Dear Everyone,
I'd like to tell you the story of The Chop (through my eyes, anyway).
Once upon a time, long long ago, I desperately wanted to be in a band. I had moved to San Francisco and tried to hook up with other players over the course of two years but nothing ever came of it. It was more difficult than you might think to find people who were both willing to play/practice regularly and were in any way people you might want to spend your time with. Then I had a revelation: Starting a band with your best friends means nonstop fun, right? (even during revelations, I'm not 100% sure of myself)
A little history:
I met James when I was 10. We'd been hanging out consistently ever since. He met Johnny in highschool at about the same time I met Tom and Phil (who, separately, had been friends since they were 5). We became a group within the group, real tight. (We considered robbing banks as an elite unit to finance our endless summer, but instead got caught up playing NFL Blitz and lost interest). The five of us were brothers in every meaningful sense.
Johnny and I came to California together. Two years later, James announced he was leaving New York for San Francisco, and this was all the impetus I needed.
I approached Johnny who, at this moment in his life, knew near absolute zero about the playing of any instruments. I told him not to think about the answer before he gave it. "Do you want to play bass in a band?". One great thing about John is that he responds astoundingly well to this type of adventure talk and will approach near any dare with an unmatched zeal. He said yes, whereupon I solemnly nodded and began teaching him "the bass" on my electric guitar. It was slow going, but it was fun because we were friends.
James moved to town and I immediately went to work on him, talking up our then non-existent band. He agreed to start learning keys (again, basically from scratch). This arrangement (the three of us) went on for about 7 months with practice on Wednesdays and very few actual "songs" being played. It was slow-going and sometimes extremely frustrating...but we were such great friends and we were getting to hang out and work on something together, so it was good.
We hooked up with a drummer. He answered my ad that said "own drums? that's a start" or something in that vein. He was inexperienced like the rest of us and seemed to fit in. Phil moved to the city and stayed with me while looking for a place. I don't think I allowed him through my front door before I was suggesting he play guitar with us.
OK, at this point the band consists of Me (first band, but I'd been playing guitar for about 7 years), John (learning "bass" from a guitar player (me) for about 7 months), James (learning keys on his own for about 6 months), an inexperienced drummer we met on CL, and now Phil (extremely talented and seasoned guitar player). The four of us were the best of friends, so it was pretty fun. We started working on original tunes, the first batch included Taste of Luxury and Carry the Wood. Phil recommended we try a Talking Heads song (Slippery People) and the first time we played it it sounded (somewhat surprisingly) like a song.
This was the first moment it felt like we were in an actual band.
Tom showed up in San Francisco a month or two later. He was a talented and experienced bass player (he had played in lots of bands with Phil, and I had seen him perform countless times). Here's what happened next, in very quick succession: Tom was bummed that we were all in a band without him (understandable). Mysterious drummer chap left town and left me his drums (quite a winfall, really). Tom said "I don't know how to play drums, like, at all." Tom taught himself drums in three weeks. The five of us played all together for the first time on my 26th birthday (May 8th, 2006).
Progress was slow sometimes. We didn't always sounds great. It's difficult when skill and experience levels throughout the band are so disparate...but it was always fun because we sincerely all loved hanging out with each other. Eventually we played a show, then some more shows. I think that at many of the shows we sounded awesome. Our technically "inexperienced" band sounded great. This was it. My revelation from way back was being completely validated. Being in a band with all your friends was the best possible option, regardless of how technically skilled any single person was at their own instrument. Sounding good and having a good time were really about being with cool people and wanting to work on it. The guys who were just starting on their respective instruments (three out of five, if you're counting) really stepped up, practiced hard, and made it work. It was awesome on every level.
So we did that for awhile. More than likely, if you're reading this, you saw The Chop during this time. We played a whole bunch of shows in a few different states over a couple of years and wore matching outfits sometimes and did covers that we thought were cool. We did a 60s prom and two great Halloween shows in costume and played lots of great rooms (including Bottom of the Hill, which was to my mind the coolest club in SF, one of the first places I went to see music in California, and an almost impossibly distant goal at the band's inception).
"Fun" was always the primary goal. (Fun for us, mainly, but always in hope that our fun translated into fun for the audience). We barreled over the rough edges with an endless supply of energy and enthuasiasm.
Everything eventually ends, however. Phil made the decision to move back to Philadelphia. Johnny's interest waned as his various responsibilities changed. We played our last show as the original five friends from Delaware more than a year ago at Cafe Du Nord, billed as a release for our record We Want It All.
Shortly after that we recruited Aaron (Levin) to play drums, Tom moved to bass (the instrument he was the most skilled at), and we were a four-piece with one guitar (me). We were a new band with about 700 copies of a CD from an old band. With this in mind, we played about twenty-five shows as The Chop in order to promote the disc and get rid of the inventory. This took about a year.
Last fall James (amicably) opted to stop playing with the band. We picked up Eric Murriguez as a second guitar player. Now we are a four-piece band again, with two guitars. I am the only person from the original lineup playing his original instrument (recall that Tom switched to bass). Hence, The Chop is most certainly no longer in existence. As the new band preps songs for a full length album to be recorded sometime this year, we were offered a great show opening for Japanese band Polysics at our favorite venue Bottom of the Hill. This seemed like a great time to both take the gig and announce the retirement of The Chop name even though, for reasons I've elaborated on above, The Chop (at least, as it was first conceived) could reasonably be argued to have ended some time ago. Thanks to everyone who helped make it fun.
The Chop ends (officially) and a new band begins slash continues. We're arguing about names now...
This band is:
Robert Kassees: vox/guitar
Tom Monaghan: bass / vox
Aaron Levin: drums / vox
Eric Murriguez: guitar / vox
sincere,
rob
