Franklin

FRANKLIN LIVE AT WMUC – COLLEGE PARK, MD 10/11/1997

| Brian


Franklin got pretty lucky. Sure, we had already lost one bass player when Stavroula decided to head to Washington DC to attend American University but when Roy decided to leave the band, we thought we might have been sunk. As with any band, it’s inexplicable how certain people come together to form a band, it’s even more inexplicable why they seem to gel into a gang. So once you have a gang that does gel, losing a member seems almost impossible to recover from.

However, when Roy left we asked Josh Mills to play bass with us. Josh had played with Heel Nation and then True High Fidelity. We had become friends over a few years and without doubt, Josh was one of the most talented musicians we knew. Josh was hesitant to join at first, but I think we slowly convinced him to play with us. I don’t remember now what his hesitation was…maybe we were pretty bad.

None the less, Josh joining the band was incredibly lucky for Franklin as a gang and his bass playing again, without doubt, is probably my most favorite bass playing in the world. The guy can just play.

This recording was from a show we played in College Park, Maryland at the WMUC radio station. Once again, I don’t remember much about the show. We were not on tour at the time so it was either a one off show or possibly part of a quick weekend jaunt. However, the recording is particularly of interest because it features a song I completely forgot all about. It was called Thumbeling. We never officially recorded it which is a shame because, hearing this recording, I would have enjoyed hearing a proper recording of the tune.

2 Billion AM

Disco Song

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DJ Goes Dead

Thumbeling

Lord It’s Hard to be Happy When My Skin is on Fire

Asshole Machine

Herodotus

Major Taylor

A GREAT VAN IS KEY

| Brian

As any band will tell you, there’s an art form to any band van. Once a gang decides that driving multiple vehicles to an out of town show, or asking to borrow a parents station wagon is simply no longer in fashion or practical, the business of buying a band van is officially underway.

These days, bands can make significantly more money touring than they ever could back in the 90’s so vans are frequently rented. And while that is a practical solution, it loses some of the charm of owning a band van.

Once Roy joined Franklin in 1993, we were still driving to shows borrowing Greg’s parent’s station wagon. However, once we decided we would attempt an actual US tour in the summer of 1994 we decided that we would take the plunge and buy a van.

The van we bought was a 1977 Chevy Nomad. I wish I could recall how we found the Nomad, but we did. Roy and I went with my father to check it out. My father, who has worked on cars since he was 16, loved it and so we purchased it for the whopping sum of $700. If there was ever a greater van in existence, I’ve never seen it. It was beautifully kept. A little rust here and there, but we patched that up right quick. The back of the van, had no windows. Perfect for band equipment security and it was brown with a white racing stripe. Brown!

After we purchased the van, Roy left Tyler School of Art for the summer break and took the Nomad home to West Chester with him to soup it up for our tour. Here’s where owning your band van really makes it special.

Roy constructed a perfect loft in the back of the van. Strong and durable. The equipment could easily be stored underneath in a secure, anti-theft cavity while members of the band could sleep on top in comfort! Roy trash picked an orange love seat that was also a fold out bed. So, he took the mattress off the fold out and used that as the mattress in the loft making it basically, a comfortable bed. Once the fold out bed was removed from the interior of the couch, he built a storage locker inside of the couch, under the seat cushions for storing personal belongings The couch was used in replace of the back seats of the van for added sleeping space. Brilliant! In addition, he built a large wooden storage locker that sat just behind the drivers seat for even more storage of equipment, food and miscellaneous junk.


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As for decorations, the van was treated with late 70’s baubles to compliment the 70’s wood paneling and brownish, faux-leather on the interior. A shag carpet was added to the floor to add flash and pomp and ultimately, the van was a portable living room. In addition, the van had cruise control (an incredible feature for 13 hour drives).

That’s not to say the Nomad was flawless. As anyone will tell you, an old van requires love and attention. On the first trip with the Nomad, heading to Wilkes-Barre PA to play with Frail, we blew a cooling hose causing us to miss the show. However, the Nomad traveled with us for several years before being murdered by a horrible, disgusting drunk driver near State College PA (photos forthcoming).

