The BRFH - The Early Days
As one drives east on the curvy highway that leads to Zeandale out of my hometown of Manhattan, KS, he unknowingly pass a landmark of utmost importance to the world of music, or more specifically to my world of music. About a mile down and on the south side is a black mailbox, and nailed to its post is a weatherworn board with the name "Frank" carved into it.
In 1988 that sign resided in a different place, next to its brethren "3313" in front of my childhood home on Musil Dr. Understand, it was a certain rite of passage in those days that when young men became of age they were sent to Mr. Gobber’s middle-school shop class and came home with the ubiquitous yard sign: a concrete base, a square iron post, a wooden marquee, and a twisted iron top. The only difference was what you inscribed on it. Scott had chosen "3313" so I chose "Frank".
Since moving to Colorado I’ve spent many a conversation describing what it’s like to grow up in Kansas. My answer is always the same. It’s great; you have to invent your own fun. This never applied better than a fine fall day in 1988 when facing sheer boredom, my friends (I believe it was John Stamey and Travis Buzzell, but I do apologize if I’m wrong) livened up the afternoon by running around our front yard karate chopping everything in sight. It was more acting than hard kicking. So imagine our surprise when the fatal blow was applied to old "3313". For some reason we thought it was hilarious. All of the sudden we were real hoodlums.
So we did what any self-respecting gang would do, we terrorized the neighborhood. We fake-kicked every single Mr. Gobber sign that we saw. Up Frontier Ln. Around Givens Rd. Down Overlook Dr. The Finck’s house. The Whalen’s house. The Stamey’s house. It was a hoot.
And why am I telling you this? Because, we came up with a name for our gang that day. We were just like Hell’s Angels, but maybe not as vicious. More like Hell’s Bunny Rabbits.
In 1988 that sign resided in a different place, next to its brethren "3313" in front of my childhood home on Musil Dr. Understand, it was a certain rite of passage in those days that when young men became of age they were sent to Mr. Gobber’s middle-school shop class and came home with the ubiquitous yard sign: a concrete base, a square iron post, a wooden marquee, and a twisted iron top. The only difference was what you inscribed on it. Scott had chosen "3313" so I chose "Frank".
Since moving to Colorado I’ve spent many a conversation describing what it’s like to grow up in Kansas. My answer is always the same. It’s great; you have to invent your own fun. This never applied better than a fine fall day in 1988 when facing sheer boredom, my friends (I believe it was John Stamey and Travis Buzzell, but I do apologize if I’m wrong) livened up the afternoon by running around our front yard karate chopping everything in sight. It was more acting than hard kicking. So imagine our surprise when the fatal blow was applied to old "3313". For some reason we thought it was hilarious. All of the sudden we were real hoodlums.
So we did what any self-respecting gang would do, we terrorized the neighborhood. We fake-kicked every single Mr. Gobber sign that we saw. Up Frontier Ln. Around Givens Rd. Down Overlook Dr. The Finck’s house. The Whalen’s house. The Stamey’s house. It was a hoot.
And why am I telling you this? Because, we came up with a name for our gang that day. We were just like Hell’s Angels, but maybe not as vicious. More like Hell’s Bunny Rabbits.
The name stuck. By January our gang had softened into a volleyball team. I’d designed a logo featuring a sinister sunglasses-wearing rabbit, Sam, crushing the famous Otto ranch (west of town near Keats). We pooled our money and got a dozen or so t-shirts printed up and proudly wore them to the MMS Volleyball Fun Night. Our excitement was slightly dampened when the school’s administration deemed "hell" an obscenity and made us cover the word with masking tape. I guess it was all in a day’s work for your typical street gang. (By the way, I still have what’s left of my shirt, and I’m not sure we could have bought a cheaper fabric even if we’d tried.)
Fist Publicity Photo, circa April 1989.
(L to R) Travis, John F., Neil, Paul, John S.
(L to R) Travis, John F., Neil, Paul, John S.
So now you know the story.
