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.