We Only Come Out at Night

Tuesday, October 31, 2017

The Strange World of Davidh - Chapter 10

CHAPTER TEN (Originally Written and Posted Monday, January 01, 2007)

"The Monster Wore Tennis Shoes"

When we reconvened in August we found ourselves with two new members. Kenny Hightower, a friend of Andy's who happened to play bass and Marc Peterson, by now if you have been reading these blogs you should know who he is, playing rhythm guitar and keyboards. I was really excited that Marc would be playing keys because i had always wanted a keyboard player in the live sets. I had always recorded any keyboard parts in the studio but live it was impossible to do, also the aspect of 3 guitars sounded cool as well. We rehearsed for close to 2 months getting the new guys up to speed on the songs and then went out and played our first show as a 5 piece.

Interestingly enough our comeback show of sorts was at the very place we had our first show, Linda's Sports Bar, on Sept. 28th, 2004. The show turned out well, i was able to hang out with 2 guys i don't see enough of these days, Chris Kell and Vince Spiceland, so it was good to see them. This was a band of characters, egos and dreams, i was glad to see we were all getting along and making this work. This show was filmed and the resulting video has more of us hanging out than us playing, thats just what kind of night it was. We were only in the venue while we played and a very short time after that, we spent most of the night in the back of Kenny's box truck chillin and getting trashed. After this night i made an effort to tone down on the debauchery, atleast for awhile. Kenny's stories of chillin with Queen bees were some of the funniest things i have ever heard in my life, another thing about this that made me real happy was i had all my friends together in one band, it was awesome.

We decided we would each bring in a cover song to learn, i brought in "A Forest" by The Cure. This would be the only one that made it into the live set.

Another gig at Linda's in the beginning of October we debuted a new song called "Underneath" in it's early stages, one thing i know Andy hated was me and Kenny always pushing to play the new songs before they were ready.

We kept practicing and in October we were asked to play at one of the Shedfest shows, ahh...this would be a different show though, this show was going to be on Halloween. Shedfest was a place much like the Uncle Bob's, little quarantined areas where bands could set up, practice and pay a small fee. Every once in a while they would all get together and have a big show. Halloween has always been my favorite holiday so i always look forward to the Halloween show. I was lucky enough to play one with BLISS and now with the Sons of Godzilla. The BLISS show we didn't really prepare for costume wise, this time it would be different. I hatched an idea we should all dress up as skeletons, everyone the same...the old gang mentality to show we were a band, and a band that was here to get it on. When we showed up at the show i think we gave the impression to some people we were a gang, everyone seemed to be shocked by the idea of 5 guys dressing the same looking kinda scary, to me it was quite professional of us, we had our shit together. We played a good set, tight and mean...i was quite impressed with the guys because this was what it was about...we were a band.

In November we were asked to play at Andy's sister's first annual event to benefit persons with MS at Hoss's Deli. We hooked up Kenny's four track to the soundboard and got a fantastic recording out of it, the only thing was i was just about nowhere in the mix. I was having serious issues with my guitars and the grounding in Hoss's. The whole show i was dropping in and out all over the place. The next week we played Mitty's which turned out to be a decent show. I think Mike was having some issues with the drum riser he was on because every time he hit his drums he thought the riser was going to crumble underneath him. The sound person at the time, can't remember his name, had some issues as well, very slack, i wish i could get paid for plugging in a few wires, drinking and ignoring people. It was also very hard to hear yourself on stage there, after the shows everyones major complaint was that they couldn't hear very well.

The weekend of Andy's 28th birthday (Dec. 4th) we played at Neptunes in Nags Head, by the end of the night Andy was trashed swinging from the rafters and jumping from the stage on to the tables in the seated area. This was the beginning of several jaunts to Nags Head over the next few months to play shows. The next weekend we played Jitters in Gloucester, we were told that this show was a tester and would decide if we could play gigs there on a regular basis, the owner was never there so we were never seen. The show itself turned out great but we didn't accomplish we went there for, nothing we could do. Good thing about this show is that no alcohol was served, so the combination of a sober crowd and a sober band made for a good night. Unfortunately Marc couldn't play at either one of these shows due to outside commitments.

For New Years we traveled again to Nags Head to play at the Great Atlantic Grill, this is the show that kind of gave the image that we put on a rowdy show. The 2 bands that played before us were very chill, jammy type bands. (Dread Neck and Formula) When we went on we changed the entire environment, no longer were people sitting around or gently swaying to the music, people were going nuts. This is what people wanted, to go crazy on New Years Eve. I ended up by the end of the night having people in this make shift pit falling all over my equipment unplugging my gear and really pissing me off. Looking back on it now it was actually pretty funny and how could i be mad, they were having a good time. Later on when we tried to book more shows in Nags Head some venues told us they didn't cater to our type of show, the news of the show was out and i think they didn't want their places destroyed (hehe). Pure and simple this show rocked and i think it did us some good in turning heads in our direction in a place where otherwise we were unknown, and that was it, after this show the year of 2004 was over.

