It’s been over 10 years since I played in Echo Juliet and I know one of the first questions to pop up on your mind is probably, “James, why do you still care about that group?” Because I liked it, that’s why. I still like us. As a musician one of the main criteria for me being in a group is: If I was just a regular person and not in the band, would I like the music? Yeah, I would.
Also, another big reason for this whole EJ page is that if you, wonderful visitor, were to search for Echo Juliet info on the web, you wouldn’t find any. With all the different EJ web pages that have been, but no longer are in existence, there was never any indication of any of the past and history of the band. Obviously, after my time with the group, I’m sure Christine didn’t care too much about the past, she dealt with the present. I can’t blame her for that, but it was like we as a band didn’t exist. And then when Bryan, Wiley and I started 3 Penny Opera, on the website it was like our time in Echo Juliet didn’t exist. I didn’t agree with that because 3PO never would have existed AT ALL without Echo Juliet. I don’t know why Bry and Wiley do the things they do, I’m only speaking for myself here. Like I said, this Thing exists because I feel that the group Echo Juliet deserves a little corner of the web to document its existence. Since no one else is going to do it, it’s up to me.
If I remember correctly, it was originally Dave Cloyd’s idea to start the band. Dave somehow knew Christine at the University of Texas. I believe that Wiley and Dave lived in the same dorm and knew each other from there. Bryan has known Dave since high school, and that’s where I met him as well. Dave met Christine and found out she was a budding songwriter. Dave thought the songs had potential and thought that she needed a place to show off her material. Dave talked to Christine, Wiley and Bryan and all was done. It was named Christine Ely and Free Thoreau.
The band played their first gig in 1994 at the annual Jester Jamfest, a springtime event where a few UT-based bands would perform for the day out on the volleyball courts next to Jester Dormitory. I was still a senior in high school and I think I was in Austin that weekend for my College Day. I havea copy of the videotape from the show and in it you can see me up front bobbing my head to the nice pop music coming from the group. At the time I thought they were pretty good, but I remember watching the video a few years back and, well, they weren’t. Bryan’s equipment kept malfunctioning, pretty constantly through the performance. It was funny. (Bryan had a bad habit of buying crappy equipment for a LONG time. He’s since fixed that problem)
I got onto the UT campus in August of 1994 and started my freshman year. It was probably a month or two later that I was talking to Bryan one day and he asked if I wanted to play in Catholic Fallout (as it was called at the time) since Dave had decided to not do it anymore. I wasn’t playing with a group, I liked the band, and it was another chance to play with Bryan in a band. We were good friends and had been connecting very well from our 2 years in Miniver Cheevy. So I thought, yeah, that’d be cool.
Apart from the first Jamfest gig and a few parties, Catholic Fallout didn’t do too much playing. I remember the first time I played with them, Wiley was an R.A. at Moore-Hill dorm and we practiced in his little dorm room. I had hung with Wiley a little bit at the Jamfest gig, but it was around this time that we started to hang a lot and become the Heavy Metal Soul Brothers that we are.
We practiced for a few months and had our first gig at Pato’s Tacos on Manor Rd. in Austin. I believe Wiley booked this for us. I think the gig was sometime early in the spring of ‘95. I still have a copy of the set list, but I did not (for some stupid reason) document the date. Maybe one day Wiley or Christine will be able to find out exactly what day it was on. I don’t think we got paid, but we did get a pitcher of beer and a pitcher of margaritas. I had to stealthily drink them since I was only 18. It was a fun gig; I had a tough time remembering all the material, but I think I did OK. I can still remember it, and I was pretty damn nervous. The setlist consisted of songs that would become Echo Juliet “classics”, songs that we played up until the end. It was a good mix of covers and originals.
Pretty soon after the gig we decided to change the band name. Catholic Fallout was good for a nice little laugh, but not a good band name. And it didn’t fit us. Christine came up with the idea of Echo Juliet. It came from her sister, Jennifer, who was in the armed forces and her initials (using the military language: Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta, Echo, etc.) were of course Juliet Echo. Or, as it is in the military, last name first: Echo Juliet. Christine thought it made a good band name, so we went with it. I like the name. I still do. I think it fits the group really well. It’s not that serious of a name (like Death, or something) and people recognized and remembered it pretty easily. I always had people say they’d heard of the band whenever I mentioned I played in “Echo Juliet”. That’s what a name is supposed to do, stick in people’s heads.
