first album (Pleasantly Surprised), it was clear that Jon Thwaits was the standout creative force in the band. Not only were his melodies complex (and would grow increasingly more complex over the years), his lyrics had a narrative completeness to them that brought polish to our otherwise (at first) sketchy playing.

Jon's creative success affected me in conflicting ways. On one hand, the Thwaits tunes are the bedrock of the band and they gave us something real to play. And I loved playing them--we all did--because they are great songs. And Jon inspired me to take my own writing more seriously. But, and this is the other side, I wasn't nearly as successful as a songwriter, and I felt a bit defeated because of my struggle. I tried really hard to develop this talent, though, the results of which are pages and pages of lyrics/poems. Pieces of these poems, as I read back through them, could have turned out to be decent song lyrics, but much of them, as you will see, kind of capture my frustration at the time as a teenager trying, quite inadequately, to express himself.

Later, in the year before I went to San Francisco in '97, the process finally began to gel when I wrote Starmaster and Knight (which I feel were my most successful compositions in OA). These songs, as I now think of them, were written as appropriations of Jon's narrative stylings. In effect, Jon taught me how to write a song.

I have begun to collect these old, failed lyrics/now-poetry in a web space that can be viewed here.

I am only a tenth of the way through my stack, and will continue to update it as time allows. They are interesting to me not only as OA artifacts, but as windows into my mind as a 15 to 18-year-old. They, in many ways, represent my attempts to process the experience of adolescence and present them, in the bite-size package of a song, to the world. (And some of them are pretty hilarious.)

Update: I have completed the transcription of all (or most) of the old poetry that I have dating between 1993-1997.

There's more though. I have several poems that I wrote while in San Francisco, and more still that I wrote in the few years after my return. I will continue to add to the compilation and will give a head's up when they are up. I have also added a direct link to the "window" in the sidebar.

Steps...Footsteps

Question: What do you call a guy that hangs out with four musicians? Answer: “the drummer.” In my life I have never claimed to be musically inclined. Even now I cannot carry a tune if it was in a bucket. When I first picked up a drum stick and started to make noise, I was not any good. With lots of practice and encouragement from those around me, I improved. When I first started playing with Only Anything, I was not able to play any of the covers that they played. Most of that reasoning might do with the fact that I could not ‘mimic’ the drumming in those songs; I simply was not good enough. So I played the songs that “the Jons” and Mat wrote. The first being some ska song (I can’t even remember the name, but the tune and some of the lyrics still ring though my mind). Kelby Thwaits and a couple others would pass the drum sticks around and play all of the other songs. I practiced as many times as I could. I remember one day coming home from school and the others were playing a new song. It sounded cool. I remember Mat was playing the drums when I walked in. I listened for a couple minutes and then they told me to sit down and play the same thing Mat was. I tried the beat, and was quite sloppy at first but picked up on it fairly quick. The song is “footsteps to a castle.” This is the first song that I really felt like “I got it.” Footsteps was a big [foot]step for me, a sort of turning point of being able to enjoy a rock with the others. The song has not evolved or changed too much over time, it still has the same drum beat and song that it was back then. It is not a tough song to play, but I really enjoyed playing it, because the song rocks!!

--Joe

Revision (Vader revisited)

Only Anything was interested in improving itself. We recognized that we could be better and we wanted to be better. In fact, one of the most satisfying things of playing music is this steady creeping forward in skill and competence.

When we released Space Capers, I was excited about Vader--I thought it was the best song that I had had a hand in writing so far. But I was disappointed when one listener told me that they liked the song, but couldn't understand any of the lyrics. That concerned me--especially since I liked the sound of the vocal track so much.

The recording on Spacecapers was very studio-y: in addition to the funky vocal track, it had several overdubs that we couldn't reproduce live. (One of them I especially love: Jon added an acoustic guitar to the verse that you can hear well in the first minute or so of the song.) After playing the song several times live, we made up for these losses with other dynamic changes. We added a pause after the main guitar riff; we brought the tempo up slightly, and in playing it often--post recording--the song started to evolve and get more "tight." And people really responded to it. I remember playing it at a Battle of the Bands at Rincon High where we brought out a large cut out of Vader during the song. The crowd went wild and we won the battle.