Not wasting any time in the new year of 2005 we played a show at Tonic's in Virginia Beach, never playing this place before i was a tad nervous. We opened for Duburbia, the place was packed as i remember. One funny thing to happen that night was some cowboys in the bar before we played asked Andy and I (i made a habit of sticking close to Andy before the shows so we could work out the last minute details)just what kind of music was it we played, of course we told him it was country and western and that they should stick around for the show, as the closing notes on our opening song rang out i could see in their faces there were none too pleased.

We recorded a set of acoustic songs for fun titled "Walk the Plank with the Sons of Godzilla".

We made a few more trips out to Nags Head to play a few more shows at Neptunes. While we were there we became friends with 2 other bands we would do joint shows with from time to time, Control Council and Gojira~X. Marc had started missing practices a lot during this time and we let it go on for awhile because we really wanted him to be a part of the band, especially me, but as time went on we just decided it would be better for all of us if we went on without him, and we did it right this time. We told him and we all agreed, i didn't want our friendship jeopardized the way it had been in the past. The split was not painful and our friendships stayed intact. whew! After this we decided to move shop, i had been practicing at Mike's house for the better part of 6 years so i welcomed the change, i'm sure Mike did as well...he could have a normal home life again. Kenny's parents owned an antique store and offered us a room above the work stations in the warehouse area, we moved everything and remained there until the end.

Gojira~x invited us out to Richmond, Va. to play a gig at Wonderland, which turned out good. We debuted a new song titled "She Says". Much to Kenny's dismay, my wife and Mike's wife destroyed the bedroom area in his room at the hotel as a rib as Andy, Mike and i drunkly and loudly wandered the hotel grounds. Downtown Richmond was pretty crazy, earlier in the day me and Mike were walking the streets at dusk in this terrible part of town looking for somewhere to buy beer, i felt like every alley we passed by a nutjob was going to jump out and rob us of our cash. I called Tony out on that trip for some reason, i think it was just that i missed having him around, and it was good to talk to him again, i hadn't talked to him in almost over 8 months.

Andy, Kenny and I recorded a new song called "Messages" while making bumper music for a new DVD.

Andy has a friend Pete who used to work for Vertigo tattoo in Nags Head, when he still worked there he asked us to come and play their annual tattoo festival. The shows for Vertigo would be during the days, saturday and sunday...we figured while we were there we would book a night show on friday at Neptunes. When we arrived on friday we were saddened by the news that this was going to be the last weekend Neptunes would be open, once we found that out we asked the owners (Mark and Andy) if we could also squeeze in a surprise short set in on saturday night as well, and even though he had booked 2 bands already for the last night we were assured a spot. The owner i ever dealt with was Mark, he was a super cool guy always up for anything, he seemed to be one of those people who took a genuine interest in us and he's one of the few club owners i will remember fondly. So the friday night show goes well, we get seriously hammered, have a good time...Andy is super animated on stage, good banter on stage...he was definitely in a zone. Saturday morning rolls around, we have to get our gear together and i for one was hungover,...bad. As the day set began all i wanted to do was puke and then curl up into a ball, listening back to the recording though, we were on fire, the song "Underneath" was the standout, i've always thought Andy was a good singer but at this show he was just blowing my mind. Now here's where the real fun started, we arrive at Neptunes saturday late in the day to get something to eat and we run into one of the bands playing that night, The Semantics. They were a nice group of fellows and one girl, we chatted briefly and left. We came back with our gear and we were just hanging around and we started to notice this guy that kept coming and then going out, you wouldn't see him for about fifteen minutes and then he was back...in and out. Now at this point we are thinking, what the hell is going on here? We played our set, a more toned down affair this time as i was still hungover from the night before. The Semantics were next up and during their set i started to notice various people coming in with VIP passes around their necks, i'm thinking who in the world is headlining this show, first they have people scoping out the venue, now there's VIP pass people walking around...this better be good. The time had arrived, the headlining band was here, first thing they do is demand Mark pay them a certain amount of money (classy, who are you again?), they wouldn't use the house PA system even though is was quite good and there was a guy being paid specifically to do sound at no cost to them. The name of the band was That Girl Band, out of Norfolk, they took the stage and proceeded to play cover song after cover song, thats what all this was for? A cover band. Neptunes was this great venue to play, a lot of good bands had come through this place and on the last night, the very last band, was a cover band, what a joke! I suggested to Mark that we burn their money contract as a form of protest and for awhile i thought we were going to...unfortunately we didn't. This was one of the most absurd moments i have ever experienced in my life. There's two things in life i firmly believe in, 1 - if you are in a cover band you have no soul, your lack of creativity is boring and you do not interest me...2 - you cannot rock in sandals, period, put some shoes on hippie! We woke up the next morning ready to go, the only thing was we had left our equipment at Neptunes the night before. We went over to Neptunes to get our gear and the place was locked up like Fort Knox, we called everyone we could to try and get inside but it was early and no one answered their phones. Andy picked the lock and we were in, luckily we weren't arrested and we made it to our final show of the weekend. The lesson i learned that weekend was never try to cram 4 shows into one weekend, we rocked at the last show but everyone was tired, Andy's voice was shot...i for one, was glad to be going home.

