The Unheard Music (Volume LII)

In the spirit of this weekend's GWHS Class of 1988 Reunion, I thought I'd be a little self-indulgent and feature a band I used to be in for this week's installment of The Unheard Music:  Rational Actors; Jeff R., Jeff W., Jason M., Andy T., and me.  We chose a semi-pretentious name gleaned from Economics class and made music that drew heavily from our influences, Joy Division and R.E.M.  We even once played a gig as "Warsaw" playing an entire 45 minute set of nothing but Joy Division songs.  While we did have a set of original material, covers were also quite important as it was all most of our friends would recognize.  I remember getting an advance copy of R.E.M.'s Document album and we listened to it, picked out two or three songs from it to learn for the next week's gig, so when the album came out and eveyrone bought it we'd impress them by already having a few of those songs in our repitoire.  We were dorks like that.  Problem was, we shared a practice space with another band--Laissez Faire--and sometimes they would hear us rehearsing new covers and since they often played before us, they could beat us to the punch by playing 'our' covers before we took the stage.

We tried the quintet thing for awhile then pared it down to a quartet.  Circa 1987, we recorded a few songs in Jason's basement.  We only had three microphones, so we used speaker cabinets as microphones for the drums.  It actually sounded alright. I'm not proud of much from that era but "Sticks and Splinters" was funny and sonically had some merit.  I think we sold like 75 cassettes, that was Aluminum (versus Gold or Platinum) for us.  We were asked to play a Glenbard Pep Rally but oddly were asked to not play anything that would get people excited or riled up, they were afraid the bleachers would collapse if everyone danced.  I remember playing The Clash song "Should I Stay or Should I Go", "Louie Louie" and another song that escapes me.  Someone else might remember.  People did get excited and danced but the bleachers survived.

Our Senior year, we decided to forgo the traditional Spring Break trip to South Padre or Daytona Beach and instead traveled to my parents' cabin in Northern Wisconsin in essentially the dead of winter to record another 'album'.  It was a fruitful trip as we recorded 12 songs that made it onto cassette.  It was cold and dark all week.  We recorded by day and mixed at night and then played various drinking games after mixing the record at night.  From those sessions came "We Mean Little" and "Folding (Version)" and our stab at punk, "Here The Ball Is".  We gigged a fair amount but only within the greater Glen Ellyn area, friends BBQ's, birthday parties and our fair share of Kool Aids.  If you don't know what a 'Kool Aid' is, ask someone from Glen Ellyn (or ask me).  Sadly, we never did a proper show at an actual music club, it would've been cool to play Caberet Metro or Lounge Ax but alas, that didn't happen. 

After graduating high school, the four of us went to three different colleges in three states but since both Jeffs went to the same college, some of those Rational Actors songs survived for awhile in a new band they started in Champaign.  Oddly enough, I didn't even get to play with the band for our final and arguably most high-profile gig: Glenstock, I think I was out of town.  While the band fizzled out circa 1989, we've all remained close friends, though the last time we were all in the same place at the same time was at my wedding in 2002.  Maybe someday we'll all be in the same place at the same time again and have one last jam, but I'm not holding my breath. If you are interested in downloading any of our other material, visit this site and go nuts.

Have a great weekend, enjoy the music.  I'll see some of you over the weekend. 

Comments

[Mike]

The "Kool Aid" must be a generational thing, because it's not something I'm familiar with - I'll have to check with my older siblings (although we didn't attend high school in Glen Ellyn, so perhaps that has something to do with it).

[MacGregor]

Ok, too crazy. Me & the missus have been on a big purging kick in our domicile, and a recent step for me has been to sort and/or trash several hundred cassette tapes. I've ended up mostly keeping music to listen through one more round, as full albums are a moot point on tape these days.

I found what I think is the very first mix of music that I ever made, in the quick half-year from where I moved from just liking music towards saving money to buy music.

This nasent "mix" is haphazard at best, and bizarre at most. Let me just say formless and flowless, to the tune of Anthrax into Echo & the Bunnymen, Police, Sex Pistols, Monkees, Squeeze, REM (I was particularly proud of my 15 year old self's choice of following "7 Chinese Brothers" with "Voice of Harold").

And a peppering of Rational Actors songs. I remember being very impressed that people I knew had written songs and pulled it all together.

Serendipty. Ken's post today.

I never really thought about it before, having joined up later on, but there certainly was a crossover in cover songs. Hmm.

Also, I clearly remember that Joy Division show, specifically "Digital", on the anniversary of Ian Curtis's passing.

And I'm happy to recount that you guys (pointedly through a Jeff R. cassette dub) brought that band to me.

Nice. Have fun and hello to all who care from a JV team member.

[freakgirl]

That was really fun -- thanks for sharing it!

[Andy]

Ken, the third song at the pep rally was a spirited cover of The Cure's "Boys Don't Cry".

Signed, the Pete Best of Rational Actors.

(why do I look like Nigel Tufnel in that photo?)

[Jeff]

I think you summed it all up incredibly well there, Ken. I totally forgot about Stick & Splinter - 'She ordered tuna, I just watched.' Hilarious!

Thanks for sharing - great memories...

[drcastrato]

ken i just got around to listening to these (busy week). i like them! you definitely did show your influences, but the songs are good and well played. sounds good too. i'm impressed.