Mark, Michael J., and I (Joe) have been friends playing music together off and on since grade school. Sometimes just two of us, sometimes the three of us would get together to jam at each others houses, nothing serious. As time went on the three of us continued to play music, making it a serious part of our lives, though separately. We each had some success playing in local bands, both cover and original. Ironically enough, we even competed against each other in a few battle of the bands competitions.
In 1996, after all our bands broke up, Mark, Michael J. and I, along with several unreliable bass players, started jamming regularly in my garage. We played a mix of cover and original songs and we called ourselves Tee-Pee Insurance, briefly. Our jam's got longer and we played later into the night, much to the neighbor's dislike. We usually rehearsed till midnight and when we were done we continued to party, listen to tunes together, build huge fires, and hang out in the hot tub with all our friends that helped turn every Joe's Garage rehearsal into a concert.
We started recording every note of our rehearsals for future reference and over time we compiled over 40 dat tapes of music. Now, for those of you who are as technically challenged as I am and unsure of what a "dat" tape actually is, each one holds, literally, hours of music. Some were just cool jams, some complete songs, and some bits and pieces of songs in progress. Surprisingly, most of it was very usable and inspiring. Mark and our sound man Zombo were always busy mixing and cataloging the tunes and every week we looked forward to getting our CD copy of the previous week's rehearsal. We used cassettes, so having CD's to work with made our lives much easier. I can't express enough how crucial it was, and still is, having all that music we created at our fingertips so we could finish what that initial inspiration started. We have been able to capture that magic and energy in real time for a chance to recreate it, or better yet, improve it.
So...after the third or fourth visit by the police for noise violations, we decided that we better do some insulating and sound proofing in the garage. It was a rather large garage, so we were able to section off half of it with foam, insulation, and several ridiculous blankets. It was actually pretty cool and it worked. It was very sound proof and it had a recording studio look and feel. No more police visits, at least for now.
The garage had become our home away from home and things really started to take off from there. Shortly after that point, we dropped all our covers, continued writing, recording vigorously, and changed the name of the band to "Joe's Garage".
But...we still had bass player issues. We could not find the right fourth member of Joe's Garage. We were getting ready to fire the current one when he quit, which was actually a relief. We began our determined search for a bass player starting with a list of names that we had from a previous ad we ran.
The first guy that we called wasn't a bass player, go figure. He wasn't a musician at all. In fact, it was a wrong number...what gives. So as I'm about to hang up, he says, "Hey I know a guy who plays bass though". What? Am I hearing things?... "Yah, his name is Jeff, he's pretty good, let me grab his number". Unbelievable, right? Disaster waiting to happen, of course.
We called him in for an audition. He was a lot younger than the rest of us and he didn't have a lot of experience, so we were a bit skeptical UNTIL we heard him play. He locked right into a song that he had never heard before and fit right in. He could definately play and displayed a lot of natural talent. He had a great feel for the bass and things felt pretty comfortable at this point.
We asked him to join the band and he was into it. It was a perfect accident! We had found our bass player and Joe's Garage was complete. This was about 7 years ago and Joe's garage has remained intact and very busy ever since. Although, we don't practice in the garage anymore, it does remain a significant and important part of the band's history. I moved in 2000, so we had to give up our garage and move into Michael J's basement, where we still rehearse today.
After years of jamming, writing songs, and playing local clubs and bars, the hard work had really started to pay off. Around mid 2004 we started catching a few breaks. The songs were getting better and we had grown individually as musicians and together as a band. The gigs got better also; throughout 2005 we have opened for several national acts receiving great reviews. We have been recognized by several local clubs and publications for our accomplishments such as Performing Song Writer, Scene Magazine, and Cleveland Magazine.
