Workin' on that graveyard shift...

In late 1994 I joined my first original music band.  When I tried out for them, I didn't really know anything at all about the St. Louis music scene - I was, at the same time, still playing bass for a cover band out of Washington, MO called Shameless, and that was my only experience with a real band.

I remember going to this dude's house down on Osceola with a bass and amp I borrowed from my buddy Dwight (I had been using the bass and rig belonging to the lead guitarist for Shameless, and didn't feel it right to borrow that to try out for another band).  I was walking in as the prior audition-ee was walking out.  I plugged in, and you could barely hear me - it just wasn't that powerful of an amp, but I guess what they did hear they liked, and so I became an official member of The Maurys (we practiced on Maury Ave. on the south side of St. Louis).

We played a couple of shows under that moniker, then one night at practice, Tom walked in and said "What do guys think of calling the band "Free Dirt"?  It was cool with all of us, so Free Dirt it was.  We started getting a pretty decent name around town, even scoring a regular gig every 2nd Saturday of the month at the Way Out Club, which was rapidly becoming the place to play for up and coming bands - it was well known that all the hip kids were hanging out there. 

We started getting some press here and there (including a little blurb in "Billboard" magazine - we all thought that was the coolest thing in the world!), and most of it was good!  We kept getting compared to this band "Uncle Tupelo", which to the guys was the coolest thing - quite an honor.  I, still in the waning days of my "Heavy Metal Youth" had heard the name, but didn't know the first thing about them, or this relatively new musical genre people were calling "Alt-Country".   In fact, until very recently I had never even really listened to any Uncle Tupelo album in it's entirety!  Kinda funny being compared to something you've never even heard!

Uncle Tupelo inspired hundreds of bands in the 90s, and even today.  Shoot, there's even a magazine (now only available online, but which was around for almost 20 years) called "No Depression", named after UT's first album of the same name!   Many of them can be found on mid-90s compilations such as "Out Of The Gate Again", which we were thrilled to be included on!  I remember playing with such amazing bands as Caution Horse (another Belleville,IL band which was actually helped along by Jeff Tweedy of UT, also from Belleville), Stillwater (man, did I love that band!) and the Highway Matrons (who sounded absolutely nothing like UT, but still, for some reason, got lumped into the same genre). 

Anyway, Free Dirt was around in earnest for about 5 years, then we went our separate ways, Tommy forming Fran, then Leadville, Danny going to Earl (which I also spent some time in) and The Homewreckers, and Greg eventually going to The Quaaludes.  I, of course, went on to Rocket Park and Earl, and now The Janson Gates.  We "Dirt Boys" keep getting back together for "reunion shows" every once in a while - in fact we've played more actual shows than my current band has this past year!   And we may keep doing so, so watch out - we may just rock yer face off!

Well, today I decided that, in honor of the Dirt, I would do some brown.  In fact I did a couple of browns.  I've really had a great time reminiscing about all of this, actually - found quite a few articles here online, actually, that I had never seen before, such as this review of a show we did to promote the "Out Of The Gate" compilation.