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What was to become The Vibe Merchants really began sometime in the autumn of 1985,
when Neil Faulkner and Greg O’Rear met at a record convention in Gainesville, FL,
in front of a table featuring a bootleg video of Kate Bush. They soon became best friends,
and often read together about their favorite band. |
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Sometime in 1987, Neil and Greg decided they needed a drummer. But not just any
drummer. They needed a Mod drummer. So they posted this modest flyer. Being
attracted by the word “Mod,” Ted Harvey responded to the flyer. |
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However, Ted did not prove to be what Neil and Greg were looking
for in a drummer, so later that same year, they added to the band Jenny Hoffman,
a musician Neil and Greg had met at the Gainesville club The Vatican.
Ted recently played bass with the Gainesville band,
The Claude Pepper Blues Explosion,
but has since left them. |
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Although she was a competent drummer and a wonderful person who gave us much
encouragement, Jenny was busy with other bands, such as Cindy Brady’s Lisp.
So, we added Steve Varosi (formerly of Plastic Age)
to the lineup and played with him our first public performance
on 27 October 1988. Also on the bill (and the reason we got the gig in the first place)
was Big Soul. We knew them because their practice space was
a few doors down from ours, and they were very friendly to us. They let us use their
bass amp and drums for this performance. |
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For some reason I no longer remember, we dropped Steve from the lineup and added
Chris Sessums on drums. We played the 2 June 1989 and the 7 July 1989 performances
with Chris. The June performance was prior to the official grand opening of the
Hardback Café. The beer was free, and the crowd was numerous and enthusiastic.
We ran out of songs, but the well-lubricated crowd wanted more, so we had to repeat
one or two songs from the beginning of the set. Once again, we opened for Big Soul,
who encouraged us to do the encore. |
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We then decided we needed a drummer with a more powerful style, so we borrowed
our friend Ed Lowery from the Tampa Mod band,
The Immediates.
Ed played drums for us at the next two shows, on 30 September 1989 and 27 October 1989.
He also did the drums and percussion on our December 1990 re-recording of the song
“Nineteen.” It was around this time that we met Doug Jordan, guitarist
for the band Camp 7,
who became our good friend. |
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But Ed was very busy with the other bands he was in, and it was quite a nuisance
for him to drive up to Gainesville from Tampa. Bowing to the inevitable, we replaced
Ed with local drummer Marc Huzansky. Marc played with us on what turned out to be
our last two performances, on 3 February 1990 and 21 April 1990. Marc also played
drums on our February-March 1990 recording of “Nineteen,” “Run Away,”
and “The Laughing Man.” |
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And so, this history of The Vibe Merchants comes to an end. We were the Mods,
we were the Mods, we were, we were, we were the Mods. |