Nonetheless, I felt it important to honor the Nomad. It was a beautiful vehicle. It was a honor to have found it. Thank you Nomad. From all of us.

Hope you enjoy these photos from the Nomad. Please note the “boom box” in the middle of the dashboard. The Nomad had no working radio and this was long before iPods and whatnot. We traveled with boxes of cassettes stashed under the front driver and passenger seats. Cassettes…a real medium.

I GOT INTERVIEWED ABOUT BEING AN EX-MUSICIAN :-)

| Brian

Since launching this blog, I guess some folks have stumbled across it and have been enjoying it. People other than my friends. That’s pretty awesome.

One of those folks is a fella named Kurt Morris.

He runs a blog called Welcome to Flavor Country and he asked if I might be willing to do an interview with him for his blog about being a person who used to be in a touring rock band.

I said sure, why not!
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I have to admit, it was a little odd answering questions that all seemed to sound as if not playing in a touring band anymore might be something depressing or sad for me.

He posted the article yesterday and you can check it out over yonder.

Thanks Kurt!

FRANKLIN LIVE ON RODMAN STREET

| Brian

Thank god for saving random VHS tapes. I’ve had this one sitting around for years that had a short recording of Franklin playing on Rodman Street in Philadelphia and fortunately, I stumbled across it. This video must have been shot in 1995 and features Roy “the Binnion” on bass guitar which is pretty awesome.

This show was at a fella named, “Pappy’s” house and the show was with True High Fidelity, Franklin and Frail. Sadly, in 1995, mini-VHS tapes only had about 20 minutes of recording time available on them so whoever shot this video only captured Franklin.

True High Fidelity had played before Franklin (Greg’s using Tim-Bear’s drums), but after we played the police showed up. Sadly, Frail never played. The best part of this video is Pappy trying to encourage everyone who was hanging outside the show to come into the house and down into the basement. His logic was that this would allow him to refuse police entry into his home and allow the show to continue.

As you can imagine, that logic did not work. Nonetheless, it’s a nice bit of video.

There’s a sweet Don “I-have-too-much-saliva-in-my-mouth” Devore cameo as well!

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Songs in this clips are 2 Billion AM, Sliding, Super Esperanto

Songs in this video are Bookmark, Decatur and Pagefinder.

P.S. – Extra points if you know who the band is playing at the end of the second vid at the church.

SOMETHING BLUE, AUTOMOTIVE

| Brian

I always thought that Franklin was a 7″ kind of band. Looking back on the recorded output we produced over the 8 years we were together, the 7″‘s we released always seem to sound the best to me.


Back cover.

After we recorded the IMPACT demo, Allan Klinger offered us the chance to put out a 7″ on his small upstart label, Slug Sounds. I believe at the time he had only released one 7″ by his own band, but no one else was bashing down our door to release music so we jumped at the opportunity. We did make fun of the name and logo of the record label mercilessly, however. Nonetheless, two months after recording that demo, we were off to record our first 7″ in March of 1993.

At the time, I was going to school just outside of Baltimore and so we decided to record at a studio called Hound Sound. Located in a really shitty area of Baltimore, the studio was engineered by a fella named Tony French. He played bass in a band called Candymachine and we were big fans, so recording with him made a lot of sense. Besides, the Candymachine recordings we had heard that had been produced at Hound Sound sounded about a trillion times more professional than anything we could conjure up. It’s not the greatest recording. The guitars sound a little unnatural but overall, there’s a swing to it that feels right. Fortunately, we were able to get Stavroula down to the recording sessions as well to do background vocals on Radio Flyer. We recorded six songs in total during the sessions that made up the recordings for this first 7″. This would be the first of many recordings we made in Baltimore.

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We titled the 7″, Something Blue, Automotive which came from something I had written in a letter to Roy (as I recall). It meant nothing but sounded kinda cool. I believe only 1000 copies were ever produced. Perhaps less, but I still think it holds up. It’s got some electricity in it that one always wants to hear in anything they record.

Dreams About Driving

Friday

Radio Flyer