...the culmination of years of bar bands, gay 80's, substances, and science.
stephen j. began his musical career in 1988 as the drummer for the infamous nicoli jacewitz, ex-singer for the bodacious buttcheeks.
in 1992, stephen j. served as lead guitarist for ignorance is bliss in which, regretably, he performed the solo to "alive" by perl jam.
fate smiled on stephen j. in 1993 when he met drummer blaine palmer. that same year they formed vena cava with blaine's brother ian on bass and jay locke on guitar. for 6 years stephen j. honed his skills as a singer/songwriter/guitarist and was fairly competent, but as a frontman his performance was abysmal. the loss of jay in 1998 and blaine in 1999 proved fatal for the band and they split.
it was at the end of 1999 that stephen j. escaped into isolation and began writing songs that even less people wanted to hear. in fact, besides former roommate juan garcia, no one did hear them. "i drove here." says juan. "ian doesn't know the songs. he had better learn 'em. do what? yea, matt writes songs. no." then, seemingly uncomfortable: "god, we smoked a lot."
for approximately 3 years stephen j. experimented with lo-fi recording and a lower-fi quality of life. in this period he wrote close to 30 songs, most of which were fit for the low end of the a.m. dial. he made two "albums" in this time, neither of which he gave to more than three people. then in 2002, he joined the forces of joel young, jesse butler, chris koenigsburg, and gregory elliott to produce dreamt of by armadillos, a free-form, improvisational space rock venture. the band was nothing if not prolific, releasing a self-titled album in early 2003 and a second effort at the end of the year forebodingly entitled "the spool". this set of 50 cds contained approximately 66 hours of music, and, while no one including the band members ever listened to the entire set, doba decided to make it available to the masses. as should be expected, the group soon nixed the idea, citing little public interest and the financial difficulties involved with the release of such a monstrosity. the band made just two copies of the "album", one of which is now a very large set of coasters.
2004 saw both the release of stephen j.'s first official solo album, midwest in mono, and the reunion of stephen j. and blaine palmer, who landed back in the states after an extended absence. soon they both joined jeff richardson's locust avenue project along with jeff cooper on bass and billy egle on guitar and keyboard. the band released the new originals in early 2005 and played regular shows in the region. stephen j. left for chicago in july of 2005 and is currently falling into obscurity.
no, maybe not...we have word that stephen j. has joined the new incarnation of slow planet with bill britt, bill lowman (bosco and jorge, l'altra, lindsay anderson, edith frost, smog, will oldham, others), and pat samson (u.s. maple, smog). they have just finished recording what may become a record at some point.
stephen j. is also playing something resembling guitar with the okie expatriates bosco and jorge, who are also working on a new album.
I thought I saw you in a dumpster the other day, but it turned out to be Taylor Hanson digging for his career... imagine my disappointment and satisfaction at the same time.
Hey! I love the organ! Pa and Gra's? I hope you are doing great, sorry we missed coming down for the visit. Hopefully we can schedule something soon! Love you!
stephen j -
Good tunes, man.
Good luck with your other kick ass projects.
One of these days, we should talk about doing events in Chi-town with Ballistico Productions.
I've been trying to send you a message over and over and over and over again. I guess your page doesn't like me. But, Stephen J., I really like your page. (It always happens like that, doesn't it.) See you in the hour of happiness.