We played the Pit in Nags Head with Control Council as support, pretty normal show...tried hooking my camera into their video rig and broke it, if your reading this Pit people...oops, my bad, i also remember being a jerk to my wife that night and sleeping in our Pathfinder, if your reading this...sorry, i love you! hehe!

We played a few shows at Linda's in March and June, in June we played with some good friends of ours, Hierarchy of Nuts, nicely enough their bass player Keith Goodwin recorded us on his DAT recorder which turned out fantastic, thanks Keith!

My work during the summer was hectic, i asked the guys if we could tone down the shows and the practicing until the summer was over...the only show of the summer was at Dude's annual Fourth of July Bash...a new song titled "Veil of Democracy" was debuted at this show.

We resumed the show schedule at the end of August, we played a new venue that had just opened up called Budda's Place, we played the grand opening weekend. They had no alcohol license so we had to go to the strip club next door to drink, interesting to me to be in a strip club (i had only been to 1 before this, and that was a long, long time ago)with my wife. Usual fare, we rocked.

Next up we decided it was time to record another cd, i wanted to go back to Wintersound...unfortunately it was closed down. Mike had a friend (John) who lived in Richmond that had a studio in the basement, we talked to him and on the last weekend in September we traveled to Richmond and recorded what would become our second cd. We recorded the cd in 2 days, did all the music tracks (drums, bass and guitars)on a saturday night, slept on a cold ass concrete floor and woke up on sunday and Andy cut all his vocals. Our good friend Barry Belbin was their to assist John in the recording and he also kept us in line during the recordings, assuring we did our best. I filmed the entire session but unfortunately the tape was ruined in a camera mishap, so none of the footage survived.

After the grueling sessions, Andy, Kenny and i took a trip to New York to relax, the next weekend it was show time again, Andy's sister held her 2nd annual show to benefit MS at Hoss's deli. Mike was unable to attend this show as he was out of town so i played drums. I hadn't been nervous like that in a long time, like i had swallowed a mouth full of butterflies. We played a short 5 song set, we did well and come off a little more rawer than usual, definitely a sloppy but good sound.

The first weekend of November we traveled back to Richmond to mix our cd, John let us have complete control over the mixing which was cool. I'd much rather do it myself than have to sit there and point everything out for someone else to do. Luckily the film of this night did survive.

We were asked to play at Budda's Place again 2 weeks later, we decided that this would be kinda like a cd release show, i made a huge mistake that night. When putting the setlist together i really scrambled the songs around, Kenny was about staying in line and not veering off the path when it came to the setlists, so he had a real hard time remembering things out of order that night(thats what i figured) and performed pretty poorly, or it could have been the alcohol...Andy was a tad drunk and out of control as well, those who have seen this show on tape have only seen it in clips...it wasn't pretty. I did get some good footage of Andy trashing his gear on stage though. Barry and John came out to the show and John likened it to musical theater, he was kinda right. I realize everyone has their bad nights, and it was no big deal. Kenny on the other hand was mortified and called me up at about 3 in the morning to tell me he was quitting the band, i assured him it was just a bad night and everything would be ok. Kenny may not have been the best bass player in the world but he was definitely one of the coolest guys i knew, he was much like Tony in that regard which is weird because they both played bass for us. I wasn't about to let Kenny leave the band or my small circle of friends, if he was unhappy on a whole thats one thing but he was just upset over this one night...as i got older and married, the only people i really hung out with was my band mates, outside of Marc and Brian, Kenny was an important part of that fold. Thankfully, when we hung up the phone, everything was all better.

We played a new venue called the Cactus in December with our friends Second Sight, we did well our first time out so they put us on a schedule starting in the new year to play twice a month. We drew a lot of people and they liked that, we were going to have a steady place to play plus the place was only a few blocks from where we practiced, i loved that. Andy, Mike and i played a short low key acoustic set at our wives Christmas Party to end the bands year of 2005.

During these times i sporadically recorded solo songs, no real concentrated sessions, i was still trying to keep my ultimate focus on the band, writing wise. I did get a drum set though to aid in my sessions.

Basically that was it for 2005, i ended the year drinking Absinthe with Brian Boyd and Brian Swofford, drunkenly cutting promos over the WCW world title...whooooooooo! Little did i know what 2006 had in store for me.......

