Category: Live Shows
Since there’s good number of these floating around on the youtubes, I thought I post them up here to share my checkered past with all the readers of my blog.
Lincoln was the band that I played drums for in the early 1990s. We are considered by some to be one of the originators of the sound that became known as “Emo”.
Although this isn’t really accurate in the truest sense, since even back when Lincoln was playing there was already something called Emo, but it was a different sound. It wasn’t as heavy and the vocal style of Emo of the late 80s was more post-punk like Dag Nasty or Some of the early ALL recordings. So I guess Lincoln could be considered a band that influenced modern interpretation as to what is considered Emo, filled with super heavy dissonant guitars, screaming vocals and spastic drumming to a relatively medium tempo. However, I don’t and never did consider Lincoln an Emo band, we were just a rock band to my ears, and a pretty darn good one at that.
The history of Lincoln starts out in the late 80s in Morgantown, WV as a 3 piece called Ice Fan with me on Drums, Jay Demko on bass and vocals, and John Herod on Guitar and Vocals. Later we added bassist Dan Ball and Jay moved to just vocals. Our sound became a lot heavier and hardcore until Dan moved away and we got Johanna Clausen to take his place. At this time Jay Demko started playing guitar as well instead of just singing. With drums, bass, two guitars and Jay screaming, It was at this time the name changed to Lincoln and our song structures started to advance.
We played tons of shows throughout the North East US and Dan moved back to Morgantown taking back his slot on bass. Once Dan was back in the band our sound evolved once again to a more complex and dynamic sound. Dan and I always locked on quite well rhythmically. Not to take anything away from Johanna, looking back at these videos the one with her in it is quite good.
We toured most of the US in 1993 and it was quite successful and we were actually returning with money made! But sadly, the fun was short-lived since upon our return vocalist/singer Jay Demko announced he was quitting the band for personal reasons.
Overall Lincoln/Ice Fan lasted around 5 years and still to this day the tour in 1993 is one of my fondest memories. We released a handful of 7″s as lincoln, and one extremely rare comp 7″ as Ice Fan on Shredder Records in the late 80s. Its so cool to see people posting these videos online and seeing so many nice comments about the music even to this day.
The first video here is one of our last shows of the 93 tour in Detroit, Michigan-
The next video here is also from the 93 tour in Washington DC, I remember we played with the Krishna Hardcore band “Shelter” that night
This one was from somewhere in Pennsylvania and was an early date on the 93 tour
This last set of videos is the oldest live Lincoln footage I’ve found to date. It is probably from somewhere around 1991 or 1992 and was shot at a place called The Hanger in Wheeling, WV. My God I’m young here, and check out my cool “Dead Milk Men” haircut!
I just thought I’d share this incredible Miles Davis performance from 73. This is some great footage and performances. Pete Cosey /guitar, Reggie Lucas /guitar, Michael Henderson /bass, James Mtume /percussion, David Liebman /sax, Al Foster /drums & Miles Davis /trumpet
Here’s some of the highlights from my show at Mojo books and music in Tampa last Saturday. The sound quality isn’t the greatest, which is why I didn’t post the full show.
Overall it went really well and the show was a lot of fun with Blast and the Detergents! I still want to add more to what I’m doing, but it’s getting there!
I’ll be posting some Blast & co later.
I’ll be performing at Mojo Books and Music in Tampa this Saturday December 18th 2010. The show 
will start at around 7PM and is free and all ages. This will be another one of my solo sets, but this time I’ll be playing more structured songs. I’ll be playing drums along side my laptop where I’ll be running multiple outs to multiple amps, so the sound will be very much like a full band. I’ve never attempted anything like this live and I’m really looking forward to it. Please try to make it down.
Also playing are Saint Pete Noisers, BLAST AND THE DETERGENTS, as well as live artwork by Brad Kokay!
These are selections from my live performance at Borracho’s Cantina in Downtown St. Pete last Sunday 11/14/10
Thanks to everybody for coming out to see me last night and showing your support! You guys were all great!
As far as how I felt about my performance after listening to the recording and watching the video, I think it went pretty well overall, however I have a lot of ideas of how to make my next one better. For one, last night was far too improvised. I think my next solo performance will incorporate more solid structured songs. I’m looking into real-time midi triggering with my drums to help with live arrangements as well as will most likely use my laptop the next time to be able to monitor what is going on with headphones and possibly use a click.
Lots of ideas for the future!
I’m going to post selections of the video and audio once I pick out the parts I’m happy enough with.
Playing a show tonight on the sidwalk in downtown st. pete. Spent the morning compiling sounds and ideas, this is the setup I’ll be using plus drumset and probably cuica. Realistic Concertmate-200, Optimus cassette recorder, Phillips portable CD player, Crate mixer and my home-made optical theremin.
This was an all improv group I put together a few years ago. We played one show and recorded it. This is it.
Me – Drums, Jeremy Powell – Sax, John Richardson – Keys, Rick Adams – Bass, Ivan Ftorek – percussion. Recorded live at Café Bohemia 12/19/08
This is my current band Dafrebos playing live in Tampa.
Me – Drums
Alan Relkin – Guitar / Vox
Josh Greenberg – Keys
Gonzalo Ovelar – Percussion