Well, except for that minor detail about the band.
I suppose the idea to learn to play guitar came from Andy Van Meter. He’d been playing for several years and Travis and I were pretty much awed. Before long Travis talked his dad into a Gibson Les Paul, and I got a Yamaha RGX-112 for my second most glorious Christmas (the two tauntauns of 1980 are pretty hard to beat). And after a few weeks of practice we felt that we’d pretty much mastered the instrument. Obviously the only thing left to do was start a band.
Stamey was in on the condition that he found a guitar cord so that he could plug his dad’s Gibson EB0 bass into their infamous Kalamozoo bass amp. At some point we learned that Neil Coleman played the drums and after a couple of conversations (that had nothing to do about musical interests) convinced him to sign up. And finally it came to our attention that Paul Paukstelis could sing. He liked heavy metal. So did Travis and me. That’s about all it took to make it happen. The gang had officially become the band, The Bunny Rabbits From Hell.
That was March 12, 1989.
We started with a very ambitious schedule. Our plan was to record an album over spring break. The thought never occurred to us that it would be a problem that we had no songs. That we had never rehearsed together. That John Stamey hadn’t even been told he was in a band. The next day, March 13, we got together for the first time and started recording. Lead by our unofficial sixth member, Andy Van Meter, and minus our official third member, John Stamey (who still didn’t know there was a band), we plowed through our first song, the Trogg’s Wild Thing. After Andy went home most of the day was spent butchering various AC/DC and Metallica songs.
Click here to download the MP3s from the first BRFH rehearsal.We quickly realized that all good bands write their own songs. And ours was a masterpiece. Hypnotize. Over the next few weeks we crafted a definitive musical statement with elements of heavy metal, rap (absolutely not), poetry, inventive vocabulary (try and find stamination in the dictionary), bagpipes, sensitive acoustic guitars, volume swells, and a speed metal guitar solo all in just over three minutes. By May (with John Stamey and guitar cord finally present) we recorded our first song. Later that month we made our public debut at the Church of Christ lock-in (more on that in future posts).
Click here to download the MP3 for the studio version of Hypnotize (note, this link goes directly to the file).
And from a handful of audio recordings emerged Monsters of Easter, our first album. Hypnotize was featured prominently and often. The rest was rounded out with a few Metallica favorites featuring Andy Van Meter on guitar. We pooled our money and bought a few packs of ALCO brand cassette tapes (you know, the ones without cases, packaged three at a time, one above the other, and hanging from a hook, altogether much like you find Wrigley’s chewing gum in the supermarket aisles today). We dubbed copies of the album and crafted an individual cover and label for each one. Of course the artwork featured our fearless rabbit, Sam.
Assembling Monsters of Easter, June 1, 1989.
(L to R) John F., Neil, Travis, John S., Paul
(L to R) John F., Neil, Travis, John S., Paul
The following morning we set out for our last day at Manhattan Middle School with our copies of Monsters of Easter in hand. The album sold out in a few hours, which wasn’t that hard to do considering there were only ten to start with. What’s funny is none of us thought to keep a copy for ourselves.
Click here to download the the restored version of Monsters of Easter with MP3, artwork, guitar TAB and more.Our summer break commenced with another lock-in gig, this time at the Blue Valley United Methodist Church, which was equally as incompetent as our first. And then we dedicated our summer to the heavy metal gods. Most days were an endless riff-a-rama between Travis, Paul, and me. Tons of Metallica. Plenty of Iron Maiden. A little Led Zeppelin. And finally the composition of the second wave of original BRFH songs. But that is another story...
... And for you diehards and completists out there, you can find the complete BRFH archives from 1989 here.
Misc. Notes:
For my part it is much easier to post the audio as MP3s on the server. I apologize for your inconvenience. But, on the bright side you now have to option to load the BRFH onto your iPod. Think about the joys of jogging to Hypnotize.
And finally, this must be the reason why I keep 20 year old creative writing assignments. Enjoy...