The Strange World of Davidh - Chapter 11

CHAPTER ELEVEN (Originally Written and Posted Monday, January 15, 2007)

"The Beginning is the End is the Beginning"

Going into 2006 i had no idea this would be the last year of the Sons of Godzilla, but as the year went on the bond that we once had as a band rapidly deteriorated. We started out the year as normal, playing shows. My friend Chris Gagnon had recently started working at a local bar called the Boulevard and asked me if we would like to play there, of course we would...we never turned down a show. This was the mindset, i think, that ultimately led to the demise of the band (among a few other things)...which i was guilty of more than anyone else. I never wanted us to get out of the loop of playing shows, it seemed if you got out of the loop, you never got back in again. We were a small time local band and i didn't want us to lose what small ground we had already claimed.

The Boulevard show went over well and we debuted 2 new songs into the live set, a song written by my brother..."Blow Their Minds (start a revolution)" and a new original that was kinda jammy called "Dubilee" named after two friends of ours Doobie, and Natalie. The later i really enjoyed because it was a song we could play forever and it was refreshing to revisit the heavy metal jam days of before. We set up a deal with Chris similar to what we had with the Cactus in that we'd play there twice a month but the Boulevard went under before we could play there again.

We began our tenure at the Cactus and continued playing there twice a month until April, some of the shows were good and some of the shows were bad, unfortunately at a few of the bad shows alcohol and egos got the best of us and we did some major infighting and severely damaged the morale in the band. We started to turn on each other, every little mistake was an excuse to cuss someone out. I was steadily losing interest in playing live and was starting to dodge practices and hanging out all together, the band was turning into a job, and was just becoming a hassle. I submerged myself into writing and recording my solo stuff and turned out some of my best work during this period. Titled the "Suicide is for Lovers" Sessions (a play on the slogan Virginia is for Lovers) i wrote about 15 songs and the completed project turned out 8 songs. I decided to put this up on myspace as my first myspace exclusive e.p. Also during this time, Mike had started mentioning that he was contemplating moving out of state...this as well dealt a blow to the band although i didn't take it that serious at first as Mike had been talking about moving since the days of BLISS.

My friend Jay came down to visit in March, i was out with a bad back so we didn't hang out as much as i wish we could have...we did manage to get a session in at Andy's place before he left though. Naturally. Also during this time we tried to have everyone bring in a cover to learn, the 2 that were ever worked on were "Wildflower" by the Cult (Andy) and "Pet Cemetery" by the Ramones (David). "Wildflower" was the only one of the 2 that made it into the live set.

We didn't practice much and we hung out less, things were starting to look bad. Mike let us know, i believe in May that his moving was becoming reality and it was only a matter of time before he knew exactly when it would be. My work was booming as it was summer and i had no time for shows or practice, everything was spiraling out of control. I had hinted around to a few people we were looking for a new drummer but never officially asked anyone because i for one wasn't sure i wanted to go on or that Mike was for sure leaving, i was just locked up inside, i had no idea what to do or how to react, i chose to just ignore it all and again delve into a new solo recording session. Dubbed "Hoping the Sun Won't Rise" sessions, i started to write about vampires, vampires of all sorts...the movie kind, the emotional kind, any type of being that would suck the life force from you...it was in a sense autobiographical.

Marc, Ryan Day, and i met for drinks one night and me and Marc thought it would be a great idea if we teamed up again to record and try to work out the Bliss songs that we either didn't record in the studio or never completely finished writing, we had proposed bringing Mike or Jay in to add drums but ultimately decided to do it all our own. We eventually recorded one new completed song and as of writing this we still have a few in the works. At the same time i was contacted by the guys in Ocali Flash about recording an album done entirely devoid of us being in the same place at the same time, thats right kids...we were going to make a cd done entirely by sending tracks to each other through the mail. I really enjoy what these guys do musically and look forward to the finished product.

In July we learned that Mike would be gone by the end of August, we decided to book a series of shows (around 10 of them) from the middle of July to the last week of September as a kinda farewell to Mike and to the band, we rehearsed a few times to shake off the rust and made our way. There was only two shows booked in September so Mike agreed to make the trips back down to our area to finish out the show dates.

We played a house party as a warm up show on July 22nd for our friend Damian and as a last attempt to shake off anymore remaining rust in front of as less people as possible. The party went off well and featured us playing as if we had never stopped...we were back in fighting shape but it was bittersweet because i knew once this jaunt of shows was over, so was the band. The only thing that eased my mind was we were going out in style and going out as friends, if anything i hoped the end of the band would help repair our friendships back to what they once were.

Next up we played Hoss's Deli for Andy's sisters annual MS benefit, show went over well. It would be the last show filmed of the Sons of Godzilla. We also recorded a new song at my home studio titled "I Really Wanna Love Her". With my solo sessions completed i put them up on my myspace site as the second of the now planned three MySpace e.p.s.

Out of nowhere Mike informed us he was leaving immediately the first week of August and could not commit to the rest of the show dates, we were floored. I was really disappointed, how could he do this to us, he promised us he would finish the dates. In hindsight though, if i was in his position i may have done the same thing, Mike was starting a new path in life, his wife had just had their first child and for the first time there was something in his life that was more important going on than the band. I understand this now and as i have stated in a few of these blogs, people change, their lives change, it's all a part of growing up. Nothing ever stays the same. He put in a lot of good years playing with me and for that i am surely thankful.

