it was the end of the 80's. . .

. . . four ten year olds, lots of hair, eight very large reeboks and

one common cause. . . the undying love for heavy metal music. that's

how me, andy, paul, and this other guy named paul became friends in

elementary school. little did we know for the next ten years, even

as we became individuals and developed our own lives, we would always

share the same ambition. one that i hope will continue for another

ten years, the willingness to rock. that other guy named paul moved

away in the summer of seventh grade. although he is still a believer,

we knew we would need a bass player. first day of grade eight math

class; a pick falls on the floor. "do you play guitar?" andy asked.

"no, actually i play bass." the choice was made and after school me,

andy, paul and dhani formed d.b.s. with a cover of the red hot chili

peppers version of "higher ground" as well as "i believe in miracles"

by the ramones. it must've been fate we figured because we never saw

dhani play with a pick once until the "...if the music's loud enough"

sessions in '95.

we played our first show on june fourth, 1993 at an infamous north van

all ages venue called the southwall. it was run by a bunch of kids

from the neighborhood and mostly organised by this girl named trish.

i am capable of pronouncing her last name but spelling it is a

little tricky, it more or less sounded like "chorny" but i guess i

wasn't the only one cuz later on she changed it to kelly. this

particular show was her birthday bash and a big success because of the

low ticket prices. $2, if you brought a present for trish. she also

took me to see my first big punk rock show; fugazi, mecca normal and

sparkmarker. that's where we did most of our postering for the big

night as well as where i met not only some of my oldest friends in the

scene today but also the love of my life for five long years (boo hoo).

now i bet most of you are wondering the same thing i'm wondering, "how

did d.b.s. become a punk band if the were all metalheads before?" i

have a snappy comeback to all the people who questioned our faith, we

sucked! well at first we did. we were getting into all this punk shit

but we didn't really know what it was all about. we found out, however,

by attending a gig at the southwall about six months prior to our first

gig. it was an awesome band from surrey, still one of my favourites

today, brand new unit or bnu as they refer to themselves now. man, we

were in the pit thinkin we were tough shit, got bruised up a bit and

loved every minute of it. but there was one problem, the only release

they had for sale was a 7" record? i bought a record player the next

weekend.

we released about three demo cassettes that were recorded in this tiny

little studio in kits by this old awol guy named benny. they sounded

terrible but in such a classic way they still hold a special place in

my heart. Rumor has it that the first Ramones album was recorded on the very

same machine, but then again Benny was a pretty strange guy so who knows.

We entered into a battle of the bands in spring 94 and won

some free time in profile studios and through a bizarre set of

circumstances ended up getting some more time at profile when at a show

just shortly after we met owner and producer of profile, cecil english.

he believed in us and helped us get our first cd together and continues

to this day. Nefer records released our first CD and we wen't on tour for the

first time in the spring of 95, just a few hours after the release of the CD and the

Snowball 7". Gob took us down to California for a couple of weeks and I'm

still not sure if I will ever find being in a small van with 8 other people quite as

much fun. We released "If the music's loud enough" the following summer and

did some more touring to support it with our friends Anti-Flag and Falling

Sickness and that same summer we also released the split CD with Anti-Flag.

When our deal with Nefer ran out we hooked up with Sudden Death Records.

It was cool to be on a new Vancouver record label cuz Iv'e always though that

part of the reason the Vancouver punk scene doesn't get all the recognition it

deserves was from a lack of labels and distribution, but hey that's Candada for

ya, eh? Being on Joe Keithleys new label was also great because they set us up

our first over seas tour... 6 weeks in Europe with Vancouver punk-rock

legends, D.O.A. 

Now we still do pretty much the same things we ever did. we did lose a

member along the way, dhani split and ryan joined and although it was wierd

at first i think that we have kept the energy and spirit of our youth

alive in the music we make with our friends and our scene and the

people we love. now with fifty percent of our members in their

twenties we still live in our parents basements in not-so-sunny north

vancouver and stand by our principle. . . expectations are for the old!

love jesse.

p.s. i will keep this time line current and up to date as time goes on

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