Divided Sky @ Club Motor - April 30, 2010

On April 30, 2010 Divided Sky will hit the stage at Club Motor in Seattle. For the last couple of months we've been working on re-recording some of our songs and working on new material. So, it'll be nice to play in front of real live people for a change.

The poster above was designed by Jeremy Salyer of Never Summer Snowboards fame. He owes most, if not all of his success to us. He was the band's first and only drum tech, a college roommate, and best man in my wedding. Other than that he's pretty much worthless. We love you JS and thanks for the help!

Cheers,
Dan

Divided Sky at Victor's in Seattle, 1994

On Saturday night, a friend passed along a DVD from an old Seattle gig at Victor's in 1994. We've edited it down for your viewing pleasure.


Part 1 - "So Ends Fire" and "Jenny Muse"


Part 2 - "Swept Away" and "Lonely Story"


Part 3- "Muted Cry"


Part 4 - "Brighter Side of Evil" and "Again"


Part 5 - "Sweet Feminine"


Part 6 - "Fleck of Gold"


Part 7 - "No Work"

The Yakima Connection

(Photo: Divided Sky opening for Sweetwater Dec. 9, 1993 at Colours in Yakima.)

It began with a mangled three-song demo tape. A rat’s nest of unraveled tape, Yakima music promoter Scott Abrhams decided to put the cassette back together. Inexplicably, he succeeded and liked what he heard. Abrhams called the phone number on the tape and invited Divided Sky down to Yakima to headline a five-band bill in March 1993 at D.A.V. Hall. The show was dubbed “A Tribute to Sleaze.”

This was the sort of “break” we had been hoping for when we produced the demo, which was recorded in a sound engineer’s loft in Seattle. We saw the engineer a few months later when he was working the sound board at the fabled Off Ramp. There are three things I remember about that recording session in the winter of 1992. One, we had no idea what we were doing and the music we recorded was sketchy at best – except for the song “Nothing” which we still play today. Two, it was freezing cold inside this dude’s loft, probably because, Three, he had the biggest pot plant I’d ever seen and all the electricity in the place was focused on keeping that thing warm.

How the tape made its way to Yakima and in the hands of a music promoter is a mystery and we didn’t ask too many questions before loading up Jeff’s Jeep and made the 30-minute trip south. The one question we probably should have asked, however, was if everyone had packed their instruments. As we rolled into Yakima we realized Jeff had forgotten his guitar. We still had a couple hours before show time, so Jeff was able to drive back to Ellensburg to retrieve it. I don’t remember much about that show, but I do remember that we played well enough to impress the locals and ink an indie record deal for the newly formed Ritual Records that eventually dissolved before we could record a note. But the gig opened some doors and led to more shows in Yakima.

Eventually, we’d play as many or more shows in Yakima than in Ellensburg. A majority of them were at Colours, an over-21 club that catered to the burgeoning music scene in Yakima. Many of the Seattle-scene bands would make the trek over or make it a tour stop, but mainly you’d see Yakima bands like Phallacy or Brown or Thane Phelan who also managed a record store called Music Station. A lot of the CDs that were produced by these bands were recorded at Hearing Hole Studio, owned by Phallacy guitarist Willie Hoffee. And you could every so often catch songs by these bands on KATS 107 FM. Even mainstream media like The Yakima Herald promoted our little scene. The all-ages shows were best, though. There was a community of kids under 21, who really had an appetite for live music and probably had little else to do in Yakima. There had to be a thousand of them at the Love Battery show at the Selah Civic Center, where we were lucky enough to have opened. You can see some of the fliers from the bigger shows here.

It was big fish in a small pond syndrome for sure, but we never enjoyed the kind of success we had in Yakima and Ellensburg when we eventually relocated the operation to Seattle. In the early to mid-‘90s, there were too many bands and too many venues in the Seattle area and surrounding burgs. It seemed like every restaurant or bar in the area all of sudden catered to live music. The problem was there wasn’t an audience for it. I mean, how many people want to listen to blaring rock music while their trying to eat their dinner on a Tuesday night?

While Yakima was a far cry from what was happening west of the mountains, it was still a vibrant little scene with some real talented musicians and music lovers propping it up. Thank you Yakima and good night.

Cheers, Dan

(Photos: Second from top, Matt and Jeff at the first Yakima show at D.A.V. Hall March 13, 1993. Above, Teague and Matt May 16, 1993 opening for a gaggle of bands including My Name and The Melvins at the Yakima County Fairgrounds.)

Divided Leppard

I’m not ashamed to admit that when I was in 5th Grade my favorite band was Def Leppard. I wanted to be drummer Rick Allen in the worst way, Union Jack shorts and all. Well, right up until the point when he crashed his car and lost his left arm. That would have sucked. Some years ago the band also lost their guitar player to alcoholism.

To say they’ve been snake bitten over the years is a bit of an understatement. However, they’re still rockin’ the county fair circuit and showing up on VH1, which is where I caught them the other night. Nobody has lost limb or died yet, but the last few weeks for Divided Sky have been a little more Def Leppard-ish for my liking.