We had five days until our next show, what were going to do? Mike was gone and with five days left who were going to find that was good enough to get up to speed? Enter Steven Spivey, a drummer friend of ours who plays with the band Stone Grove. He was lent to us to finish out the remainder of our shows, so with 5 days to go we rehearsed and amazingly enough Spivey was up to snuff on about 8 or 9 songs and we were ready to play. I write this as a testament to this guys ability, he is a fantastic drummer, consistent and willing to play all night, he is by far one of the best drummers i have had the pleasure of playing with. It was around then i mentioned to Andy how much i wished he could become an official member of the band, Spivey it seemed was very receptive to this but we all knew we would be limited to what we could do as Stone Grove was his first priority, we understood and agreed to try and make this work. He was responsible for saving this sinking ship and actually resuming my interest in the band, he brought a welcomed shot of energy and hunger back to the band. I felt maybe this wasn't the end of the band, we would just scale down a bit on the shows and just practice to become a tight unit once again.

Our first show with Spivey was at Budda's Place, our last show there had been a disaster so i knew it couldn't be any worse than that. The show went off well, we opened for Fat Sam, a gimmick band in that the lead singer was fat and wore clothes that resembled the pattern of an American flag. The show went off well, so well in fact we were asked to play the next night at a different venue whos owner was in attendance, it seemed the new breath of life was working so we wasted no time in accepting the offer, plus we were offered 350 dollars to do it...i think that helped as well.

The next night we played at the Hilton Country Club, it would be the last show we would play as a four piece, the last show we would play with Kenny, and the next to last show we would ever play at all. The show already had a weird feeling to it, Andy at the last minute decided he didn't want to play and nobody informed the venue. Kenny called me wanting to know what was going on, he had no idea we weren't playing, i could be wrong but i think that Kenny called Andy and persuaded him to play and then the show was back on. We called the venue and let them know we were running late but insured we would be there. I picked up Tony and his brother Eddie, odd that Tony would be at this particular show as it was "officially" the last Sons of Godzilla show. The show was the oddest show i have ever played, feeling pressure the likes i have never felt before, most likely due to this being a Yo/Wankster bar, the stories of the entire bar turning on people, and other criminal activities i heard went on at this place...in short this place was rather shady...and we were late...didn't make us look very good to the owner who coincidentally was a co-owner...the other owner, the one who actually booked us wasn't even there.

Anyway...

The first set went fine and we took a break, we were asked to tone it down, play something slow/softer...we didn't know anything slow/softer, they also wanted some covers...we didn't play covers really, just a handful we liked. This was really frustrating because it was becoming persistent and the guy that booked us wasn't there so the other owner who had no idea of who we were just saw us as being late and uncooperative. We played the second set full of songs we had never played before (any of us), just winging it, and songs we hadn't played in a really long time, it was pretty bad. The one funny thing to come out of that night was when we were playing the last song "Monsters Everywhere", Tony tried to dive at me from the audience and jumped way to high, hit one of the ceiling fans and crashed down to the floor. Luckily he wasn't hurt and we all got a big laugh about it. We were told people left because of us, i find this to be untrue, in fact it seemed people were really into it. There was talk we didn't pull a lot of people in to the show...what do you expect when we had less than 24 hours to promote the show...the place is the size of a Cracker Jacks box, if we had anymore people in there you wouldn't have been able to move, go figure. The guy who booked us never showed up so we only got 75 of the 350 dollars we were promised...sitting on the tailgate of Kenny's box truck after the show i talked to Andy and told him this night had done me in, i wasn't sure i could go on anymore, it was that bad in my eyes. In a surreal moment, (because of this places reputation)we couldn't find Kenny for awhile and we thought he might be getting worked over somewhere in or behind the building...just imagine me and Andy scouring the place ready to throw down, what a night. We ended up canceling the rest of our shows and never played in this form again.

In September Kenny had been sick, so we weren't practicing and i wasn't really concerned, i was busy recording new sessions at home. October rolled around, i kept brief contact with everyone but we still weren't practicing...i decided to pull the plug on the band on October 4th 2006, i announced on our website we were done. I kept it up for one day figuring anyone who cared would see it in that time frame and because i wasn't sure i was doing the right thing...i was literally losing my mind. I did this without consulting the other band members which was probably not the best thing to do but i was sick of living in denial. It needed to be over or we just needed a nice long break, i just didn't know what else to do.

A friend of Andy's was having a Halloween Party and asked if we could play, Andy asked me if i wanted to do it and i thought it was a fitting day to put the band to rest. Problem was Kenny was now in the hospital, he had severe Pneumonia. I talked to him on the 18th of October, he assured me he was fine and would be out of the hospital by the weekend so we would rehearse for the show. I told him not to worry and that his health was far more important to me than the band or a show, if we couldn't do it oh well. I had my third and final MySpace session completed and ready to post titled "It Seems the Best Part of our Lives are Spent Saying Goodbye" (the title inspired by the great Elizabeth Taylor, Montgomery Clift movie "A Place in the Sun"), this was the most personal set of songs i have ever written in my life and the lyrics directly reflected the broken state of the band.