Our next gig was at the 1995 version of Jester Jamfest and our first under the name Echo Juliet. After another time at Pato’s and a coffeehouse gig, we played our first Real Club Gig at Emo’s in Austin. Emo’s is known for hardcore punk and alternative type stuff, so how does a pure pop group get in there? We were doing a benefit for KVR 9, the UT Student TV station. Skander played with us, it was a fun gig. It was also my first time to go to Emo’s.
On 9/16/95 we went into the studio to record our demo. It was recorded at Music Lane Studios in Austin and was engineered by Steve Titley. Steve and Echo Juliet ‘produced’ it. We recorded 3 songs that day, the first time in a studio for any of us. Three of our standards, Zoe, Confusion and I Know You were put on tape. We were all pretty nervous, that’s evident in Wiley’s time fluctuations in Zoe. The seperation booths were weird as well, I was used to standing right next to all them and now I’m here in a whole seperate room. Big time learning experience. In addition to the four of us, we had Manuel Gonzales play percussion on a few things (he would frequently guest at gigs) and Eve Lewandowski, Christine’s best friend, do some backing vocals. Steve was a really cool dude, but he didn’t have a ton of experience behind the board. Regardless, he did a fine job and really helped us with the arrangements of the songs. We recorded on the 16th and came back early the next day and laid down the vocals (I can’t remember if we did them on the 16th or 17th) and mixed it. I remember we were in a rush because we were all going to see REM that night.
After recording the demo we started to play at more clubs and on 12/18/95 we played our first gig at Steamboat. Steamboat was THE club on 6th Street. Everybody has played there. It was the ‘home’ of Stevie Ray Vaughan and countless other Austin bands. Steamboat would pretty much serve as our home base for the next 6 or 7 months. The 12/18 show brought the debut of 2 more of Bryan’s songs: College Radio and Don’t Let Me Be Alone Tonight, an old Cheevy standard. The next gig, debut-wise, was more important I think.
On 1/17/96 we played our first gig of the new year at Steamboat. That night we debuted Waiting in the Cold, a collaboration between Wiley and Christine, Adam and Eve, a duel-vocalled chunk of pure pop written by Bry, Still, a slow one by Christine and most importantly Bill, my favorite song Christine ever wrote. Bill was a watershed for Christine the songwriter. Before Bill, all of Christine’s songs were very simple, 3 chord I-IV-V things that dealt with the topic of love and were musically just basic pop. Simple Relationship songs. We 3 males had been pushing her to write more stuff that was different and a bit more than just 3 chords. Most of the pressure was from me. And with Bill, she totally surpassed what I thought was possible from her. Here is a college aged girl who has been writing acoustic-based love songs for a few years and suddenly she decides to plug in her electric, crank the distortion, and write a song that was lyrically and musically her best, something that was pretty heavy and REALLY catchy at the same time. I think Bill really did make the most serious change to our sound. I’m not saying it was like Dylan when he went electric or anything, but for a small band in Austin it was an important moment.
For the next few months, we played a lot of gigs, got a lot better, and increased our small following. March 1, 1996 was a pretty important day for me individually. We played a Battle of the Bands that night, and usually a March evening in Austin, Texas is a nice night. Usually. This particular night, we were playing outside, my bass had fried itself a few days before so I was using Christine’s bass which only worked when it felt like it, and it was DAMN COLD out there. It had to have been in the 40’s. I think I wore shorts, maybe; but I at least know I did wear short sleeves. Anyway, it was a horrible gig, my equipment didn’t work, it was freezing cold, we played pretty bad (I did at least) and we ended up losing. But, the whole redeeming event of the night was the meeting of a girl named Julie, who would go on a few years later to become my wife. So some good did come out of it. [side note here: the contest was won by Bear (thanks Eve), but more importantly we played against a band called Numeralia whose bassist was David Cerequas. We made friends with them and many years later Bryan and Wiley ended up in NYC, saw David and remembered him and got him to join their new band, Simple Thing. Funny how things happen.]
Starting in the spring, once the weather got nice, we did weekly gigs on the west mall of the UT campus. Of course we got the idea from Twang Twang Shock-a-boom, who got their start playing on the west mall. It was a great place to spread our music and sell tapes, and it was free. We played from 5-6 every Tuesday evening. We did it in the spring and then again in the fall of ‘96. Those shows were really more like fun practices and not so much real gigs. I guess that’s why I never kept extensive details about the whole thing.
