Satori: a brief history

 

To listen to the album, click here. 

Once upon a time- very much in another life- I was in a band called "Satori."  The band began early in 1991 with me, Becky Kupersmith and Dan Chaffin.  That incarnation of the band spent most of its existence in Becky's basement. We wrote an album's worth of material, and we searched for another guitarist, because you're supposed to have two, right?  We auditioned my friend Dan Patterson, who had played with me in a band called Downpour, but he lasted long enough to impart a riff that became the song "Obvious War."  Then we tried Simon Furnish, who thought we were complete as a trio, though I suspected that he was just trying to be nice. 

We put together an album of material over that Winter and Fall.  We played at St. Francis High School, Jewish Community Center, and our big gig which was opening up at Laser Chase.  Not a lot of a exposure. Still we felt like we should record an album.  Becky brought a recording from a rehearsal using a jambox, and we took it to Mike Bucayu of Kinghorse.  He said we didn't sound passionate enough, which I suspect meant that we didn't sound like a hardcore band, which we weren't trying to. 

At any rate, we started recording an album at Ant-Man studios? It was on Barret Ave, I think.  We recorded six songs in an hour, and the guy mixed two of the songs in another hour.  We had a six hour package.  I thought we would be able to record another three songs, but when I came back, he said he spent the next four hours mixing, and we were out of money.  The math didn't add up, but I was an 18 year old without a lot of confidence.  We managed to get Becky's parents to put up the rest- though I've never heard the end of it. 

I had been jamming with Matt Frederick early that summer, and I was surprised that he could play guitar.  I had known him in Middle school, and didn't know him to play an instrument.  I thought he would make a nice addition as an acoustic guitar player in a punk band.  He joined on a few of the last songs in the studio, but in the end nothing happened with the record, because I didn't realize how much it would cost to actually put an album out.  I used to tell people that I'd recorded an album, but that the label chose not to release it, which in a sense was true. 

We played one show at Tewligan's that summer as a quartet, and then Becky moved away to Lansing, Michigan. Dan, Matt and I went off to college.  Satori went into hibernation until winter break.  

We had about three-four weeks off that break, and my friend Hewett was in town, which was never a given, and he expressed interest in playing, and the four of us jammed without a bass-player. We auditioned Frances Zopp, who hadn't been playing very long, and while we had similar musical tastes- she got me into fIREHOSE- I was hoping to find someone with more experience.  

Matt found Ryan Jones and we practiced as a five-piece for a single show at Uncle Pleasant's.  There may have been five people at the show.  It was clear to all of us that we were going places.  Well, except Hewett who never played in the band again. 

That Summer we played and practiced.  We worked up songs like "The Plague", "Mercury" and "Save the World".  We were eager to record and EP.  We selected four songs, and recorded at Mountain View studios in Richmond over Thanksgiving.  Again, the recordings were never released, because we hadn't budgeted for that.  I think it was more important to have a recording than to put out an album.  We did use the recordings as a demo, and we played a smattering of shows here and there, in Louisville, Kenyon, Transylvania over the next year and a half. 

The hardcore scene was not interested in us at all, but it was around this time that Nirvana, and Pearl Jam and the grunge scene began to pick up steam, and we were kind of grungy.  I mean, we'd played in barns, basements and bars.  That's grungy, right?

Despite a lack of any encouragement outside of our own circle, we decided to play as a band full-time when Ryan and Matt graduated, and before Dan and I's senior year in college.  That was when we recorded the album that was originally called Part of the Soil, but I renamed because we didn't have the original album cover, and I did have a picture of me jumping off a cliff in Greece, which we had used as a t-shirt.  

We worked with Andrew McKenna Lee and Brian Gager, who went above and beyond recording our album.  We spent an entire week on the recording recording as a band live (minus vocals) and then putting over various over-dubs.  There's a real vibe on the recording, because we were actually playing as a band on every track. We did manage to release an album (on casette).  Andrew and Brian were a bit disappointed with the results of our packaging, but we must've sold all 100 copies of the album, because none of us has any.  

We played on a monthly basis that year, but we had also made the inexplicable decision to live together as a band, which instead of bringing us closer together drove us further apart, and after the lease was up, we went our separate ways as a band, reuniting for one concert at Rudyard Kipling, which may have been our best attended show, ironically.  

Here we are years later, and having unearthed a copy of the album (now called Belief), I can honestly say that we should have gotten this into the hands of more people.  It's a strange album, and it veers stylistically, but there's a good chance you'll enjoy a song or two.