So, when we were working on putting together a collection of songs to appear on our cd, we wanted to include Vader, but I was remiss to release the same song again with a vocal track (as much as I loved it) that others couldn't understand. So we rerecorded the song and brought to the recording the togetherness and polish of our live performance. I have am pleased with the results which met the need of making the song more accessible. I also really love listening to the band's improved musicianship from one recording to the next.

That said, my preference is for the original recording. I love those overdubs, the Vader sound bites, and the crazy vocal effects. While the second recording is a great from a technical perspective, I think that the original displays more creativity.

What do you think?

Vader II

--Stone

Vader lyrics

Vader
I've got my helmet.
The Death Star is stacked.
The Rebellion is growing so I must be going
on a counter attack!

With our dark Emperor,
and ten thousand men,
there really is no match for me,
the dark side prospers
can't you see?

And never will I be a man again
and the sun only clouds my eyes
when once before--but once, never again!
I simply fall back more into disguise.

I need some love son
cut off my arm!
I am bad, you are good do what you should
go save the galaxy tonight.
Electric Lightning spews from wrinkled hands
But the Helmet stops it all
The Helmet takes one last stand

And never will I be that man again
Let me see you with my own eyes
the helmet is removed slowly and then...
the brave, heroic man Darth Vader dies.

Song writing, collaboration, and Vader

Song writing in Only Anything was usually a personal endeavor. Jon or I would come up with a song--usually nearly complete--bring it to practice and teach it to each other and the other band members. Jon was exceptionally meticulous about this process and would often draw up music including tablature and chords for the different parts in the song. He would spend a lot of time teaching me these guitar parts and was always patient, as I was typically slow to pick them up. Usually he'd leave some section of the song open where I could rock a solo free-style. I always liked those parts.

My songwriting/sharing process was similar. Though, usually I would usually leave it up to Jon to come up with his own parts for my songs. They were always good and usually made the song all that much better.

We didn't often write songs together. But we probably should have. Our one true collaboration came on a song written and recorded for the Space Capers album called Vader.

Vader started out as two quite different sections, each with their own words, that we stuck together. My section was the first driving riff that runs through the first half of the song, and Jon's comes in near the end as a kind of reflective response to the first section.

Though, as I mention, each section originally had its own lyrics, my lyrics were explicitly about Darth Vader--written in the first person as if Vader were actually singing them. I don't think Jon's words were about Darth Vader, and were eventually dropped.

I remember recording the vocal track for the song. I used several guitar effects pedals to alter the sound of my voice--while I didn't want to sound like James Earl Jones's Vader, but I did want the vocal to sound machine-y. I used a a flange pedal to give it that other-worldliness, and then a delay pedal to give it a funky echo. I love how it turned out.

Check it: Vader (oh, and don't you love the sound clip from Empire? I love how the feedback starts right when ol' Darth says "But you're not a Jedi yet." Classic.)

--Stone

first meetings

I met John H. on my very first day in Tucson. The year was 1990; I was 12 and had just moved from Las Vegas. His mom, a real estate agent (among other talents), had sold my parents their house. I don't remember much about that first meeting except for a brief discussion about the movie Gremlin's 2, swimming in Justin Roylance's pool (whom I would meet again 8 years later in San Francisco), and feeling a bit like a dorky stranger in a strange land.

Early that same fall--maybe a month later, I was invited to Justin's Waterworld (different Justin, much different pool) with John and a different friend, Mat Richins. It was clear that my presence there that day was not the idea of the boys but was a mercy-invite by John's sweet mom. I was clearly a third wheel, and all I really remember is sore feet from walking over the hot gravel of the sub-par water "world's" parking lot. I don't remember much about the waterpark, but I must have complained about how ridiculous and puny it was compared to Vegas's Wet 'n' Wild. This didn't impress the older boys. Later, and in one last effort to make friends, I dropped some salty "cool Las Vegas kid" language. I'll never forget what John said in reply. It was classic John. He looked at me and said, dryly: "not cool, man."