For our entire existence so far, Wiley was our acting manager and did all the booking. He didn’t request a fee, he just did it because it needed to be done and he took it upon himself. After a few gigs, we brought on Christine’s best friend and roommate, Eve, to handle the money stuff. In the summer of ‘96 I had moved back home like I did the summer before. Since the band wanted to keep going while I was 3 hours away for a few months, we decided to get a guy named Tracy to help us out on bass whenever I couldn’t make a gig. He only ended up doing 2 shows with the band. We were playing some real good gigs that summer, including our first one in Dallas at a place called the Stone Pony, formerly Stimpy’s. For some reason that gig really sticks out in my mind as the time when everything started to slowly head downhill.
As Eve became more involved with the band, she started to take on more responsibilities. In addition, she started to give Christine more advice about what the band should be doing. (Side note here, I know it’s starting to sound like Eve Killed The Band. She didn’t. We all did. I love Eve to death and I’m still really good friends with her, so please don’t read too much into what I’m writing. I just want to tell what happened, m’kay?) At the Stone Pony gig, the band got into an argument over the setlist. For (I think) the first time we chose sides: the guys versus the girls. The more that Eve became our ‘5th member’, the more pull that Christine started to have. Christine now had an ally, her best friend and roommate, and someone who wasn’t afraid to tell us guys where to stick it. At the time Christine didn’t have the self-confidence to stand up to us. She does now.
OK, look at it this way: 3 on 1. 3 strong headed males against 1 kinda weak female. Even though she wrote 90% of the material and was the ‘leader’ of the group, we still made all the decisions. It wasn’t something we realized at the time, but we 3 guys pretty much made all the decisions about the group, Christine’s group. Naturally she didn’t like it and she needed someone on her side to balance everything out. Eve was that balance.
Anyway, we guys wanted Don’t Let Me Be Alone Tonight in the set and the girls didn’t. We liked it because it’s not only a great song, but Bryan gets a nice solo in it. For the girls it was a huge tempo let down and for our debut in Dallas, at a bar near SMU that they frequented a lot, we needed constant energy to go over well. We argued a lot about this one stupid song and the guys eventually relented. We ended up having a great gig and of course the girls were right, but that little thing was an important moment.
Near the end of the summer I was at home one day and I got a call from Bryan and Wiley. They told me that Christine and Eve wanted Eve to take over as manager and booking agent. It really wasn’t even a “we think Eve would do a great job at this”, but more of a “Eve’s the new manager.” As Bry and Wiley told me about this, I knew it wouldn’t work. So did they. See, Wiley is a great schmoozer. He knows exactly how to talk to club owners and the people who booked the shows. He’s so good at this that he’s got his own management and artist consultation company, Coyote Music. Eve on the other hand, could care less about being great friends with the booking guys. Eve doesn’t like to put up with a lot of b.s. and when she booked shows for us, the conversation only revolved around securing us a date, time and payment. It always seemed to me that club owners and booking guys like Wiley-types better than Eve-types. I also think Eve had a serious disadvantage because she’s a female.
Bryan, Wiley and I discussed all this that day. We knew that in terms of promotion for the band, Wiley was a better manager. I wanted to question the girls about this and refuse to allow it, but Wiley and Bry said that if we did then the band would end right then and we didn’t want it to. I knew they were right, but it still irked me. We 3 knew that, eventually, this decision would kill the band. We talked about this. It came down to, do we want it to end right now when we’re just starting to take off, or keep going with it knowing that one day it would come back to bite us in the ass. We chose the ass.
It was now official that Wiley was relieved of all his non-drumming duties and now we had Eve as the 5th member of Echo Juliet. From now on, anytime there was any disagreement (except for once, I’ll talk about it later) it was ALWAYS Guys vs. Girls.
One of the major things that changed once Eve took over the booking was that we pretty much stopped playing Steamboat. There were a few gigs there, but the guy who booked the shows there didn’t like Eve too much, so instead of fighting a losing battle she smartly chose another club for the band to have as a home base. It became Babe’s. We only played Steamboat 4 more times within the next year, and one of those (for our CD release party) was booked by Wiley.
Once the fall semester started back up we started playing occasionally with a violinist named Edward Park. Ed lived in Wiley’s dorm so Wiley pitched the idea to us and we thought a violin would be a nice touch. We only played 4 gigs with Ed along, but it was more than enough to make an impression.
