Featured Band

April 2005 - The Static Octopus

Tery Daly is an enigma wrapped in a riddle wrapped in a mystery wrapped in a corn tortilla. It's a wonder that between playing guitar in Suzy Dreamer & Her Nightmares, drumming in The Master 8000, running Starcityscene.com and all it's related events, and working a day job that Tery actually has time to do any of those things, let alone do them so well and make them look so easy, but on top of all that, he's found time to shoehorn another band, one he refers to as "his band", in there.

The Static Octopus has a long and bumpy past of fits and starts, lineup changes, name changes, but above all else, it has a LOT of great songs! After years of working to put and keep together a consistent lineup of the band, he's finally got one that he's happy with. In addition to Tery on lead vocals and lead guitar, T.S. Octopus also includes Dan Hutt (Near South Davenport) on rhythm guitar and vocals, Scott Stanfield (Prairie Psycho, Floating Opera) on bass and vocals, and Jeff Gustafson (Sad Old Lady, Minutia Stew, Suzy Dreamer & Her Nightmares) on drums. I chatted with the members of the band to find out where they came from, what they're doing now, and where they're going. 


Q: How and when did The Static Octopus form as a band?

Tery: Hard to say, but let’s officially put it at Jan of 2005, because that’s when Dan joined the band. Backing up a bit, Jeff Gustafson and I started recording “Here Comes Nothing”, our soon to be released CD, almost 2 years ago. I saw Jeff playing with his band Minutia Stew, and asked him to join the band. He was the first on board, and we started recording soon after that. We had recruited a few other friends to play some shows, but it wasn’t really a “real” band. Scott Stanfield I knew as a guitarist in Floating Opera, but didn’t know he was also a bass player, and a very good one, until Richard Rebarber recommended him. After his band Prairie Psycho played at Scenefest 2, I mentioned that I was looking for a bass player and it worked out that he was able to do it. Jeff, Scott and I started working in the fall of 2004 with Chanty Stovall on Guitar, but after about 5 or 6 practices, it became evident that wasn’t working out. Chanty is a great guitar player, and a great friend, but his style of guitar playing just wasn’t right for this band.

I had decided over a trip back to N.Y. over Christmas ‘04 that we needed a new guitar player. I didn’t have anyone lined up or anyone in mind for that matter, but I was really hoping it wouldn’t take that long to find someone. Dan Hutt I knew of through my friend Dan Kaspari. I had met Dan H. a few years ago, and he told me about his band, then named The Davenports, and based on his description they sounded like something I’d really like. I kept an eye out for them but never saw them scheduled to play anywhere and assumed they had broken up or moved or something. Right after my N.Y. trip I went over to hang out at Kaspari’s, and he put on a CD by his friend’s band that was called Near South Davenport. It turned out to be the same band with a new name, and they blew me away. The type of stuff Dan was writing was very similar to what I was writing, and as soon as I heard his writing, playing, and singing, I was like “Holy Crap, that’s the guy I’ve been looking for.” The next day, I e-mailed Dan and sent him this very long, rambling, yet very heartfelt and sincere message trying to convince him that even though we didn’t know each other at all, he was absolutely the guy I needed in my band. I offered to send him some of my recordings and he could decide after that. I totally didn’t expect he would join, because he was already fronting his own band, why would he need to play in mine, but he said really like my music and would be happy to join. I was delighted when he did, because I finally had a really strong lineup. I wanted to change the name of the band for about a year, but couldn’t come up with ANYTHING. I had about a million names but wasn’t happy with any. Amy came up with The Static Octopus and we switched to that in about Nov/Dec of 2004.

Prior to The Static Octopus I had been doing Starboy and Creatures of Habit which were mostly just recording projects that would occasionally play live when I could cajole friends into learning a set of songs. I would have liked to have been playing all the time then, but couldn’t because I could never find people to play with.

Dan: That sounds about right.

Q: How would you define your sound to someone who’s never seen you?