And it wasn't--I wasn't.

It wasn't until much later, years later, even, that I would understand cool.

Thanks to John.

--Stone

photo archive

Our collection of photos and written artifacts is growing. Check it out!

Only Anything on Picassa

Leland

Jon Thwaits and I both attended Sahuaro High School (his senior year and my junior year). We ended up having the same class for 6th period. I remember every day we would wait outside the classroom door for each other and have a debate whether or not to ditch the class. One day we decided to ditch the class and head over to “sauna studios.” We walked to the studio stopping at the circle K on the way. We picked up a 64oz drink and a king size Resees to feast on. When we reached my house Jon proceeded to teach me a song he had been working on. Leland. We pulled out the trusty four track recorder and began recording. Leland had a fair number of changes, pattern changes and stops. Jon seemed to have a good idea what he wanted it to sound like, and for some reason I picked up pretty fast on this one. We had a great time recording the guitar and drum tracks. We had a pretty good recording of the guitar and drums, not flawless, but good. Jon took the recording home and added a few other tracks and parts. A day or two later we were adding another guitar solo at ‘the studio’ and we recorded over the wrong track, accidently erasing a needed track. (I am sure we can all remember a different time when we all hit the record button on the wrong track, or forgetting to push record on the ‘perfect’ time we played it) We were sad that we had lost that really good take. But we soon realized that we needed to start all over again. Jon picked up his guitar and I sat down and we then played the song even better than the original. This was one of my favorite memories recording songs and favorite time spent in sauna studios. This experience is one reason why Leland is one of my favorite songs.

Check out what I mean here: Leland

Professor percussion
Joe Richins

Only Anything on Last.fm

Last.fm, the popular social networking music site, has a great listing for Only Anything, complete with short biography. Check it out!

Only Anything at Last.fm

Show List

Joe Fest II Oct 5 1992 Kelby, Jon, Jon, Mat
Heidenreich's I Summer 1993 Jon, Jon, John, Mat
Roundy's Winter 1993 Jon, Jon, John, Mat
Hall's April 1994 Jon, Jon, John, Mat, Joe, Kelby
Lotti's early Summer 1994 Jon, Jon, John, Mat, Joe, Kelby
Heidenreich's II Summer 1994
EFY Summer 1994
Whetten's Summer 1994
Henderson's Halloween 1994 (in temporary house)
East Stake Center New Year's Eve 1994
**release of Pleasantly Surprised**
DPC Feb 17 1995
Thacker's Spring 1995 (acoustic, without Mat)
Bonanza Chapel I Spring 1995 The World Has Turned
Sahuaro HS Spring 1995 Senior Show with Dina and Bill Gammie
Bell's June 1995
Henderson's II July 1995 Tammy's birthday
Rincon HS Fall 1995 battle of bands
Richin's I Dec 1995 Mat's last before mission
**release of Space Capers**
Heidenreich's III July 5th 1996 John's last before mission. Liz R.
Alston's December 1996 Michelle Stone Birthday
Brewer's Dec 1996 many covers
Kelby & Daina wedding Jan 10 1997 with Dave B.
Sahuaro HS Feb 7 1997 battle of bands
**release of Album CD**
Rincon HS Mar 7 1997
Richin's II Mar 27 1997 Stone's last before mission
Martin House UofA Halloween 1999 Crabtree was there
Linden Chapel ? With Dizzy Wish
Bonanza Chapel II New Year's Eve 2003?With Dizzy Wish

Humble Beginnings

1992
We had the vision for the rock band but we weren't equipped yet with the instruments or the talent. At that time we were mostly concerned about acquiring the equipment, with enough attitude we could surely make up for any lack of talent. Shiny electric guitars and huge amplifiers were highly sought after items. We never did get the huge amplifiers, just as well, we managed to do plenty of damage with what we had. Mat's house was a good place because there were always extra guitars and other equipment hanging around i.e. mandolin, 12 string, the PA. We are forever grateful for the hospitality of the Richins family.

