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Should you care to hear what Bindle sounded like, a plethora of recordings is available at:

http://www.katboy.com/bindle.html.

Bindle was a rock band from Fort Worth, Texas, that existed for just over three years between 1998 and 2002. With hindsight, they can be viewed as a precursor to brainy pop-rockers Goodwin.

They got together when three quarters of Drunken Monkey – bassist Matt Hembree, singer Tony Diaz, and drummer Kevin Geist -- decided to reform without guitarist Jim Palmer. Previously, Hembree (who’d grown up playing in a family bluegrass band in Tennessee) had been in the metal-funk power trio Muffinhead with guitarist-singer Daniel Gomez and teenage drummer Dave Karnes. When Karnes left to attend the Berklee College of Music in Boston, Hembree and Gomez moved on to Uncle Pete's Parade, a unit Gomez characterizes as "a really horrible Steely Dan as R&B-based alt-rock band," but with the crisply polyrhythmic drummer Geist, who'd first met Gomez and Hembree while he was playing in a short-lived band called Fresh Coffee.

Gomez found Tony Diaz singing at Club Dada in Dallas with a band called Deep Domain. "[Diaz] was great", said Gomez, " -- a powerful singer who believed every word he sang. I thought, 'I want that.' " Gomez, Hembree, and Geist all tendered their resignations to Uncle Pete's Parade and reformed as Big Mouth Buzz with Diaz on vocals. The band only lasted long enough to record a few demos (one of which, "Chuck," found its way onto a compilation released by the Arlington club J. Gilligan's) and to play live once before Gomez decamped for Portland, Oregon.

In Drunken Monkey with Palmer (whose previous band, Dead King's Pillow, was known for extreme behavior that included picketing their own shows and cutting up plaster lawn angels with a chainsaw onstage), Hembree, Diaz, and Geist played music that was deliberately challenging and obtuse. After a few years and many shows spent confusing audiences around north Texas, Drunken Monkey was no more. By the fall of 1998, the three ex-Drunken Monkeys had begun rehearsing with Steffin Ratliff, a former "closet guitarist" who’d played in metal bands and backed former Brad Thompson's Undulating Band singer Hillary Tipps. With the addition of Daniel Gomez, recently returned from Portland, the first incarnation of Bindle was born.

It’s possible that Bindle's sound, shaped by a variety of diverse influences, was an impediment to its success: audiences didn't know what pigeonhole to put them in. Sure, musicians who saw them dug 'em, but who cares what musicians like? The boys in Bindle weren't hippified enough to appeal to jam-band fans, and they were too seasoned and mature for the pop-punk kids. More detrimental to the band's longevity was its personnel instability. "Members were always joining and leaving," said Hembree. "We never had a lineup that lasted more than six or nine months."

Early demos, recorded at the Echo Lab in Denton with engineer Dave Willingham, included "Sunrise," uncharitably described on garageband.com as "safe jazz for white people." The original Bindle lineup also recorded "The View" as a project for a friend who was studying recording technology at Dallas Sound Labs. Not long afterward, Daniel Gomez unexpectedly bowed out of Bindle. Perversely, he then started engineering demos for the edition of Bindle -- Diaz, Ratliff, Hembree, and Geist -- that he says is his favorite. Ironically, the lineup change led to a sound more in line with what Gomez was envisioning -- more streamlined, more emotionally direct, more overtly melodic.

The Gomez-recorded demos include what all the band members agree are some of their finest moments. Diaz' lyrics to "Yusuf," rich with lovely lines like "Standing in the market of moon and star ... Voices like stones break this heart," were inspired by the story of Brit folk-rocker Cat Stevens' spiritual awakening. The band's arrangement complements the song's soaring melody, the rhythm section's supple groove providing a platform for arcing flights of Ratliff guitar that underline the lyric's sense of longing.

When performed live, "10,000 Miles" proved to be an audience favorite, and it contains a line that neatly encapsulates the Bindle experience, in a way: "I'm drifting into unknown space, falling back towards the Earth and landing on my face." On the demo version, Diaz wears his heart on his sleeve, as was becoming his wont, while the music washes over the listener like a bath of melody, with Ratliff's guitar effectively functioning as a second lead voice and sounding, oddly enough, not unlike Daniel Gomez'.

Most surprising, in light of all the Bindle music that had preceded it, was "State of Girl," a full-on, pumping rocker (albeit one with a chorus in 7/8 time) inspired by a friend of Ratliff's -- "one of those girls that calls you whenever she needs help or fun or is in trouble," according to Hembree, whose bass on the track, in dropped-D tuning, rumbles like a locomotive while Geist's snare hits ring like rifle shots.

Justin Pate was a stage kid who grew up singing, acting, and tapdancing at Fort Worth's Casa Manana Theatre and had drummed and sung with a Weezer-ish band called the Visitors. Hembree and Ratliff heard him playing piano behind an improvisational comedy troupe called Fuzzy Logic and were sufficiently impressed to draft him into Bindle as a keyboardist and second vocalist.

On the eve of sessions for the debut Bindle CD, Diaz parted ways with the band and Pate was forced to learn the lyrics to 20 songs in a week. Four of the tracks were mastered for an unused demo, and another song -- "Yusuf" -- holds the distinction of being the only Bindle tune to see an "official" release (on First Street Audio's First Street Sessions Vol. 2 compilation, credited to "Bindle, lyrics by Tony Diaz"). Pate and Ratliff were already performing with a newly-formed reggae outfit, Pablo and the Hemphill 7.

When Hembree announced in late January 2002 that the band was folding the tent, it seemed like a formality. Bindle played their last show on February 7, 2002, in the lounge at the Ridglea Theater. In the audience were Tony Diaz and Daniel Gomez, who recalls, "We got there, and Tony said, 'Wow, I think this is the most people that have ever come out to see Bindle.' At the end, though, the audience started drifting away. It was kinda sad, but at the same time, it seemed fitting."

(Bio courtesy of Ken Shimamoto. Read more about Bindle on his blog at http://stashdauber.blogspot.com/2004/10/bindle.html)