A long time ago I used to play guitar in a band called The Gypsy Mechanics and we played a ton of shows in mostly the Northeast corner of the U.S. Morgan wrote most of the songs and there were lots of them - I think at one time we counted somewhere around 3-400 original songs. And the kicker was that most of them were really good - so the songs I was writing - it wasn't that they were bad but damn - we already had a lot to choose from. So sometime in 1997 or so I started recording my first "solo" album. It wasn't because I was unhappy in the G.M.'s but because I loved recording and had a stockpile of songs that were never going to get recorded in the G.M.'s.
That turned into "My Affect is Appropriate" released in 1999 and under the name Bobbo. Why just Bobbo? Well, during the course of the recording - things happened. I ended up not being in the G.M.'s anymore and felt I had something to prove - so I played almost all the instruments on the album - Tracy was just learning to play bass so she played on some of it, my buddy Jeff Turner did some great leads on it, Bob Nash laid down the beat on the drums - but I played guitar, piano, accordion, hammond B3, mandolin, lap steel and bass as well as sang the songs. So it was pretty close to a solo album.
So we played a bunch of shows calling ourselves Bobbo. Hell, it was my band - I could do that! At this time the lineup was me on guitar/vocals/other stuff, Tracy on bass and vocals, Jeff Turner on lead guitar, Tom Walsh on drums. We had our cd release show in September of 1999.
Stuff happens. Bad stuff.
Jeff Turner was my best friend and my best man. He was the guy that when you'd be bitching about something he'd turn to you and say "you know..." And he was always right. I met Jeff when I was lost in high school and finding him I found myself. He made it o.k. for me to be me. He was a great guitar player a great friend and when he died in October 1999 it shook the foundations of everything.
Tracy and I soldiered on through 2000 - our songs during this time were pretty bleak; "falling down", "too soon", "can't even laugh", "you've already flown." That last song written for Tracy's brother who had also passed way before his time. It was a dark period. At this time we were playing as a trio with Jimmy Mahony on the drums. We tried a few guitar players but...
Sometime around September 2000 Tracy and I decided to pull up the roots and head west until we ran out of land. So we told Jimmy we were moving and then booked the recording session to capture what we had been working on through most of 2000. We called Bob Nash and set up the studio time. Tracy, Jimmy and I started recording at 7 p.m. Tuesday night and by 7 p.m. Thursday night it was mastered and on a cd and we called it "Stan's Garage." It was an homage to our friends who worked the garage and kept my crappy cars running for years as well as the idea of fixing and repairing which is what the songs were - they got us through some crap and helped us, well, they just helped. The song "too soon" which Tracy sang was an open letter to Jeff that I wrote and borrowed lines from Lawrence Ferlingetti's poem 20 from A Coney Island of the Mind - "...the leaves cried as they fell, too soon! too soon!" And summed it all up. I remember trying to play the guitar solo to the song and couldn't get it. So I took Jeff's guitar out, pulled one of his guitar picks out and first take - there it was.
We drove West just like the song said. We heard the call.
Played some shows in late 2000, early 2001 and still calling ourselves "Bobbo" just didn't feel right. Tracy was doing more and more, she had started writing more songs, and we couldn't call ourselves "Bobbo and Tracy" that would've been dumb. So we set out to find a name. One night while sitting around playing guitar I started playing an old song of ours called "find some light" and the chorus goes "I'm just a fallen star that never shown, did you never see the flames that I had thrown?" Hmm, that sounds pretty cool. How about "Bobbo and the fallen stars"? Yeah, I didn't like it either - makes me out to be an ego maniac. So we started calling ourselves The Fallen Stars, partly inspired by Gram Parsons "Fallen Angels" backing band. Around this time we found ourselves involved in some of the Alt.country scene in Los Angeles and the patron saint of all things alt. country is of course Gram Parsons and there we were in Joshua Tree at Gramfest eating dinner with Polly Parsons. New Year's eve 2000 I was playing guitar with Sonny Mone (former singer for Crazy Horse) opening for Los Lobos at the Ventura Theater. We started the band Hawkeye with our friends Kalai King, Jeff Bell and Dawn McCoy opened for Chris Whitley and Robert Earl Keen at the legendary Roxy on Sunset. That was a pretty sweet 30th birthday present.
But we had to get back to the Fallen Stars - the alt.country is nice but we needed to rock some more. 2001 saw us go through a handful of guitar players and a keyboardist or two and maybe even two drummers. The mix wasn't right yet. One night after rehearsal we decided to fire our drummer, we were tired of his vegetarian lectures and mostly his lame drumming. It's better to be without a drummer than be with one that sucks. I think we learned that from Lea Thomson in Some Kind of Wonderful. Then one day I got a call from Chuck Rogers. We met up, he came to rehearsal and you know what? He rocked! I remember playing "January" and thinking - damn! That rocks, he had style, feel and he and Tracy grooved! We ended up filling out the sound with Danny Ott on guitar and J. Williams on guitar and keyboards.
We spent 2001-2003 playing all over southern California and recording what would end up being "found & lost" and released that in January 2004. We recorded it in our rehearsal room at Bomb Shelter Rehearsals with James Trace at the controls at Alpha Omega Audio. Released to some pretty great reviews including a few that said nicer things than even I would have!