On October 26th 2006, i got a call from Andy as soon as i walked in the door at work...Kenny had passed away.

What? It's hard to wrap my mind around it even now, Kenny was only 34...last time i saw him which was only about 6 weeks before, he was healthy as a horse so it made no sense to me. I wasn't really concerned when i heard he was in the hospital with pneumonia because my dad has been in the hospital with pneumonia at least 3 times and he always pulled through and he's 63. I figured Kenny, at 34, would be back on his feet in no time. I was shocked to say the least and there isn't a time that goes by when me and Andy are together that we don't somehow figure Kenny in the conversation. I speak for everyone when i say we all miss him a great deal and there will never be a guy like Kenny again, he was a true original.

Kenny had mentioned that whether he was able to or not, we should still play the Halloween show. We were all present at the party but weren't sure if we were going to play until about 10 minutes before we went on...we played a short 6 song set and that was it, we were done. This was one of the only shows i purposely did not film, i wanted to keep this as a memory, not a video to be shared over and over. For the first time i wept, i was missing Kenny for a number of reasons...first he was my friend and i would never see him again, but he was also the only person i knew who shared my mentality of being an artist, i know that sounds stupid to be upset about but before i met Kenny (and even afterwards) the persistence to doing things that were counter creative in the band were always a source of frustration to me and it was so refreshing that he felt the same way i did. My joy came from within, it came from seeing my band mates grow as musicians, seeing myself grow as a musician, never from adulation of the people watching us or the money we ever made.

In the month of November i had a group of marathon sessions, the first was with me, Andy and Artie, nothing of use came out of this one but it was fun! Next Tony, his brother Eddie, their friend Norm, Artie and me recorded hours of improvised material that turned a few usable things, it was good to see Tony and Eddie doing well, and it was good to be creating with Tony again. The next night me, Andy and Marc got together and recorded a new song titled "The Ride Home", most notable for being the first time Andy and Marc shared vocal duties on a song. The next day i finished what would be my last solo session of the year titled "Break His Heart". The next session was the standout, on Thanksgiving weekend me, Andy, and Mike got together while Mike was in town for the holidays to record what is the last Sons of Godzilla studio recording. I had originally wanted to do this a little earlier, me, Andy and Spivey had talked about going into the studio and recording 2 songs, i figured we could get it together with some artwork, promote it as a Christmas single and sell it...then give the money to charity. However, time was an issue and this never happened, so with Mike in town we came together in my home studio and we gave it the old Sons of Godzilla try and we came up with what i would say is our best song to date! The song "Voids of Grace" was unlike anything we had ever done before as in the majority of our music was just straight up rock and this was spacey, beautiful, just vastly different than anything we had ever done before. As far as Thanksgiving goes, i was thankful we could come together and create this wonderful piece of music. We also remixed the song "She Says" from our second cd for this project, hopefully one day we will remix the entire cd again. I would have loved to do the charity thing but with no time to get it together for Christmas i posted the songs for free at the Ghoulland Records MySpace site.

In December me and Andy recorded our last session of the year at my house with Jason Williams which turned out one song, "So Sad", and it was.

That's it kids, the story thus far...it is now January of 2007, i am looking forward to working on many projects...everything so far is looking rosey and quite busy...just the way i like it. I hope in all of these blogs i never came off as bitter because i'm not (as with everything is life there are positives and negatives), in fact i am just the opposite. Never in a million years would i have thought in Brance's garage back in 1991, i would do the things i did, meet the people i did and play the shows i did...when all of this started i was just like any other young kid in a garage band, i just wanted to emulate my heroes and have a voice, luckily along the way i carved out an identity and found out who i really was, and on my own terms.......

The Strange World of Davidh - Chapter 12

The Strange World of DavidH - Chapter 12

"Rebuilding Myself" aka "The Long One..."

originally written December 13th, 2010

originally published December 13th, 2010

First off let's start out by saying that throughout this entire story i have bared no ill will towards anyone, actually the opposite...if it wasn't for each detail i would not be where i am today which is healthy in the mind, happy, and playing in a good band with people i really like (and like to play with). i have not embellished this story at all, i think i have actually watered it down in some of the negative areas so as to not look bad myself or make others in the story look bad, unlike previous chapters i have decided not to focus so much on the negative stuff, the past is just that, the past. - David Henretta

Ah, where were we, oh yeah 2007...after Kenny had died Andy and I decided to take a long overdue break from playing, no clue what he did but i put the instruments down and took a nice long rest. After about 7 months went by we started hanging again and the inevitable reared it's ugly head, were we going to put the band back together and who could we get to join us?