The first recording session:
sitting around a tape recorder with acoustic guitars we recorded the cure's disintegration. The recording captured on that tape is so legendary that it has never been heard by human ears, nor should it be. Some say the ghost of Jimi Hendrix stole the tape in the middle of the night and filed it away in an archive of "lost recordings". Every once in a while a recording gets leaked out of this archive, like when a new release comes out from a band that broke up 20 years ago. I'm pretty sure this one's never going to get leaked though, they have it under lock and key and I wouldn't be surprised if it's already been added as the soundtrack to the fast forward movie that gets played for us when our life flashes before our eyes, just before we die.

In those early days it wasn't outwardly obvious that our project would become the movement that it became. We felt we needed to add distortion pedals and drums to our arsenal before we considered ourselves legitimate, but even then Only Anything was an unstoppable force that had started and lack of wattage was just an insignificant obstacle in the wake of our momentum. Point in case: we already had T-shirts!

In addition to surrendering their room for the band, Mat and Joe made other sacrifices at key moments. Joe stepped in with the drums; Mat got the bass and scored the 4-Track recorder which was destined for us. It was discarded with the broken electronics but it called out to him and he revived it so that it could fulfill the purpose of its creation. And we found ourselves legitimate.

Thwaits

To:Imaginary Band Collective
Re: Only Anything
From: Starmaster, curator, OA-IBC
Date: this twenty-fourth day of August, two thousand eight.

And then you meet her and you start to smile
You can't believe it, the girl actually likes your style
You get all excited, so much you can't hide it
You're finally happy, then she tells you you're nappy!

Life is a circle, you spin all around
Life is a circle, you fall on the ground

--Heidenreich/Stone, 1993, Life is a Circle (first OA composition)

IMAGINARY BAND parts 5 and 6, Life is a Circle: It was then as it is now

Greetings Collective:

What follows will be my last, official introductory email to the collective regarding the launch of our new archive and blog project. We are just about ready to (officially) begin (as there has always been several lovely unofficial beginnings--thanks to Professor Percussion for a great first entry, to be posted soon).

Part 5: Aesthetics: judging this book by it's cover.

One of the most important things to consider as we begin is finding the right aesthetic for our blog. It would be really interesting, the curator thinks, if the blog were a kind of virtual scrapbook. I think this can be attained if the collective write their entries as if they just happened--as if the memory is somehow as fresh as if it had happened yesterday. I return to questions like unto those in my original blog post: what if the band became famous 15 years later? What if the world wasn't ready for 3 Candles in 1995? What if the history of the band was required in 2008 because the music had finally became relevant? Something along those lines, at least... We can play with that--but I want to create some sort of (imaginary) impetus for the re-surfacing of the band... Remember when the Beatles released their anthology? That's the vibe. It's as if Vh1 was doing investigative reporting for a "Behind the Music: Only Anything" and we are the investigative reporters.

Part 6: Closing remarks.

These instructions now presented, I hereby relinquish any implied "lead" roll I might have over this project into the hands of those other members of the collective. While I will remain the project's curator/copy-editor, certainly the other members of said collective have much greater skills/ideas than mine (I don't know how, for example, to create downloadable links in blogger--but they are a must if we are to share our music with the WORLD!) My role will be to keep things moving and grammatically correct.

Only Anything was conceived of before there ever was a band. Indeed, the idea of the band, in many ways, was just as important as what came afterward. It's imaginaryness, complete with the first t-shirt design--was the original impetus for what would produce three albums and over 40 original compositions--and that is just before 1997. That imaginary band, named so perfectly Only Anything was, in fact, anything that the collective dreamed it to be: a designation with infinite possibilities. Yet it was special because it was only ours (er, I mean the collective's). And that collective remains only ours. The artifacts and music that Only Anything produced are proof of the collective's ability to dream, create, and feel. And as the collective now finds itself in various places across the country, engaged in a variety of noble pursuits, the music and memory of that then and now again imaginary band remains a testament to the collective's most important legacy: a friendship of the kind that the world has never known.