Tery: I guess like British Invasion and 70’s influenced Power Pop or Indie Pop combined.. It’s kind of both contemporary and old sounding at the same time. Some of it’s heavy, some of it’s jangly. Outside of some very obvious comparisons to bands like The Beatles, XTC, & The Hollies, Some of the comparisons that writers have made in reviewing previous releases of mine are: The Byrds meet Led Zeppelin, Sparklehorse, Guided by Voices, The Move, Oranger, The Kinks, The Pretty Things, The Apples in Stereo, Olivia Tremor Control, The Shoes, Redd Kross, Nick Lowe, Marshall Crenshaw, The Soft Boys, Status Quo, Simon & Garfunkle, The Turtles, 20/20, Syd Barrett, and one of my all time favorite comparisons, The Partridge Family on downers, but that was more referring to my earlier lo-fi psych period.

Dan: I agree with Tery. It seems to me pretty straight-forward power-pop, which I love, with Tery's own twists, of course. A couple of songs really remind of XTC and a couple of the Records.

Q: What types of music and which musicians/groups influenced the band members growing up?

Tery: The Beatles and other British Invasion stuff were probably the biggest influence on me. I was the youngest in my family, so my older sisters were the perfect age to be into that stuff, and my mom loved them too, so I heard The Beatles a LOT when I was growing up. Being from a musical family I was very musically aware from a very young age. When I was little, the biggest stuff on the radio was The Beatles, & The Beach Boys, I used to listen to a lot of Oldies radio which was mostly playing Doo-Wop because in the sixties the only oldies there were was music from the ‘50’s. I guess I was born with a natural ear, because I could pick out and sing all the harmonies on the Beach Boys, Beatles and Four Seasons songs I'd hear on the radio and that’s the style of music that most resounded with me, it felt “right”. I listen to and love a huge variety of music, every kind of rock you could name, jazz, blues, classic country, and a lot of it influences my playing, but as far as writing goes, it’s always 2-3 minute pop songs with melodic bass lines, jangly guitars, and lots of vocals.

Dan: I also was the youngest in my family, by a long ways. My earliest memories of music are being in our house upstairs in the summer (probably of about 1972) and having my brothers, Jim and Tom, put the headphones on me from their new hi-fi sets. Jim would play me "Barbara Ann" from the Beach Boys, and then I'd go across the hall and Tom would play me something by the Beatles. And there were always lots of great 45s around the house from them and my Mom, stuff like Peter, Paul and Mary, Simon and Garfunkel, etc. So I grew up with that, and in jr. high my sister Ginny and brother-in-law Bob got me into New Wave stuff like Yaz, Squeeze, XTC and the Human League, not to mention Cheap Trick, and I sort of took it from there. In college I discovered Trip Shakespeare and now I hang out with Randy Watson of the Return a lot, and he's introduced me to lots of new and old stuff that fit right into those molds: things like Super Furry Animals, the Zombies, Jason Falkner, etc. My friend Charlie Burton has also re-turned me onto the beauty of the 45 record, and gotten me into lots of new/old stuff like the Searchers and the Everlys that way. But for me it all stems back to those Beatles and Beach Boys records. Most everything new I get these days doesn't fall far from that tree.

Q: Do you prefer writing/recording or live performance?

Tery: Well I absolutely adore recording, it’s just so much fun. It’s probably the closest equivalent to “play” in a childlike context that I can come near as an adult. I have so much fun recording because there’s no limit to what you can experiment with, and it’s always a learning experience, either when you get something exactly the way you want it, or on the opposite side of the coin, when you totally stumble onto something great by accident, it’s just so much fun. I really like to play live as well, now that I’ve got a band to do it with. I suppose I’m not as comfortable fronting a band as I am just being a member of a band, but I don’t have any problem doing it, like, I don’t get nervous before shows or anything.

Dan: I love both. I love the control aspect of recording, though I'm still really feeling my way with the whole thing. I think I'd go crazy, though, if I couldn't play live at least once in a while. Even if it was just a house party or something. I've never really played out live a lot yet, and I want to experience that--particularly playing in other cities, etc. Unlike, Tery, however, I still get nervous as hell before every show.