In the winter of 2007 i had a small party at my house, Andy and I invited a few people over to gauge their ability and cohesiveness, we wrote and recorded one instrumental song which just so happened to sound like disco era Black Sabbath (exactly). The only person that worked well at the time was a bass player named Shawn, moody artist type who at one time worked at our local head shop, Fantasy. It's funny, i wrote all that old stuff in Chapter 1 thru 11 and this stuff is the hardest to remember. We jammed, Andy, Shawn , and I over at some nameless drummer's house who was kind of a space cadet, can't even remember his name, we'll call him drum stool warmer #593, i wasn't playing through good gear...it was a mess. Now Shawn, he worked out for a little while but he had one problem, we had recorded a lot of music previously so of course that, for the time being was gonna be the bulk of what we would play. Problem was, he didn't want to play the basslines that were on the recordings which i found a little bit odd, i don't know, things weren't gelling and i find it so hard to tell someone sorry, were just not interested. The usual means of eradicating someone from the band were done, ignore all phone calls and emails...which by the way, is a sucky thing to do to someone!

Now, if someone i really want to play with informs me of any indication they want to play i go above and beyond to get them on board, so when Chad Cleaver called me up and told me he was interested in playing with us i immediately called up my go to bass player, Tony Rife, and there you have it, Instant Sons of Godzilla (patient pending) before your eyes. We established some ground rules, this wasn't Sons of Godzilla, no Sons of Godzilla songs, new band new songs only. This idea lasted about 5 minutes into the first practice, the Sons of Godzilla was an easy crutch to fall upon and we fell hard, it did give us an opportunity to rehearse songs that were recorded around the time we broke up in 2006 but never had the chance to play live, songs like I Really Wanna Love Her, If I Could, Into You, Red Wig, and one of my solo songs, Suicide is for Lovers. Also During this time i attempted to record another e.p. titled "Hallelujah", i recorded up to 15 songs to sift through but eventually only added lyrics to 1, being the title track. I padded the single out with 2 demo recordings i did the previous year on vacation in Nags Head, NC.

We started out strong, practicing as much as we could, (practicing in of all places...my house) talked about returning to the stage (which never occurred), eventually practices became far and few between, then the news came that Tony had decided he was going to move to another state and Andy was moonlighting with another band, Vessel, the band quickly fell apart. We did manage to sneak in a recording with Chad on the drums, "Into You" which remains one of my favorite recordings to this day.Tony had been drunk when we recorded the song so i took it upon myself to re-record the bassline. The last hurrah of this era was recording the BabyFarm song "Blow Their Minds (Start a Revolution), which we had no intention of recording but our replacement drummer for Mike back in 2006, Steve Spivey phoned up Andy and said he wanted to get together and record it, so we did. My brother didn't like our recording of his song, he never liked our recordings of any BabyFarm songs. I don't think it had anything to do with whether or not they were good, i just think he wished he was the one recording and performing them...not us. After we recorded the song, Andy went on to play with Vessel a bit longer, i participated in an aborted attempt to get another Ocaliflash record together (music was recorded but nothing was ever finished). I wrote and recorded up to about 30 solo instrumental demos during this period but only finished the vocals to about 3 of them. My interest was starting to wane. Also during this time, Chad, Keith Goodwin, and I tried to strike up a band but it just never gelled.

After all this you would think the Sons of Godzilla were done but not quite yet , there was still some life in this beast that just wouldn't go down...just a few months later, in 2008, we were back rehearsing with a member of the definitive version of SOG (the 5 piece) and with a different approach to playing live music.

So, we have another great idea, instead of having a bass player or a drummer we would record these instruments straight to tape and then play live to backing tapes...great idea except for one thing, energy, there was none, the shows were interesting and fun but were just a whole different vibe all together. It seemed like a great idea but under the surface it was the idea of a band gasping for life. The recordings that we committed to tape during these three years (2007-2010) were the best written songs we ever recorded in my opinion, in September of 2008 Sons of Godzilla returned to the stage after a two year hiatus, we played a venue in Nags Head, NC called the Outer Banks Brewing Station and by all accounts it was a good show. We played Schooners in Newport News, Va and the Brewing Station a few more times.

Halloween 2008 i recorded my last E.P. to date, "Bring me the Head of David", another concept E.P., this time dealing with the birth of my son, growing up, driven by the emotions of fumbling my way through the process of being a first time father. I recorded 20 new demos to choose from and trimmed that down to 4 to make up the E.P., at the last minute i recorded the intro ("Intro into Madness") and it was finished. Christmas brought another song (the MySpace Christmas gift song) which was recorded during the "Head' sessions, a proper re-recording of the "Hallelujah" track, "How many Luvers Will you Take", now renamed "La Partie Deux D'amoureux" which roughly translates to The Lovers Part II.