Our first rehearsal with all four members about a month ago was cut short when Jeff got food poisoning. Then Matt was bed-ridden with the flu and missed our first trip back to Ellensburg last weekend. Teague was in town a couple days ago and we were able to get through the set list, but Matt still looked like hammered shit. He performed admirably all things considered.

Setbacks and obstacles aside, it’s still coming together nicely and everyone is on the mend. We’ll be back in Ellensburg in a couple weeks to rehearse again, but here’s a little video (below) from a couple weeks ago when we were their last.

Cheers,
Dan

Great place, doesn’t smell like piss

(Photos: Divided Sky at Adeline's in Ellensburg, circa 1993)

In less than 60 days, we’ll be taking the stage. And a few days ago I met Matt at the venue where we’ll give this thing one more try.

The Jet in Mill Creek isn’t like many of the places where we’ve performed in the past. My first thought was, “Wow, great place … and it doesn’t smell like piss.” No, it was much, much nicer than most venues. Great stage, sound system, staff, bar, food – very impressive.

So, I sat there at the bar with Matt and thought about all the absolute dumps we used to gig at. I won’t name, names on the off chance one of the owners reads this and we some day need a favor, but there were some bars that broke nearly every health code on record. And I think we even played a barn once or twice.

However, back in the early ‘90s, it was sort of a badge of honor to land a gig at some of these places. The old Off Ramp comes to mind. You probably wouldn’t eat a bag of chips in that place, but you’d play the first set on a Tuesday night bill without thinking twice about it. And we did. All the legendary Seattle bands got their start there and it was featured in the movie “Singles.”

I think if you asked any of the guys, they’d tell you we had two favorite clubs. One was Colours in Yakima (spelled with a “U” so you know it’s classy). We got connected with Colours and Isaac, who managed the place, through Yakima promoter Scott Abrhams. It was the site of many blurry sessions, but some really great ones as well. We got to open for some pretty big acts, like Sweetwater, and it led to playing some bigger venues in the area and opening for bands like The Melvins and Love Battery.

And then there was Adeline’s in Ellensburg – which I believe is now a hair salon. We must have played Adeline’s 200 times and were about as close to a house band as you could get. When we first started gigging there, we didn’t even have enough songs. So we’d play a set, take a break, have a few cocktails in the Blue Room (a back room of the bar that wasn’t blue), and then go play the set again. Nobody seemed to care. The college kids who packed the place on the weekends either liked the songs enough to hear them again, or were so bombed on $1 Jager shots that anything with heavy guitars and a beat sounded good.

I’d like to think it was a little of both.

Cheers, Dan

Keep on keepin’ on

(Photos: Dan and Teague, pictured below, during a recent rehearsal in Everett)

“I think we’re the hardest working band in this place,” Matt said as we sat in lonely silence. Not a note could be heard from the neighboring rehearsal spaces in our little complex in Everett as we paused for a moment while practicing our set list for the January 30 gig.

So are we or does it really matter? It doesn’t matter, but for the past few weeks I can attest that it really feels like it. It’s a priority for the band that we plug in and not sound like we’ve been on hiatus for 15 years. So, to get there, we’ve embarked on a rather ambitious rehearsal schedule, which any one of our family members can unfortunately confirm.

Teague left Ellensburg and made his first trip over to this side of the mountains for an all-day music marathon a couple weeks ago. Jeff, Matt and I will return to Ellensburg on Dec. 12 to do an old-school session where it all began. The session was weird and great. We had talked about it for so long, I don’t think anyone really knew what to do when we set up our gear and got ready to play. To slice through the awkward nervous energy, someone said something to the effect of, “So, should we have a group hug or something.”

We’re farther along musically than we thought we’d be at this point and Jan. 30 seems simultaneously close and distant. We can’t wait to play, but at the same time take advantage of every week of preparation we can. It’s not something we’ve discussed much, but there sure is a lot of time, money and effort invested for one gig. Seems hard to imagine working this much for one night and walking away, but we’ll see how it goes.

Cheers, Dan

Oh yeah, I remember that ...

(Photos: Above: Matt, Jeff and Dan at Victor's in Seattle, 1993. Below: An all-ages show in Yakima the same year.

Jeff brought in a shoebox full of photos the other night for us to look through before rehearsal. It was basically a photo history of nearly every show and a number of our rehearsals and after hours parties of which we played.


It was completely jarring. We were kids and half of the band wasn’t old enough to hang out in the clubs where we performed. Teague and I spent many nights sitting in a van parked in some alley, just waiting for someone to come by and tell us it was time to play.

And there were a ton of images from the countless shows we played at Adeline’s, the SUB Ballroom or a friend’s house in Ellensburg. The Adeline’s pictures are great because they serve as photo evidence for most people since they don’t remember being there. The $1 pitchers of beer and Jager shots were the primary cause for most of the memory loss issues.

We’ll be posting them to our blog and our Facebook page throughout the weeks leading up to the great big show on Jan. 30. If you have any personal shots that you took during one of our gigs, we encourage you to post them to our Facebook page.

Cheers, Dan