2004-05 saw us playing a lot of shows. We played every dive we could find - twice! We opened up for the Church at the Coach House, traveled to the inland empire, the east coast, Idaho, were nominated for a couple Orange County Music Awards and started working on our follow-up to found & lost. During this time we recorded a lot but never released any of it. It wasn't right, we were having trouble getting the sounds in our heads to come out of the speakers. We were having a hard time holding it together. Danny Ott wasn't doing many shows with us, J. Williams moved on to the Breakups and we had Jamie Adams on guitar. Jamie also arranged for a great weekend in Idaho playing at the bar "Outlaws and Angels." We heard that they were using our song "double down" on radio spots and thought it would be great to have a song called "Outlaws and Angels." We wrote the song in the hotel room next door and performed it live for the first time at their bar.
We got back to Southern California in October and started working more on our new album, and then Chuck announced that he was leaving the group and we filled the drummer position with Dan Mark, a local studio/session drummer, and had some fine shows and started recording again...
In December 2005 we were asked to play a Christmas gig at Bomb Shelter and for the hell of it we invited Chuck back to play with us - it was better than ever! Through a stroke of luck we met up with Duston Erwin - a saxophone, guitar, mandolin player. Duston brought this great southern soul, this Louisiana spice to the band and brought songs like "raining in hollywood" to life. But our time as a band together would be short lived. Duston got offered a great job back in LA (the other one) and had to leave. We played a bunch more shows and started recording again...
In April 2006 Chuck told us that he wanted to move home to Georgia, we all shed tears and had our long goodbye.
It seemed as if the future could be seen without wearing sunglasses.
April 2006, I get a phone call from John Vowell, we had done some shows together and we knew each other from the rehearsal studio, it was early in the morning and I don't remember all of the conversation but I do remember him telling me that he was the new drummer in the Fallen Stars. I said something along the lines of "O.K." and it was seriously the easiest decision we ever made as a band. We played a few shows as a trio, The Back Alley, The Marlin Bar and then we had a bigger show coming up opening for The Blasters at the Coach House. I made some calls and got our buddy Al Carey (who replaced me in the Gypsy Mechanics and had turned out to be our east coast lead guitarist) to travel out for a visit and play the gig with us. I told Duston about it and he wanted in too. It was a highlight of 2006.
Around the time of this Coach House gig I was talking to Gregg Braught, who was playing in another band at the rehearsal studio, and invited him to a rehearsal. The rest, as they say...
John joined the Fallen Stars in April 2006. Gregg joined in June 2006. It has been the most productive year in Fallen Stars history.
In early 2007 we started (re-recording) work on the follow-up to found & lost. This time we're making the trek up to Malibu to record in an intimate setting with a great vibe. For now the sterile studio isn't our thing. For now, we're working slowly and building a great album, one song at a time. We decided that keyboards would really help fill out the sound we were going for - I think Rami Jaffee's studio contributions might have added to that thought. And while we couldn't convince him to give up his gig in the Foo Fighters we were able to get him to play on a lot of our album and we started looking for a keyboardist. Geoff Geib had long been a fan of the band and was secretly learning how to play guitar to our songs. He and I got together, I showed him the correct chords and then we started in on mandolin and keys. Turns out he used to play piano as a kid. And it all fell together.
It's April 2007 right now and I think I need some sunglasses.
Now here we are in August of 2008 and a lot has happened in the past year. Sometimes I forget that there's all this info out there and needs to be updated from time to time.
So in January 2008 we made the finals in two categories of the Orange County Music Awards; "best live band" & "best live acoustic band". We're sitting in the audience and it is a great feeling to hear them call your name. We took home "best live acoustic band" for 2008. Which is nice. We have that going for us.
It took a long time to finish "Where the road bends", we recorded a lot of stuff for it and most of it didn't make it. We had to rerecord and go back and do this and that and drum sounds and edits and, and, I'm boring you - I can tell. But trust me it wasn't easy. In the end some songs that we really wanted on there didn't make it. They'll have to be on the next one. We (and when I say 'we' I mean 'me') decided that it would be cool to release a live cd at the same time. We had done this show at the Coach House and our buddy Ryan had recorded it. Now, it was a decent enough show but when we hear it back now we realize some things could've been a little bit better. "Vaya con Queso" is that live album. None the less, it's a nice line in the sand of where we were and where we are going. That's all albums are - they're just time capsules of ones and zeroes in the digital world. And "Where the road bends" is meant to signify something coming, new stuff around the corner.
Well, that was a few years ago and a lot has changed.
The end of '08 saw us get a new drummer in Brian Matteson, we played live on Daybreak OC (television) be featured on Time Warner News (television) win The Orange County Music Award for "Best Country/Americana Band", win the SoCal Live Music Competition for "Best Live Rock Band" & "Best Live Acoustic Band".
Then in '09 we played over 100 shows. I don't remember much of it. I seem to remember spending a lot of time in a van.
Oh, I do remember composing the theme to Kevin Pollaks talk show, wrote some songs with a new friend Chuck Roberts for a Showtime tv series, another one of our songs was used in a Trojan commercial, we contributed music to a few short films.
As of today, it's the middle of July 2010, we have a great new drummer in Gary O'Yeah. We're about 1/2 through recording our new album, talking to some folks in Europe to hopefully visit them and play some music, planning some regional touring.
I think I'm leaving out a few facts...