Q: You said you wish you’d been playing live more over the years, with your own band, but you’d been playing in several other bands during that time? What’s up with that?

Tery: Well yeah, over the past few years, I briefly played bass in The Atomic Pigs, The Honey Hush was together for about a year, and died when Charles freaked out and fled the state. Suzy Dreamer & Her Nightmares evolved out of that. The Honey Hush had like 5 or 6 shows booked including a couple supporting with The Holy Ghost while they were coming through on their tour, and we didn’t want to cancel out of all of them, so we just decided to switch over to doing Kristen’s songs. I’d always liked her freaky dreamsongs when she’d do them occasionally with Lori Allison and her sister Meghan, so we decided to give them the full-fledged psychedelic band treatment, and so basically that bandstarted right when The Honey Hush stopped.

The only reason I was playing in other bands, but not my own was because I couldn’t find people who could or would play with me for a number of reasons. Power-pop isn’t a style that’s particularly popular, so not everybody even wants to play it. I’d been looking for a drummer on and off for about 13 years before finding Jeff. Bass players are always difficult to find, but it’s difficult to find people who can play my stuff. Most people in Lincoln know me as a guitar player, or now as a drummer too, but I’m actually, before any of those things, a bass player. Bass plays a very lead role in all my songs, and finding people who could play it hasn’t been easy. My music all has a lot of vocal harmony as well, so I need people with a really good ear who can play and sing well, so finding the combination of people who are into the music, available, and have the talent to do everything I needed them to was very difficult. I can’t tell you how happy I am to have this band together right now!

Q: What’s Up with Suzy Dreamer now?

Tery: Back in December, we took a planned break from playing live to work on new material. Kristen had like 5 or 6 new songs demoed that she played for us, and was supposed to get us copies of, but never did. Sometime in January or so Kristen and I talked about it, and determined that we were both really ready to stop doing the Suzy Dreamer thing for a while anyway. She’s really busy with school and working two jobs, I’m busy getting this band off the ground as well as drumming in The Master 8000 which is also a very new band, Jeff and Amos are playing in Sad Old Lady, and will probably be starting up with Minutia Stew again pretty soon, I heard some new stuff Michael is writing, which kicks ass, so it’s actually all working out well for all of us. When she’s less busy with school, maybe later in the spring, we might get Suzy Dreamer or something else we’ve talked about doing up and going.

Q: What do you like and dislike about the music scene in Lincoln?

Tery: Obviously as part of my work with Starcityscene.com and A Situation, I’ve discussed this quite a bit with both musicians and non-musicians alike. Without going into a really long dissertation on this, because believe me, I could, first I'll say that just the level of talent in Lincoln is just incredible. If this town only turned out a Nick Westra, or a Dan Jenkins or a Jack Rinke, or a Greg Cosgrove, or a Randy Watson, or a Pat Bradley, or a hundred other songwriters I could name, would, and could be enough. The fact that ALL these songwriters of incredible caliber all come from the same town is awesome, they may not all be from here originally, but they’re all doing
their major work here.

I like that the scene is now a lot more cohesive than it’s been at some times in the past, more people coming out to support the bands, more of the bands supporting each other. I think that's a BIG plus. It's still a lot of the same faces, there are just more of them then there were a few years ago. It's also stuff that I think people take for granted. For example, It's awesome that the venues in Lincoln are very friendly to original bands, in some towns original bands almost can’t get gigs because venues much prefer cover bands because they draw a lot more people, and the people are more willing to support cover bands than original bands. Lincoln is now, and seemingly has always been very friendly to people writing their own music. Many bands, even those interviewed here say they wish there were more venues, but really the fact that there are even a dozen or so venues in Lincoln that support original music regularly, is really great.