December 31st 2009, Me, Andy, and our families headed to Bristol, Virginia to visit Mike Bright and his family and we played a New Years Party at Mike's house with the classic line-up (Me, Andy, Mike, and Tony), it was great us four playing together again and a bit bittersweet because i knew that it would probably be for the last time. In January SoG in it's current form, Me, Andy , and Marc played the Brewing Station in what would be our last ever show, the last song we would ever play would be a joint effort with the headlining band the Dreadnecks and we played "Sabotage" by the Beastie Boys...ironic that our last song would be a cover, a crime for which i have fought against my entire band playing life!

In April of 2009 my wife was involved in a terrible auto accident which put our lives on hold so i had no choice but to put my music on hold to devote myself to my wife and her situation. I recorded 2 songs the first week she was in the hospital the one night i stayed at home to get that raw emotion, an original called "Will You be the One" and a cover of the Queens of the Stone Age's song "Gonna Leave You", these would be the last songs i have recorded to date.

In the month of August to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the debut Bliss cd, Marc and I put together an E.P. of new Bliss songs and posted it up on MySpace, 1 new song every week for 4 weeks, we also renamed the month of August to AugBLISSt. The idea for the E.P. was to record old Bliss material we never got around to recording and brand new material. The other idea i had was to incorporate original Bliss drummer Jay Walters in the recording process to contribute drums to the songs but unfortunately, this did not come to pass. On Halloween of 2009 Marc and I released a digital split E.P. of our solo recordings, because i was in a writing slump only one of my songs was new and the other song was from a session in 2004. After Marc and I finished promoting that thing to death on Facebook Andy and I slowly started to put a new band together which slowly drifted into SoG territory again. By this time i was so over playing, the chaos in my life coupled with the long break not playing in a democratic band environment had me reeling, i was retroactively back to being burnt out again, all i wanted to do was start over fresh. Now this isn't to disregard anything SoG did, but if me and Andy were going to continue on playing in a healthy environment it need to something completely new, new music, new name, new everything. In the end the fact i had somehow lost all power in my own band and that i didn't have much time to spare anyway left me no choice but to put my ball down and go home. With everything else i had going on i was just relieved to not be in a band anymore, one less commitment.

My initial plan was to go ahead and sell my head and speaker therefore insuring that i wouldn't play in any bands again. I made a trip to Ripper's to either trade or sell my equipment, i can't remember, and when i got there they were closed, that little bit of hesitation was all i needed to realize that i probably shouldn't sell my stuff, you know, just incase. In the meantime, i left a small message of evolution to a friend, probably went over their head but at this point i didn't really care...the vision was gone? So, in the musical dumps (if i was in a band i was unhappy, if i wasn't in a band i wasn't happy...just a state of mental collapse) i talked to Marc one day and he told me about jamming with a band over at Brian Spike's house, a mutual friend of ours, and i was just sitting here after we talked and decided to check out their MySpace page. I had kept up with Brian's band a bit, another mutual friend of ours, Jeff Carroll, was in the band as well. The stuff that i had heard before were practice recordings of noodler jams and pieces of songs but what i heard when i went to their MySpace page blew me away, Brian and Jeff both had been asking me to come over and jam through the years so i immediately called up Brian and asked if i could come over and play with the hopes (in my mind) that if i meshed well enough, join the band. The band was called Alpha Whale which i liked, always good that if your going to be in a band, you have a good name.

I decided a few days prior to the first meeting to run the 4 songs from their MySpace through my multi-tracker at home and practice along with them so i didn't go into the first practice/jam blind, not much different than what Tony and I did with Ocaliflash back in 2002. The first practice couldn't have gone better, i felt like i was reborn musically speaking, most important...i felt welcome. My initial goal was to go into this band with zero input, just show up and play, no hassles, no worries, this idea quickly came to an end because it was feeling so right to be in this band after just a few practices. To be honest, i wish i had taken their initial invitation to join up 5 years earlier because after spinning my wheels for the last 5 years it was good to be doing something productive with everyone on the same page.

So here we are, January of 2011, and i have drafted this chapter over a period of about a week or so and when i read it all back i wonder, does it really matter, does this story have any meaning and what does it mean to me? This is the story of my life, how i arrived at this point which is the final point in this story in many ways. Alpha Whale is like my musical nursing home so to speak, once this band ceases to exist i will cease to exist musically. I hope to put out one more solo cd before my run is over but if i don't it won't be a big deal, things change so much when you get older and you start a family, have children...you priorities shift, things that were so important five years ago don't seem as important now, with peace comes serenity. I have very little time to devote to music these days (once a week, twice if i am lucky) and that time is solely devoted to my number one music priority, Alpha Whale, the band that brought me back to life, the band that saved my musical soul. Undoubtedly there will be more chapters because i feel Alpha Whale has the potential to be really good and do some really amazing things, this band is probably the strongest band musically i have ever been in. If you have made it this far in the story i will end this particular chapter with this, never give up hope, something, someone, is out there for you, i have had to take this incredible journey to get to the place i always wanted to be,...i started playing music when i was 16 years old and at 35 i finally found my home. Till the next chapter...the End?