Life is a Circle--but that orbit makes for some amazing views.

I should know.

I am Starmaster.
Curator OA-IBC

Parts three and four-- Dream of the Way Autumn Felt that Day: Writing Imaginary Histories

To:Imaginary Band Collective

Re: Only Anything
From: Starmaster, curator, OA-IBC
Date: this twenty-first day of August, two thousand eight.

Come for the mosh come for the pain of the game
Come for the thrash where no one's the same
Everyone shouting and swaying and dying in time
And everyone for just one second is mine.

--Stone, Autumn, 1995

Parts three and four-- Dream of the Way Autumn Felt that Day: Writing Imaginary Histories

Dear OA-IMC collective,

I hope my last email found you well, and a bit dusty after garage and closet diving for old memorabilia. Since I missed a day yesterday due to an unfortunate transportation snafu in Effingham, I come to you again late this evening with parts three and four--squished together. The focus here is writing. Writing about one's past is always a challenge, but in a collective of such brilliant minds, the task shouldn't come as any trouble.

Part 3: We move now from digging in your closets to digging in your noggins. Start thinking about memories you have of old times. While this project focuses on the band specifically, you need not limit your memory digging to band-only moments. In fact, the band (I think) is only one aspect of a much larger "mythology" of the old Tucson bro times. The band and its artifacts are the tip of that proverbial iceberg Only Anything's long and glorious history together. Maybe you have a memory of rolling around in Mat's green bomber, or going caving with the boys (and chicks!) in John's old brown van (Ike)--those memories are fair game for centerpieces of your writing. As are, certainly, pre- and post-band OA moments, t-shirt making in Berthoud basements, reunions in Chicago, and anything else, really.

Part 4: Once you've got your memory nice and primed, write. Here's the trick with this kind of writing: it doesn't need to be perfectly accurate. 10-15 year old memories have a tendency to get a bit foggy and that is fine. Just focus on what you remember, the more details the better, but then use your less-specific memories to fill in the other gaps. The members of the collective may not remember every moment of that first show in John H's back yard, but they certainly remember some pieces of it. And, more importantly, the collective all have a more general memory of the night's feelings and of the feelings felt in the days and weeks leading up to that horribly wonderful first concert. We're shooting for essence here, not perfection. If you can't remember specific details, but have that feeling in place, the details you make up will work the same as if they were real. This is the essence of creative non-fiction. Indeed, it is in this way that our writing will become an imaginary history.

Post these histories to our blog.

No longer in Effingham,

Starmaster, Curator OA-IBC

Part two-- Stamped Memory Imprints: Footsteps to the Castle

To:Imaginary Band Collective
Re: Only Anything
From: Starmaster, curator, OA-IBC
Date: this twenty-second day of August, two thousand eight.

Footsteps to a Castle that was so built up inside my mind that...
when it was overcame I felt the shame and tasted my demise
I wanted something real, that I could call my own
when all the world was crumbling, crumbling like old palaces of Rome.

--Thwaits, Footsteps to a Castle, 1994

Part two-- Stamped Memory Imprints: Footsteps to the Castle

Once again, I great you official members of the Imaginary Band Collective:

I am pleased that some of you are already actively gathering historical documents and have been pleasantly surprised by what has been uncovered. These photographs, pictures, cover art, and et cetera will be the life-blood of our archive and will be an important piece of what draws the world's eye in the direction of our Imaginary Band.

Google holds the keys of both our archiving project and the way we choose to display our work to the world. We will start with a simple blog as a means of distributing our work to the world's stage. This blog can be found at the following address:

http://imaginarybandcollective.blogspot.com/

I would like to look into registering onlyanything.com to host our collective, but for now, the above address will work nicely.

We will use Picassa to archive scanned photographs and photographed archives. Mr. Marvel, if you don't mind, can you upload the pictures you have put on your personal Picassa site onto this shared space? I can always move them too.