Dan: Although I've been in Lincoln since college in the late 80's and have been "around" the Lincoln music scene since then, I don't go to the bars that much unless there's a specific band I want to hear, so I've never really felt like I've been "in" any sort of scene. I appreciate places like Knickerbockers and Duffy's (although I've not played there yet) a lot for providing a consistent place for bands to play original music. Of course, Tery himself has been an absolutely incredible asset, all by himself, to this city's music scene in the promotional work he's done. We should all just give him money, as far as I'm concerned. Beyond that, I will say that I've been disappointed at times that more people don't turn out for certain great shows. As Tery mentioned, power-pop or 60's vocal harmony-based music isn't exactly the vogue right now, but it still stuns me that someone like Lincoln's own Matthew Sweet has to go to Omaha to do a show, and even then it's for less than 200 people. Something's not right there.

Q: What is the name of the new album and when does it come out?

Tery: It’s called “Here Comes Nothing”, and I’m not sure when it’ll come out yet, hopefully soon, like this spring or summer. Like I mentioned earlier, it’s been done for a while, so I’m ready to get it out and start working on the next ones. "Here Comes Nothing" is just Jeff on Drums and me playing everything else, so I'm looking forward to recording with the whole band.

Dan: It's called "Diver Down", and it will be out this afternoon.

Q: What was the first instrument you started to play? How old were you when you began playing? Did anybody (relative for example) influence you to begin playing?

Tery: I can play just about any instrument you put in front of me, but I started on guitar when I was about 5 years old. My dad played guitar, my mom played guitar and ukulele, and they both came from musical families, so I got it from both sides. I never took a music lesson in my life, I taught myself to play out of chord books, which explains why I play upside down, I never had anyone to correct me. I had to teach myself in private, cause if my dad had of found out I was touching his guitar while he was out at work, he’d have kicked my ass. He used to tell me all the time “Don’t touch that guitar if I’m not here”. That’s probably the best thing he could have done to get me to play, because I couldn’t wait until the door would close behind him to go run into my parents bedroom and get it.

Dan: I was originally a drummer, from age 7 when my parents bought me my cousin's old used trap set. I only started playing guitar at around age 16, only because I wanted to start writing songs. I took a few lessons to learn the chords and a few scales, and that's all. For me the songwriting and the vocals have always been the focus of it all. And that's exactly why I'm still not much better on guitar than I was at 16, because I use it only as an instrument for writing and not to be good for it's own sake. I need to practice more and know the theory more, but it bores the shit out of me.

Q: Who are some local bands or musicians that you admire or feel should be recognized?

Tery: Ideal Cleaners, and specifically Dan Jenkins as a songwriter, Nick Westra is one of the most talented people I know. Richard Rebarber & Floating Opera, Rent Money Big, Charles Lieurance is incredibly talented, but does more to sabotage his talent then he does to use it.

Dan: No question in my mind, the Return is hands-down the best band in this town, and probably the Midwest. Those guys, as only a 3-piece, can do it all: great songwriting, 3 members that each sing very well, and musicianship that blows my mind. The range of music they can speak about intelligently, from Donovan to the Super Furries, is pretty impressive, and Randy's technical/recording prowess is formidable. Ted Alesio is the best drummer I've ever seen, Randy is a fantastic rhythm or lead guitarist, and Bob is truly like McCartney on the melodic bass. And they're just really nice guys. I get to hear them every week as they tolerate me at their rehearsals.

Also, Dan Kaspari has a great pop sensibility and more guitar-playing talent in his pinkie finger than I'll ever know. I'm anxious for him to start doing some more live stuff too.

I also like For Against quite a bit, and I'd be remiss if I didn't mention Jon Baker, formally of the Gladstones, as being probably the greatest pop voice Lincoln has seen in the last 30 yrs.

Also, my bandmate Tery is an amazing talent: a great guitar player with a great batch of pop songs that it's hard to screw up. Sorry for the excessively long answer.

Q: What band would be your dream band to tour with?