We started to talk about our next recording project. The demo tape was selling pretty well and we had just about run out of the first batch. The ideas thrown around were record another tape (longer than 3 songs), record a CD, or just press some more copies of the demo. We didn’t really want to do any more copies of the demo because we felt kinda bad for selling it to the fans. I think we sold it for like $3 or $5 or something. But after a while, we didn’t want to keep selling a 3-song tape, we wanted better product. Since we were only a little college band, the fundage available for recording was limited. If we did another tape we could put more songs out, but if we did a CD the audience would get something of much better quality. Honestly, who wants to listen to a damn cassette? Not me. However, recording a CD would mean less songs (CDs cost more money, less money to spend on recording means less time spent recording, which means less songs).
Wiley absolutely wanted a CD. Bryan sided with Wiley. Christine did not. Eve did not. My thinking in this whole thing was that up to that point, Echo Juliet had released 3 songs. We had about 20 originals in our repertoire with more on the way. I thought it would be best to do another cassette, record at a better place, get real good quality, make something cohesive and release as many songs as we could. The more songs that the audience can take home and hear, the more they’ll know the next time they see us. So I agreed with Christine and Eve and said no to the CD. We wanted another tape. Somehow something happened and we did a CD. I guess that Wiley talked to them and somehow he persuaded them to go the CD route. Maybe he threatened to quit, I have no idea. Whatever happened between them, it was decided that we’d do a CD and record it in Dallas this time.
Much research was done and the decision was made to record at Planet Dallas Studios. A lot of famous Dallas bands had recorded there (Toadies, Tripping Daisy, Reverend Horton Heat, Jackopierce, etc.) and what they recorded there was all of very good quality.
We booked the weekend of November 16/17 for the studio. I remember it took us a while to find it that Saturday morning, since the studio is a converted house. The outside looks just like a house, but of course the inside is quite different. Planet Dallas is a very nice studio with great facilities. The engineer for the session was Amado Carrasco and he was an extremely cool guy. I had blown my amp out a few days before the recording so I had to rent an amp for the recording. I don’t think I had much time to mess around with it and get a good sound…actually I think Wiley was the one who picked it up and brought it to the studio. But either way, the first time I touched this new amp was in the studio. I didn’t have much time since we had to worry about setting up mics and getting a good drum sound. The sound Amado got from the amp was totally horrible, no low end at all. Ugh, it was just real bad sounding. I told him I wanted to make it sound right before we started recording. He said to not worry about it and we’ll fix it in post-production if there were any problems. I didn’t believe him (let’s get the sound now, not later) but I had no choice but to go along with him since he was the engineer and I wouldn’t get my recording studio experience for another year. The bass sound never got fixed by the way.
We figured we had enough money to record 4 new songs, so we decided to go with Bill, Nothing, Her and Bryan’s Sunshine, a song that had been on the original Miniver Cheevy demo and one that we had played at nearly every EJ gig since the first one at Pato’s. Except for the beginning sound problems, once the tape started rolling it was so much fun. Both Bry and Christine got kick ass guitar sounds for Bill and it rocks so hard. A great way to kick off the CD. I do some nice playing throughout the disc. Hell, everybody played their butts off on the thing. We did a pretty big production for Sunshine, fancy intro, 3 guitar tracks, Bry’s backing vocals, the whole thing. It took him a while to nail the solo, but he eventually did and it’s a good one (he wasn’t happy with it). One of my favorite memories of the whole session was on Saturday when it was time to eat, the three guys pitched in for a big ol’, greasy ass bucket of KFC. That was some damn good food.
We recorded all the instrumental parts on the Saturday and when we came in on Sunday to start on the vocals we found that most had already been done the night before. Christine and Eve stayed late the night before and got 90% of the vocals down. So Sunday was used for the rest of Christine’s vocals, Bry’s backups, mixing and sequencing. I think we finished around 10 at night or so. 4 tracks really weren’t enough and we wanted to add more to the CD. We brought along the master DAT from the demo sessions and decided to stick those 3 tracks on the CD as a bonus. They sounded better than they did on the tape, so it was considered a small gift to our fans. (yeah, hey fans, we’re giving you something you already have, it just sounds a little better and is easier to play) The cover of the CD was a picture of Wiley’s bass drum head that a friend of his, Meghan Williams, designed for him.
The next few months were spent getting the CD ready for release. We had it mastered in L.A., so that made it all seem more ‘official’. We finally had our CD Release Party at Steamboat (booked by Wiley) on February 20, 1997. To help get people out there, we cut a deal with Double Dave’s Pizza for them to provide free pizza for the show and we plugged the heck out of them. I actually had to pick up the pizzas and bring them to the club. We got a moderate turnout, we were a bit disappointed, but just the fact that the four of us now had a CD, that was a big thing. Turns out Wiley was right about this one. Too bad the band didn’t last another three months.
