Love in the Time of Cthulhu

About a year old so after I quit the Inverted Nines, this dude I worked with at the Synthesis, Brian Brophy asked me if I wanted to play drums in this band he had started called Damelo. It was him and our friend Travis on bass (the guy who would eventually play drums in the Inverted Nines) and our other friend Fred from Union of the Dead who would later play drums in Tiger Army. Since Fred was busy with UOD Brian was looking for a drummer and since I didn’t really have anything else going on I said sure. I didn’t have drums anymore but our friend Mop let me use his and we started practicing in the stinky, rat infested basement of Brian’s house on the corner of 8th St. and Pine in Chico (where the fucking best Taco Truck in the entire world is now).

A young and vibrant Brian Brophy. Note the old school Chico cred stack flyers. Cat Power opening for someone at Juanitas, Trackstar, Knapstack, et al

Around the same time I joined up, Travis gave up his bass duties to a local cat named Dan Burns who had been in a zillion other local bands and was definitely way more connected to the local goings on than either Brian or myself. Besides just being a badass bass player and an all around cool dude, Dan also wins at life because years after Damelo he moved to SF and worked at this totally rad clothing boutique on Haight St. called Villains and would totally hook me up with his employee discount. 

Dan ducking under the pipes and asbestos in our practice space. 

The music we were playing was totally greek to me; at this point in my education I hadn’t really heard much noisy, lo-fi post rock stuff. I was just now starting to cut my teeth on shitty emo and pop punk and was pretty well ensconced in the faux-hawk/tight shirt Get Up Kids set. Nevertheless, I tried my best to follow along and we started making up some pretty badass songs. Strangely enough, Justin Godfrey, who would later be the Abominable Iron Sloth and whom I had never met before in my life, came and tried out as a second guitarist right after he got back into town after being in the Army or something crazy like that, but he ended up joining Oddman instead. Nevertheless, we started playing shows as a piece, with our first actual show being with The Icarus Line and Isabell (which was Ben from People of the Oaks band at the time, see how it all works?) at the Brickworks in Chico in July of 2001. We played some other pretty rad shows around that time as well, with bands like Kill Me Tomorrow and The North Magnetic, most of them in either in the upstairs lobby of the then-dilapidated Senator Theater, or occasionally on the stage, where the bands would set up in the wings and the people would stand on the stage facing sideways. It was pretty spock. 

Playing off the side of the stage at the Senator

Around that same time, we got a chance to record a demo with Jason Cassidy from Cowboy out at his practice space (which is now my practice space with West by Swan). We tracked four or five songs in a night. All of my cymbals were cracked but it didn’t really matter because it was pretty lo-fi by design anyway. Brian and Dan got wasted and did the vocals later and we had ourselves a record which we proceeded to do absolutely nothing with. The song above is called “On Fire I Know” and is from that recording, which I guess means we’re doing something with it.

Brian with Jason Cassidy.

Spending $$$ in the studio. 

Anyways not too long after we recorded I think I got sick of my girlfriend bitching at me so I quit the band like a total idiot, but I don’t think Brian and Dan really gave a shit anyway, they both moved to SF and started stacking ultimate fame, while I just stayed in Chico and joined 5648 shitty bands after that, most of which you can see, or will soon be able to see, on the blog. If you for some odd reason want to hear more of these songs, there is a Damelo Myspace tribute page here. Also, strangely enough, the old Damelo Geocities Web site is till up and perusable, proof that anything on the internet is forever. We were gonna play a reunion show last year, but Monstro’s totally fucked up our date and booked a bunch of shitty punk bands on the one day we could all do it, so hopefully we’ll do it soon. When we do it will look something like this. 

Damelo: The Reunion, coming soon to a dive bar near you, if you live in Chico or SF

Anyways, if you see Brian Brophy or Dan Burns around SF tell them to stop fucking around and get serious about the band finally. In parting here are a couple of more photos that I was gonna work in there somewhere before I realized that this post was fucking stupidly long. 

Playing drums with jail (edit: gel…you’d think someone who “edits” for a living would know the difference) in your hair is a bad idea. People probably just thought I was “feeling it”

Dan Burns: kicking bass and taking names. And he’s all out of names.