Tery: Holy hell, Do I make people answer this every month? What a bastard! That’s a tough one…Beatles, anytime. I’d have loved to play with The Soft Boys at some of their earlier gigs. Pink Floyd, 67. I would have loved to have gotten to tour with Guided by Voices. Hmm.The Apples In Stereo, Oranger. Those are just bands that I think would have been a good match up with our music, I would have loved to have toured with Stones in 67or 69-72, The Who in their very early days, Hendrix, Led Zep for some old school debauchery. Ya know who else, Thelonious Monk, I would have loved to have hung with him for a while, because you hear stories about what an enigmatic freak he was. I would have loved to have gotten to know him and to see him live. When the other members of his band would solo, if they were really kickin’ it, he’d get up and kind of dance around the stage and mumble, just totally like an involuntary thing, He’d frequently just get so lost in the music digging his band, he’d miss his cue to start a piano solo, or go into a coda or something, and have to run back to the piano when he realized it.

Dan: It's hard to answer that. It would be a dream come true sometime to play a show with the Return or Matt Wilson (Trip Shakespeare). Those could be a good fit.

Q: So Tery, you write all the songs, how does the band work a song from the idea stage to a finished song?

Tery: Ah, man, now you’re going to out me as an anal retentive freak. Since so much of the material was written and recorded before I actually had a band, I wanted the stuff played exactly like I did it on the recordings, so I just gave the other members the recordings and had them learn their parts, so for them, it was probably like playing in a cover band. Now that we’ll start doing new stuff too, unless I have a very specific part I want someone to play, I just let them do whatever they want. I’m pretty particular as a bass player, because my style of writing for the bass is a lot more melodic than any other bassist I know, so that’s probably where I’m most strict as far as wanting a band member to play what I want them to play. Since I don’t know how to write music, I just write songs in my head, and in order to work it to a completed version the way I hear it in my head it’s a lot easier to just record it and say “here’s how it goes” then to teach each person alls their instrumental and vocal parts. With the future stuff, I’d like to get Dan involved in arranging some of the vocal stuff with me, because he’s really good at that too. Whenever I hear his song “Lantern Schematic”, I wish I had written it.

Dan: I'm the new guy in the group, so it's kind of been, so far, just an exercise in catching up and learning the material on my own and then putting it together with the band. 'Til now, it was kind of success for me to just get through a song at all w/o screwing up, but now we're kind of moving to the stage of me having (hopefully) committed it to memory and focusing on getting the nuances down and generally getting the set tighter as a whole. Certainly, these are Tery's songs and he's good about making sure we're faithful to his original intent/recordings. I would be the same in his shoes. But everybody seems to get along pretty well and it's just a lot of fun to play this music with nice guys.

Q: What’s your favorite venue to perform at, and why?

Tery: Locally or nationally? Locally, that’s a tough call. I love Duffy’s, I love the vibe there, but their stage sound is usually horrible. Knickerbockers has, I don’t know, I’ll call it less of a “family feeling”, but the sound is better. Nationally, The Bottleneck in Lawrence is great, The High Dive in Champaign, IL.

Dan: Knickerbocker's has always been extremely hospitable to me since I played with the Davenports. I have a warm spot in my heart for those guys and that place. I'd love to play at Duffy's sometime, too, so hopefully that will work out. I've sure seen a lot of great shows there over the years. My band Near South Davenport played at the Zoo a few wks. ago, and that was a ton of fun.

Q: What is a musical goal that you would still like to achieve?

Tery: Shit, I’d like to keep a consistent lineup together. That and to get all the songs that I've currently got written and demoed properly recorded and released, and played live. I hope this band stays together for a really long time, we've got a lot of work to do!

Dan: I echo Tery's sentiments. I'm having a lot of fun in the Static Octopus, and I hope to continue this for a long time. It's fun to be more of a role player in a group, and I adore doing backing vocals and harmonies. Tery's songs also ask me to do things on guitar that I might not do on my own songs with Near South Davenport, so I feel like it's a good opportunity to grow that way as well. I hope we can really play out a whole lot and get the word out on these fantastic songs Tery has.