We will use Blogger to write and post blogs. I have been thinking about issues of chronology and think that we need not worry (especially at this point) with telling the story in order. I think it will be better to just write and post items as they come to you. Please include an estimation of date on your posts. More on the content of said writing in the part 3.

We can use Google Documents (see the top of the screen when you are logged into gmail) for drafting or collaborative work. It's cool and may or may not come in handy.

We can also use gmail for official onlyanything.oa press-releases. I usually use it as a gateway to the other services, as there are easy links to each of the above services once you have logged into gmail.

If you would like, we can also tie our personal accounts to the blog. Blogger allows for multi-users to add content. If you think that this would be a more useful way of accessing the blog and uploading content, let me know. All using a centralized login may be the most simple alternative.

My one divergence from the Google universe is my affinity for Vimeo. Like YouTube, Vimeo is a place to upload and share videos. I like the interface much more though, and there is no limit to how long clips can be. I have put several clips there already from a New Moves show in 2000 or 2001. The login is the same (though you will need to write the whole email address in the space provided).

You'll notice that the blog currently has two entries. An initial entry penned by the curator when this project first imprinted upon his mind, and the second, posted today, with selected content from these first two letters to the Imaginary Band Collective.

Please feel free to begin adding content (especially to the Picassa site) as soon a you feel obliged to. Further instruction on potential content for the blog will follow in the next email, parts 3 and 4: Dream of the Way Autumn Felt that Day: Writing Imaginary Histories

Remaining your devoted poetaster,

Starmaster, Curator OA-IBC

Part One: The Gathering of the Stamps

To: Imaginary Band Collective

Re: Only Anything
From: Starmaster, curator, OA-IBC
Date: this twentieth of August, two thousand eight.

Part One: The Gathering of the Stamps

Darkness, patrons, filing into the room
Waiting for this night everyone dressed like an Eastern bride
Made up with make-up drawn by the hands of angels
No care for morning, put out your hand to be marked

--Thwaits, Stampkids, 1996

Dear official members of the Imaginary Band Collective:

I, Starmaster, curator of the OA-IBC, am a sucker for the old days, as is well known, but I am also a burgeoning scholar of writing, composition, discourse, and the production of textual and non-textual artifacts. Musical composition and the communities of discourse in which it is produced has become a growing interest of mine and one that I would like to begin exploring more intently. So, I've been thinking for a while now about a way we could try and document the magnificent Only Anything and it's various musical pseudonyms and progeny (Lotham Scooter, UFOA, New Moves, Lancaster, among others) as a way of both archiving its greatness and also as a case-study subject for the production of discourse within a tight knit community of composers and friends.

These two underlaying purposes should not, however, overshadow the real and final purpose of the Imaginary Band Collective, which is, of course, to promote and present Only Anything to the world in a way that will eventually ensure its rightful position as the greatest band that ever was.

So here is your first commission (and it is understood how busy members of the collective are--indeed, at least one of us is completely out of the country--so do what you can; but please do something.) This first step is of up most importance to the project and is something that all should be able to contribute.

1. Collect old written artifacts: set lists, photographs, art, etc. and scan or take pictures of them. Photographs seem the most common items that all of us are likely in possession of. These need not be photographs of band activities only, but should include any old (or new) pictures of the collective together.

Further instructions will follow very soon, until then:

Telecaster,
Starmaster.

Stay tuned for IMAGINARY BAND, part two of six-- Stamped Memory Imprints: Footsteps to the Castle

(special note: This email has been, when available, forwarded to your closest business partners to encourage their help in digging up old gems for our archive. If you notice that your closest business partner has been left off of the CC list, please forward accordingly and forgive your curator for his limited resources. Thank you, in advance, closest business partners for your contribution to the OA-IBC)

imaginary band

What if the band you used to be in became beloved and famous 14 years later?

What if the songs on the cassette tapes you released and sold 30 of in 1994 became the most popular songs in the world in 2008?

What if your former self really did become the rock star that he always dreamed of becoming, only a decade late?

This is Only Anything.