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Kudgel began in the Spring of 1989. I had just moved to Boston from New Hampshire and met Austin Garafolo at my first job in Massachusetts. Austin was in his early 30's, married, had two adorable little girls and ironically lived in Salem, New Hampshire. He had never played in a band before and his drumming experience amounted to playing his drums along with his favorite art rock bands.
I met Don Bush through mutual friends and he hadn't played an instrument in five years. We were a band but we lacked a singer. We tried out a few people but nobody really let loose, so I tried to do it. I couldn't really sing and play guitar at the same time so I put the mike stand down real low so I could hunch over and see the neck of my guitar.
We played our first show in the summer of 1990 opening for Bob Evans and the Laughing Hyenas. We recorded for the first time in January of 1991 at the now defunct Lanes in Allston. We put out a cassette called 1st prize. In June of 1991 we went to New York and recorded with Wharton Tiers. We released our first single, Alphabet Song/Eskimo Pie, from that session. During the summer of '91 Austin left as his family duties took priority. We started to look for a drummer but Don decided to go back to school that fall and thus the K1 chapter came to a close.
K2 started soon thereafter, when I asked my housemate, Zack Lazar, to play bass and we recruited our friend, Matt Nicholas, to play drums. We sounded a bit shaky so we added Kevin Germain on guitar. Zack and Matt were just learning how to play and Kev G. added just the right punch. Kev G. also brought the Chimp word into the practice space. It was so innocent and free and I exploited it and killed it. CHIMP IS DEAD.
In May of 1992 we went back to New York and recorded 10 songs with Wharton Tiers. Friction ended up on the Pop Narcotic 10" compilation and we put out a split double 7" with the Swirlies. We were supposed to do a kickass east coast tour with them but their manager was a moron. Not only did his 11 shows only turn out to be 2 but he was too much of a wimp to tell us until we had already played one of the shows. Kev G. had just gotten married and he was spared the misery of that tour. Morgan Andrews of MADBOX filled in on guitar.
Kev G. left K2 soon thereafter. Note the trend of Kudgel members leaving to move on with their lives!
My brother John joined in early 1993. The night of his 1st show, we coaxed my mother up on stage and got her to sing a little bit of the Alphabet Song, this was definitely one of my personal highlights. K3 went on the road with the Cheaterslicks in what we thought was the spring of 1993. We ended up snow bound in Delaware for three days. We certainly had some great times on that tour but there were plenty of low points. We stopped in Chicago and recorded 5 songs with Bob Weston at Steve Albinis house. The Chicken Pump/Now single came from that Weston Session and is probably my favorite Kudgel release.
When we got back our spirits were pretty low but we ended up getting some cheap recording time with Darron Burke at the Whiteroom. This was the first time we ever had more than one day to get everything done. We combined the results with the remainder of the Weston sessions and released the Sea Monkee 10" on the 100% Breakfast label. We then came to realize that none of our favorite indy labels were interested and that even with the help of Deb Klein we couldnt get any bites.
Around this time the whole band thing started to become more of a chore than a joy. Little tension started to rise which were probably based more out of frustration than anything else. It was apparent that things were falling apart. We did one last session with Darron Burke at the Cold Room and the result was the Super 8 Luca Brassi split double 7". It is remarkable how well that single reflects the overall feel of the band at the time...bleak and lifeless. We played our official final show November 5, 1994.
Since then we have played a handful of shows. For the right cause or just right time we'll run the old beast out.
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