For my own part, I hope to have an NSD record self-released this year and play a whole lot in town and elsewhere. That's certainly a goal.

Q: What separates The Static Octopus from other rock acts on the local scene right now?

Tery: An upside down guitar player. Well aside from the fact that no one else is really doing music like this. Dan’s band does, The Return does, but they almost never play. Like I said before there’s not to many bands playing “real” power pop. I think a lot of mall-punk bands think they’re playing power-pop, but they’re not.

Dan: I'd have to say that we're probably the most Masculine band in town right now, for starters. Seriously, Tery's right that probably only the Static Octopus, NSD and the Return are doing power-pop right now in Lincoln, which is fine. But I really want to avoid the answer to this question that you see from practically every group, that goes something like, "I don't really know if you can categorize our music exactly . . . there's really no one else out there doing exactly what we're doing right now." And invariably, it turns out to be such crap. They're just a xerox candy bar of every other rock band you've ever heard. All cynicism aside, I include myself in that equation. It's like, there's only so many chords anyway, and this is just pop, you know? And that's fine. As I get older and learn more about the music I like, my tastes have gotten narrower by far. But that's natural, I think. The point is to identify what you like and come as close to it as possible without being overly-derivative. But it's ok to wear your influences and categories on your sleeve.

Q: Any rituals before you go onstage?

Tery: Not really, but my wife says I get really grumpy, which I suppose is true. I get really impatient if I have to wait around to before setting up or playing, and I can’t focus on stuff before playing very well, I’m not good at holding conversations before a show, cause I’m always thinking of something else, or making sure everything that needs to be done is done.

Dan: I don't like to hang around the venue very much before a show. I'm too nervous. I like to drop my stuff off and then go someplace else to read or hang out or something by myself, and then come back right when we're ready to play. No time to worry, that way.

Q: Most embarrassing moment in a live show?

Tery: I don’t really have any real embarrassing moments. I guess one that could have been but actually turned out to be pretty cool. I was playing a show down in West Virginia with some friends of mine backing me up. I was pogoing all over the stage, and I hadn’t noticed that between when the previous band played and we played, someone had moved the bass head off the top of the cabinet and onto the floor in front of it. At one point, I pogoed backwards into it and fell backwards, knocked over the bass cab, fell into the drums, taking out the hi-hat and crash cymbal, thumped my ass and hip on the kick drums, and ended up on the floor with my feet still up over the bass head and cab, but I still kept playing the whole time, didn’t miss a note. As soon as the song was over and I got up, the crowd when nuts. It obviously wasn’t intentional to fall; I didn’t get hurt or anything, but easily could have. Regardless of how klutzy it felt as it was happening I guess it looked way cooler than it actually was.

Dan: Nothing dramatic. My band does a lot of acapella vocal harmonies, which can be trouble if you're not really tight. You kind of hold your breath and put your bare ass out in the air every time, knowing that if you fuck it up, the whole place will know it; there's no guitar distortion there to hide the sins. So I guess my embarrassing moment would be one of those times when the harmonies left something to be desired and the whole place knowed it.

Q: Who was the first person or band you saw that made you want to play music?

Tery: It’s probably a toss up between my dad and seeing The Beatles on TV. My dad had learned to play when he was a teenager, and he was a really good guitar player, I used to love to listen to him play. Seeing all the bands on TV as a kid in the ‘70’s on stuff like Wolfman Jack’s Midnight Special or Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert. That was when I was young enough that I still had a “bed time” which was certainly before midnight. My mom would come and wake me up to come out into the living room and watch the bands if she knew it was someone I’d want to see. Saturday Night Live in the 70’s had great bands on, Getting to see Devo for the first time doing “Satisfaction”, or Elvis Costello, Peter Tosh & Mick Jagger doing “Walk & Don’t Look Back”. There wasn’t a lot of rock on TV prior to MTV and VHI, so you had to look for it.

Dan: The Beatles and Beach Boys, and then seeing Trip Shakespeare live. But Brian Wilson is pretty much it for me. Everything else is details.

