When I was in high school, I convinced a few friends of mine to form a band with me. We called ourselves Mind Trixx. Why that name, I have no idea. But it was cool. And we thought we were cool. We would hang out in my parent's basement for hours, smoking cigarettes, playing video games, watching cult movies, sneaking off to indulge in the occasional joint, and of course rocking out until the sun came up the following morning. Eventually, we had enough songs that we thought were good enough to record. So, we packed up our gear and headed all the way down the street to another basement -- though, this basement was in the home of a family-friend who happened to have some recording equipment. And over one glorious weekend, we rocked out the best we could.
The result, a really hideous basement recording, but it was all in good fun.
Man, we thought we were aces! We really thought we were going to have it made! We were young, cool and awesome at video games! Oh, and the music was pretty good too . . . or at least, we thought so.
The band obviously broke-up -- most bands do, whether basement, local or national -- but one thing you (as a musician) can never do is quit. I never quit playing music. In fact, neither did the bassist of Mind Trixx, Mike Lawson. Together, him and I stuck through thick and thin and went on to form other bands. Today, we both play for the band Silver Cypher . . . and with a little luck and wisdom, we actually managed to get out of the basement; thouh he still plays video games, I still smoke cigarettes, and we still sneak off to indulge in the occasional joint -- just kidding (but not really).
Nevertheless, whenever waves of nostalgia wash over me I reach for that Mind Trixx record. It's quite comical, honestly, but still awesome! I mean, come on, we were high school kids . . .
Check it out:
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| I'm the one on the fence . . . |
To quote The Coneheads, "Ah, memories! We will enjoy them!"
Awesome! Love those basement bands. I was in a few myself: Geppetto's Puppet (grunge/alternative), Trauma (also alternative but usually darker), and Pallet (sludgecore metal). I honestly always preferred the act of jamming and writing together more than the performing itself. Not that we didn't have fun when we performed, but there's something about that whole writing process and sharing it with other guys, you know.
ReplyDeleteThe sound of Mind Trixx isn't that bad, really. Nothing to be ashamed of. You actually had a pretty quality recording as opposted to our stuff with my previous bands which was typically recorded with tape decks on boom boxes.(I do have one professional 4-song demo on CD of Pallet, but it is from after I left the band because I was working full-time in addition to being a full-time student so I'm not playing on the recording -- it's still cool because they were songs we worked on together).