Sorcerer


A while back I received two cassette tapes from an old friend and band-mate of mine. He’d found them in his attic a while back and thought I might get a kick out of them. The tapes are from 1980 when I was fourteen and had been playing guitar for a year or so. As you can see in the picture, the band was called Sorcerer and consisted of me on bass, Barry on guitar, Alan, who had the tapes, on keyboards and Don on drums. We played all our own music and the two tapes are of us playing live, once at a spring rock festival we put on in the schools multi-purpose room called “Up-chuck” and the other at a coffee shop downtown.

Though it’s hard to listen to both tapes from start to finish, so far the highlights have been my truly awful bass solo, Don’s drum solo, the sound of the poor mans Farfesia keyboard Alan played and the titles of all the songs. Love Bites, Vanishing Breed, Going away for a while, Rockin’ The Neighbors, Don’t Worry About The Morning among others. Like anytime you find a way to look back at your life, whether through video or tape or even photos, it can be both hilariously funny and thoroughly depressing, often at the same time.



The tapes have been sitting in my studio for the last four months, waiting for me to digitize them and put them onto a CD. I’m not sure why it’s taking me so long to get it done. Every time I go in there and see those tapes, I quickly think of something else I could be doing. Anything else is just fine, so long as I don’t have to listen to the tapes squirming in my seat with that feeling in the pit of my stomach.

Right now though, I’m under a bit of a self-imposed time crunch. Both Alan and Barry are having their twentieth high school reunion at the end of August and I told them I would get them a copy on CD so they could both have a laugh and I guess, so I wouldn’t be the only one with that feeling in the pit of my stomach.

As I said last week, Ike goes into the hospital on Friday for surgery and after that I don’t really know how difficult it’s going to be getting into the studio for any length of time. That leaves this week to get it done. Lately it’s been feeling like Poe’s telltale heart beating under the floorboards with that sense of urgency and dread.

When I listen to it I remember the black cape I wore at the beginning of the show, the fog machine we rented that didn’t work very well, making tickets on the schools mimeograph machine and cutting them out with one of those long-knifed paper cutters. I remember we had a concession stand where we raised funds for the school band by having a bake sale and how I met a girl names Katia who came to the show and became my first (and only) German girlfriend. I remember failing English and fighting with my teachers and the principal over stupid shit that even today, still doesn’t mater. I remember a lot of faces but not many names.

I’ve still got a few days left so I’m sure it’ll happen, but not without me waiting till the last minute to get it all done.

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