Q: What was the first album/CD you bought?

Tery: I can tell you everything. The first record I ever received as a gift was the 45 of “Space Oddity” by Bowie for my 6th birthday; the first single I ever bought myself with my own money was when I was 10, it was “Daniel” by Elton John. The first albums I bought myself were in 1974 when I was 11; it was “Eldorado” by Electric Light Orchestra and “Abbey Road” by The Beatles. The first CD I bought was in 1987, it was “Out Of Our Idiot” by Elvis Costello, and I bought it before I even had a CD player.

As I talked about earlier, because my mom and sisters were Beatles fans, and fans of other British Invasion stuff, we had a bunch of Beatles, Herman’s Hermits & other stuff like that at home, and when I REALLY got into them which was probably in like 3rd or 4th grade, I took all those albums from out by the stereo where the “family” albums were kept, and put ‘em in my room and they became “mine” from that point on, and I played them, and several subsequent copies, until they turned to dust.

Dan: The first 3 records I purchased myself were (I don't remember the order) the Donny and Marie Osmond variety show (which I watched religiously every Fri. night at 7), Shaun Cassidy's "That's Rock 'n Roll" and "15 Big Ones" by the Beach Boys. And I'm really not embarrassed about any of those anymore. There's some great songs, and certainly vocals, on those records, and I banged my drums to them for years. Soon after that I got into ELO's "Discovery" from my brother Chris' influence.

Q: The Most Recent?

Tery: Hmmm, that's a toughie, I haven't bought much of anything recently I've been too busy, but, Actually Dan has turned me on to a lot of great, if not necessarily new bands. The Records 2nd album "Crashes" was just re-released on CD, and I'm digging the hell out of that. A.C. Newman. Actually, I thought the depth, width, and breadth of my knowledge of Pop Music, Power Pop, Indie Pop, and any of it's various other names was pretty extensive, but Dan has me realizing that I've just been wading in the kiddie end of the pool. He's turned me on to so many great bands I'd never even heard of before. I've only come up with two bands so far in my collection that he hadn't even heard of. It's hard to stump Dan.

Dan: Thanks, Tery. Well, lots of what I've listened to in the last few years has been as a result of hanging around with Randy Watson and the Return, Dan Kaspari, Charlie Burton, etc. The last great thing I bought was the ep by Lansing Dreiden, and lately I've just been filling in the gaps in my Beach Boys and Beatles collections. No record collection is respectable w/o the entire catalogues of those two bands.

Q: Whose music are you listening to right now?

Tery: Actually I’ve been too busy lately to do much listening or to get anything new, but I’m really digging the new White Stripes, Floating Opera’s new album Burning Lighthouse, and Bishop Allen, a great pop band from Philly that my friend Maria turned me on to.

Dan: The new one from Jeffrey Foskett (Brian Wilson guitarist), A.C. Newman, Homespun.

Q: List off you top five albums of all time.

Tery: Damn, that’s too hard, there’s just too many OK, off the top of my head, I’ll give these:

1. Revolver - The Beatles
2. Smile - The Beach Boys (note: the original unreleased Smile, not the Brian Wilson one)
3. In The Aeroplane Over The Sea – Neutral Milk Hotel
4. Bee Thousand - Guided by Voices
5. Beggars Banquet – Rolling Stones

But now looking at the list it seems kind of weird not to have anything from either the 70’s or 80’s on there? No Ramones, or Clash, damn.

