Behind the Music: The Cycle

I was a band geek in high school. I have no problem admitting that. I'm not entirely sure I'm not still a band geek. C'est la vie.

HOWEVAH! In addition to being a band geek in high school, I was also in an actual band. Believe me when I tell you this: it was awesome. Ready for the story? Good.

When I was in fifth grade, I knew I wanted to be in the school band. I'm not entirely sure why. I just knew it was something I wanted to do. Naturally, as I'm sure every boy wants, I wanted to play percussion. My parents were...less than enthused about the prospect of me banging on drums all day.

So I picked the clarinet. Pardon me while I adjust the tape on my glasses. Don't get me wrong, I thoroughly enjoyed playing clarinet and do not regret the choice, and by the time I graduated high school I was actually pretty good at it. But you know. There it is.

I always wanted to play drums in a band. When I was a freshman in high school, I made extremely loose plans with some friends from my neighborhood to create a band where I'd play the drums. Needless to say, it did not happen. For as long as I could remember, I'd air drum. I'd use pencils on notebooks. But the fact remained: I'd never played a real drum set.

Fast forward to my junior year of high school. I'm still playing clarinet. It was just after the marching band season, and we were at our end-of-year band banquet. My best friend Jon came up to me and asked, "Hey do you want to be in a band?" Yes I do, I told him. But I don't believe there's a place in a real band for a clarinet.

"No, you'll play the drums."
"Jon, I've never even been in the same room as a real drum set. I don't know how to play."
"That's OK. I'm going to play guitar, and I don't know how to play that."

Well then. We were off. We recruited a bass player (Jay, who actually played trumpet), a keyboard player (Lindsay, who actually played flute), a trumpet player (Andrew, who, in addition to playing trumpet, owned a drum set and actually played very well) and a trombone player (Chris, who actually did play trombone).

And yes, I do still have those red drumsticks in the picture.

So we became a band. Andrew was kind enough to bring his drums (at which he was, to reiterate the point, quite good) for me to use, since I didn't have any. The first time I ever sat behind a real kit was our very first band practice. And trust me when I tell you this: it most definitely sounded like it. Look, there's a 0 percent chance we were any good when we first started, but we had something going for us. All six of us had been in band forever, so we were all extremely musically inclined. We picked up our parts fast. Well, as fast as 16-year-olds are going to pick them up.

We were trying to come up with a name, and we joked we should call ourselves Wash Cycle. Our first album would be "Rinse," naturally, and our second would be "Tumble Dry." Our greatest hits collection would be called "Suds." It was hilarious at the time.

And then I stopped and said, "well, what about just The Cycle? Why couldn't that work?" And just like that, it stuck. We were The Cycle.

We practiced every week. We all found we loved just jamming and playing together. Eventually (finally), I convinced my parents to buy me a drum set. Another guy from marching band was selling his old kit, and I was able to get a decent CB set for like $200. It wasn't going to win any awards, but it had all the pieces. At that point, I just needed to play.

It was so much fun. You don't even know. I got some excellent noise-canceling headphones and started playing along to my favorite songs at the time (a LOT of Reel Big Fish [not much has changed], Blink 182 and Boston, if I remember correctly) just to get a feel for playing. I never had any lessons, so I was just figuring it out as I went along.

The band party took place in December 1998, and we continued to play throughout the winter and spring. For St. Patrick's Day that year, our marching band was invited to play in the St. Patrick's Day parade in DUBLIN. Yes, really. In my life, I cannot imagine seeing more people than I saw lining the streets of Dublin as we marched through. Once in a lifetime, man. Unreal.

While we were in Ireland, the band decided we needed to have our own "Abbey Road" photo. Like you do. However, we found the whole "taking a picture while we're walking across the street" thing to be prohibitively difficult in downtown Dublin. So we improvised by standing in front of a ridiculous church, still in Dublin. Sadly, I do not recall what church this is any longer.

A few things about the photo. We were exhausted because we'd just marched in the several-mile parade. Also, I don't know why Lindsay isn't there, nor do I know what Chris, Jon or I are looking at. And I can only assume Andrew just sneezed. Give us a break. We were 16 years old.

We recorded a handful of songs and played exactly three "gigs" in our brief career. The first was in Jon's backyard not long after we formed, with all of our way-too-excited parents in attendance. Awesome. And yes, there is video evidence of this, and I do believe I have the VHS of it somewhere around here. Actually, I believe I have video evidence of all three of our gigs somewhere. I'll have to find them.

Anyway, the second was over the summer of 1999. There was a contest/showcase in Concord, N.C., for bands involved with one of the guitar teachers at the music store where Jon and I worked. He heard we had a band and invited us to play. We played four songs, and I thought we really killed it that day (as T.J. Lavin would say [GUILTY PLEASURE ALERT!]). That was a fun day, even if we got lost on the way there.

The last gig was at the band party where we formed a year earlier. We took this one probably less seriously than we should have haha. I don't remember us being bad, by any means. We had actually gotten pretty decent playing together, considering almost none of us knew how to play our instruments when we formed. But you know, we were goofing around and just having fun.

I have to brag for a second. We did write one song, called "Let Me Know," that I love to listen to still today. It's on my iPod. I burned it to CDs when it was still cool to burn CDs for the car (it's not anymore, right?). And, considering we were 16 years old when we wrote it, I think we did a pretty damn good job. It's still the first song I play on my drums when I get a chance to play.

The great irony in all of this is 13 years later, Jon and I are actually pretty decent at our instruments now, and we haven't played together in years. Sigh.

Little did we know, The Cycle was the first of many things Jon and I would do together that would have been seriously awesome if we truly dedicated ourselves to them haha. More on those in future posts though.

In the meantime, we're always in the mood for a reunion. Nothing big. A few new songs. Mostly old stuff. So please don't hesitate to contact me for booking information.

Seriously though. There is nothing like the experience of playing music on stage (no matter the audience). It's an unrivaled adrenaline rush. Utterly exhilarating. If you can do it, I cannot recommend it highly enough.

I'm out. Back on Friday!

-BG