Javelin

There is already a very good history of Javelin at the band's website, so I won't bother going into it here. Instead, I'll just share some of my memories and thoughts...

My first time hooking up with any other musicians was when I met up with Denny Haberkern and Bob Gleisberg at Bob's house. I had only been playing a couple of months at that point and remember being totally humiliated when I didn't even know how to play "Smoke On The Water." After that, I went back to my teacher and made him show me how to learn songs.

My next memory is sitting next to Rob Rando in math class and him asking me if I played and if I would be interested in getting a band together. I don't remember much of the details of getting everyone together. According to the website, we played a birthday party in Rob's basement with Denny, Jeff Thinschmidt and me on guitar and Rob on drums. A short while after that Matt Butler came in on bass, and Javelin was born.

It never occurred to us that we were doing anything out of the ordinary for kids our age. We all just saw it as a natural progression. And the support from our respective parents was outstanding. The driving us around to band practices and gigs, allowing us to play really loud, obnoxious music with our friends. Alot of credit has to be given to them.

I'm also impressed with the amount of gigs we had. We played school dances and holiday functions, parties, a talent show and even on TV! Okay, it was early Sunday morning, but it was something that we did on our own and was damn exciting. Years later, when trying to get another band off the ground, I used Javelin as an example of how to get things done.

Musically, what can I say? We were kids, all trying to discover our own talents. Listening to some of the old music is nostalgic, fun and sometimes painful, particularly when I ventured into lead guitar.

Eventually, as happens with most bands, we all kind of drifted in different directions musically and broke up. Denny and I played together again in Ro Herim with Bob Gleisberg and Steve Olsen, but if memory serves, we only played one show - a party in my back yard that was cut short by a visit from Northfield's finest.

Seeing a void (and lack of 6 string talent on my part), I switched to bass not long after that. And the rest, as they say, is history (which I am sure to recount later so stay tuned!).

I should note that I've had the sincere pleasure of recording with all of these guys again recently. It started with an email from someone with access to classmates.com. I learned that the other members of Javelin were looking for me and were putting a CD together of old recordings along with a new song. So, with the help of modern technology and UPS, we recorded a version of "Get Back" by The Beatles. I won't post a link to it here since it's copyrighted material, but will send it to people I know who ask. We keep threatening to get together again for old times sake and will be sure to post details here should this occur.