Oh well, to make up for it, I’ll now give you more than you bargained for, the top 50 best pop songs (post 1950)

1. There’s A Place – The Beatles
2. On A Carousel – The Hollies
3. Watery Hands – Superchunk
4. Tired of Waiting - The Kinks
5. I’ve Been Waiting – Matthew Sweet
6. Starry Eyes – The Records
7. Hoover Factory – Elvis Costello
8. Kiss Me On The Bus – The Replacements
9. Queen of Eyes – Soft Boys
10. Scalding Creek – Guided by Voices
11. Bizarre Love Triangle – New Order
12. Elinore – The Turtles
13. Pleasant Valley Sunday – The Monkees
14. No Matter What – Badfinger
15. Walk Away Renee – The Left Banke
16. Senses Working Overtime – XTC
17. Souvenir – OMD
18. Love Plus One – Haicut 100
19. They Don’t Know About us – Tracey Ullman
20. Another Nail In My Heart - Squeeze
21. She’s A Must To Avoid – Herman’s Hermits
22. Turn Down Day – The Cyrkle
23. If I Could Talk I’d Tell You – The Lemonheads
24. Seems So – The Apples In Stereo
25. I Got You – Split Enz
26. Boy About Town – The Jam
27. Your Number Or Your Name – The Knack
28. Rock & Roll Girl – The Paul Collins Beat
29. I Like It – Gerry & The Pacemakers
30. I’m Telling You Now – Freddy & The Dreamers
31. Happy Loving Couples - Joe Jackson
32. Unreal Is Here – Chavez
33. Kid – The Pretenders
34. Texas Snow – Oranger
35. Here Comes Your Man – The Pixies
36. On A Plain – Nirvana
37. Today – The Smashing Pumpkins
38. Baby Britian – Elliot Smith
39. Mayfly – Belle & Sebastian
40. Suzy Is A Headbanger – The Ramones
41. Rocket 58 – The Minder
42. Now and Always – Rockpile
43. Wishing – Buddy Holly
44. Do Ya? – The Move / E.L.O.
45. Carrie Anne – The Hollies
46. Sittin’ On A Fence – The Rolling Stones
47. The Good In Everyone – Sloan
48. Time & Time Again – The Smithereens
49. They Don’t Know About us – Tracey Ullman
50. And So It Goes – Nick Lowe
51. Love Plus One – Haicut 100
52. Until I Kissed You – The Everly Brothers
And of course,
53. Ella Going Backwards – The Static Octopus 


Dan: Even for me, this is going to be completely arbitrary. I will forget something and have a different answer in a half hour. I'd say
1. Smile-Beach Boys
2. Sgt. Pepper-Beatles
3. Are You Shakespearienced?-Trip Shakespeare
4. Argybargy-Squeeze
5. Odyssey and Oracle-Zombies

Q: What was your most memorable live performance and why?

Tery: I remember the very first live show I played in front of an audience; in a grade school talent show with a band called Equus (we won) I still have a newspaper clipping from the school newspaper. I guess some shows I played with a band I was in during HS stick out, like the largest ones we played in auditoriums, That band was awesome because the musicians in that band, especially me and the drummer had musical ESP. Our styles just meshed so well, so naturally, we’d do these awesome fills together that we never practiced, I’d just do what I was gonna do, and the drummer was right there with me the whole time. Getting to play Grant Hart from Husker Du was definitely an honor.

Dan: I haven't played live that much, to be honest, but maybe I'd even say some of the recent things I've done with Dan and Noah in NSD. We've been playing out a little more recently and I think we're getting tighter and a little more simplified as a 3-piece. The first show we ever did as a 3-piece was back in 2001 at an outdoor 4th of July thing in Tecumseh, I think, when my old band the Davenports was still going. The other members couldn't make it, so we went ahead and did it ourselves, setting up the p.a., lights, and everything. It was gratifying to do that because I wasn't sure we were going to be able to pull it all off, musically or technically, alone. It had it's rough spots, but was generally ok.

I also have fond memories of some of those Davenports shows playing with my friends Scott Schwister, Melissa Veys and Mike Koehn. They were my best friends in the world and it meant a lot to be doing something I believed in so much with them.

Q: What can we look forward to in the next year from the band?

Tery: We’re just pulling it together as a band now, but hopefully a lot of shows, and a lot of recordings,

Dan: Yes, hopefully lots of shows!!!

Q: Anything else you want to share with our readers?

Tery: Support your local rock stars! That, and McRib is back!!!