After the CD release party we were all pretty stoked. We now had nice CDs to put up on our mantles (Christine, in one of our post-break up meetings, angrily told Wiley that the only reason he pushed so hard for the CD was because he wanted something to put up on his mantle…to show off in other words). Like I’ve said many times before, I still like the thing and I think I do some good stuff on it.
A few weeks after the Steamboat gig we played our first (and my only) South By Southwest gigs. Now, they weren’t ‘official’ SXSW shows, but they were during that crazy week and on 6th Street. Somehow, it qualifies. Wiley knew the guy who ran Spirits, a dance club on 6th, and they figured that for the week instead of the usual dance club thang, they would have bands play. I believe Dexter Freebish played both shows with us. The show dates were March 12th and 13th, a Wednesday and Thursday. These shows were both really fun and we had good crowds for them. I did do a bit of walking around and got to experience a little bit of the madness of SXSW.
I don’t remember the exact date (shoulda kept a diary back then), but it was a Saturday morning in either March or early April of 1997 when we did our audition for the ‘97 Jester Jamfest (for some reason we skipped ‘96, after doing the previous two). Being JJ veterans, we snobbishly felt that we shouldn’t have to audition for Jamfest but we did anyway because it was always fun to play. The audition went well enough, of course we got accepted, but something happened during the course of the 15 or 20-minute audition. Something between Wiley and the girls. I remember being outside of the little building and getting ready to load up the equipment and Wiley coming out and telling Bryan and I he just quit the band. “What?” A few seconds later Christine and Eve came out and I tried to say something to them but they just hurriedly left the scene, VERY pissed off. I remember Eve said something particularly nasty to Bryan (of course I don’t remember what it was).
So it was then the three of us, with me being the most dumbfounded about the whole thing. I knew Wiley had been less and less enthusiastic about the band for a long time. Yeah, more or less ever since Eve took over as booker and manager. Coming back to bite us on the ass indeed. Over the period of that 9 months or so, what used to be a friendship between Wiley and Christine and Eve evolved into an INTENSE dislike between the two sides. Bryan and I both had our problems with them, but overall they were just regular problems that bands have. For Wiley though, it was just some serious dislike. Same for Christine and Eve.
I guess sometime during that audition, it came to a head and he quit. Bryan and I knew it was coming sometime, but I (foolishly) hoped that putting out the CD A MONTH AND A HALF AGO would keep us together for a lot longer, at least until we fully promoted it and sold out the first pressing. But Wiley did what he felt he had to do, he couldn’t stand working with either of them any more. Another crappy thing was that we still had gigs lined up until mid-May, including our first show in Waco and the Jamfest gig we had just got. It was agreed that Wiley would do the gigs that were already booked and then that would be it for Wiley.
I don’t remember if it was that same day, or a few days after but Bryan was the next to quit.
I’m saying this right now, and for the record, that there was NEVER any kind of conspiracy for Wiley, Bryan and James to mutiny, kick Christine out of her own group, and form a new one. We all quit at different times, for different personal reasons and with no intention of forming a group within a group. It just kinda happened that way and it really did look like we planned some huge take-over of the band. We didn’t, I swear.
A week or 2 before Wiley quit, Bryan had received the letter saying that he was accepted into the Graduate Program for Physics at the University of Colorado for the upcoming fall semester. Bry had no idea what do to about this, and I know he struggled with the decision. He really wanted to continue his education (good back-up plan, you know), but also was enjoying the band. He thought about deferring a year, but he wasn’t sure. When Wiley made his decision, Bryan then made his. I guess he thought it was a good time as any to jump ship, since he decided to go to CU in the fall. Within a few days, half the band had quit and now it was only James and Christine in the band. Christine and I didn’t discuss my position in the band and she and Eve just assumed I’d stick it out with them. I didn’t.
Yeah, I know this all sounds really, really bad. We totally got a bad rap for all leaving the group at about the same time. Like I said, we didn’t plan it, it just happened that way.
