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SSFB, I Hardly Knew Ye
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SSFB, The Early Years
I ended up wanting Soothing Sounds For Baby to become the Velvet
Underground (60's), the Soft Boys (70's), the Agit-Pop (80's- early 90's),
meaning, a great band that was completely ignored by everybody during its
existence. We certainly achieved that in spades. Why, if we could have just
tasted one quarter of Agit-Pop's fame and fortune, just think of what I
would have smelled like! Soothing Sounds was always waiting for a miracle
to take us out of obscurity. But now I don't think in terms of how many fans
we had or if we got on a label or not, but what SSFB meant to me as a source
of pride and an artistic outlet.
Of course, during the teen years I
thought I was the most miserable human
being on the planet. But the band gave me
a real sense of belonging and brotherhood.
It was a great way to show and prove our
love of music, as well as, the only way we
knew how to give a big SCREW YOU to
MTV. When I listen to our old tapes, we
actually seem tighter than what we ended
up being, even though we had only been
playing our instruments for a handful of
years. Back then there was no question of what we were supposed to be doing,
and that was to play fast, tight and crazy.
We didn't know anything about dynamics; we played everything at the same
frenetic pace and volume. We challenged each other by coming up with music
that we didn't necessarily have the chops for yet. For the first few years I
would break sticks constantly, often minutes after I had gone to the store
to get 'em. For most of SSFB's existence I would come very close to passing
out after certain songs -- I didn't even know how to breathe right. We had no
idea what we were doing, but we did it. We never really even learned to tune
our guitars.
The Minutemen taught us that every instrument must come up with
something special for every song. No one was allowed to be musically lazy--
no one was allowed to relax. We only knew we had to come up with stuff that
has not been heard yet. If we brought a tired and cliched riff or chord
progression to the table, it would be rejected immediately,or it would be
worked on and screwed with until it was unrecognizable. We didn't do
pseudo-jazz, blues or roots rock, we hated all that crap. We didn't jam. We
had an unnatural fear of bar-chords, which we are all trying to get over to
this day. We basically looked down on the rock & roll mentality and acted
like obnoxious rock stars only to get laughs. I'm not down with that snobbish
and ignorant attitude now, but when we were starting out it was a positive
and creatively healthy position to take.
I can't even believe we managed
to put a CD out, but I am truly thankful. In the SSFB time capsule, THUNK
will be the first thing I want people to see. In the end, all we are left with
are hundreds of songs, videos, photos, 45s, tapes and CDs--and I'm gonna love
going back to all that over and over again.
Click here to go to Allan Heifetz's "SSFB,
The Early Years".
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