I’m guessing it was maybe a week or so later that our mutual friend and #1 fan Christina was having a party at her place. Wiley and Bryan stayed away since they knew C & E would be there, but I went because Christina’s my good friend and I didn’t have any major problems with C & E. I knew that I was going to quit as well, and I had a feeling that it would have to be discussed sometime that night. “James, we need to talk to you outside”, Eve said. I thought, “great, here it comes. I have to go out there and tell them I’m quitting too and totally break up the band. Wonderful.” I went out on the balcony and the first thing out of Eve’s mouth was, “Are you going to stay in the band?” “No, I’m quitting too.”
My decision came like this: at the time I felt that as a musician in Echo Juliet, I would not benefit any more from it. The music was definitely not going to move into a more ‘progressive’ direction and I also knew that I would never be challenged by the music. Absolutely nothing bad against Christine here, I think she’s a really good songwriter and I liked nearly all the music in EJ, but musically we’re in different places. I’m restless and I like having to play at the edge of my abilities. That’s the thing I loved so much about Cheevy, that Bryan, Dave and I pushed ourselves, each other, and the music to the farthest point it would go, and then kept pushing. Echo Juliet wasn’t like that. We were, for good or bad, a pop band. A fun band to listen to and see live with really good songs, but we would never become a King Crimson or Beatles. I knew this and I had to admit it to myself, no matter how much fun it was, I wasn’t being pushed or challenged.
I was wanting to get back to what I was ’supposed’ to be doing, playing music more like King Crimson; music that was super challenging and absolutely fearless. I wanted to re-dedicate my life to my bass and start really practicing and taking lessons to be the bassist that I thought I should be. I told all this to Christine and Eve, and I think they understood. They knew I was being honest. It really hurt them, but they knew it was for real. I stressed to them that it wasn’t a big conspiracy, I’m leaving for my reasons, Bry was leaving for grad school and it was only Wiley who had any personal problems with them.
For the Jamfest show, we brought back Ed Park to play violin with us. We played a good show and it was fun as always. I think Wiley has a tape of this show; I don’t. I have a tape of the 3/28 show at Babes, which is pretty damn good. After Jamfest we did another show at Babes on April 25. We had our last 2 gigs lined up for May 15th and 16th. The 15th was our first show ever in Waco and the 16th one final time at our home, Babes.
The Waco gig (at Scruffy Murphy’s) was a ton of fun. Even though school was out and most of Waco was deserted, we had a packed house with an extremely drunk Baylor audience. We played our asses off and I totally tore my fingers up from playing. The next night was the last one. Bryan and I did a very immature thing and decided to wear our graduation robes for the show (it was my idea, unfortunately); you know, like we were ‘graduating’ from this little band to something better. That was really, REALLY stupid of us and I still feel bad for doing it. Anyway, besides the robes thing, which Christine just rolled her eyes at and ignored, we again played our collective asses off. We knew it was the last one, 90% of the audience knew it was the last one, so it was something special. My fingers were still torn up from the night before, but I proceeded to shred them once again, making it so I couldn’t even pick up my bass for a week. I think there was blood both nights.
Bryan and I told Christine we’d help her audition for a drummer and whatever else she needed. We were there for the drummer auditions and Bryan even stuck around as a favor for the next gig she did. She had her new drummer and bassist but hadn’t found a guitarist yet. It was a nice gesture on Bryan’s part, except he got totally trashed for the performance and played like total crap. I was very pissed at him for doing that to Christine, it was a very crappy thing to do. For a long time, each of us three guys were jerks to her at one point or another. I’m glad we’ve all grown up, but it still bugs me that I did such immature stuff to a friend.
The whole ‘Conspiracy of Bryan, Wiley and James’ thing really started to come out when we started up 3 Penny Opera with us, Ed Park, Manuel Gonzales, and a singer named America Alva. It wasn’t even a month after the last EJ gig that 3PO had our first gig at our old home of Steamboat.
I still followed Christine’s progress as she got the new band together and would go see them whenever I could. After a few lineup changes, the band eventually morphed into 100 Days. I saw the band, at Babes, a few weeks before I left Texas for North Carolina in the summer of 2001. I wasn’t totally sure how Christine would react to me being there. I mean, we’d seen each other a lot since the breakup, and each time it became friendlier and we talked more, but I still wasn’t sure how she’d be. I get there and she gets the biggest smile on her face and runs over and gives me a gigantic hug. We talked a long time outside about everything that’s happened to us since the band, and the band itself. It makes me really happy that everything has finally worked itself out. I thought 100 Days sounded really great and I loved hearing their version of Nothing. That put a big smile on my face. In September of 2001 that group morphed into Bag 100 and has since become She Craves.
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