Buddy Magazine

Texas Tornado Hall Of Fame

http://blog.buddymagazine.com/texas-tornados-1978-present/

Touted as the “Original Texas Music Magazine” Buddy Magazine (named for Buddy Holly) has been around for over thirty years.

The Texas Tornado Hall Of Fame was created to recognize the achievements of Texas musicians exclusively.

Inductees range from Stevie Ray Vaughan to Van Cliburn.

Past and present HANDS’ “Texas Tornados”:

Michael Clay (class of 1985)

Martin McCall (class of 1992)

Ernie Myers (class of 1996)

John Fiveash (class of 1996)

Steve Powell (class of 1997)

Mark Austin (class of 1997)

Buddy Magazine - June 1985

Class of ‘85 - Those Texas Keyboard Tornados

They’re the best in the state -- perhaps in the world!

This is the fourth year running that Buddy fingers Texas’ kingpins of keyboards. The wide variety of players we’ve singled out have reflected the somewhat schizophrenic nature of the instrument itself. Ancient upright pianos are as much a part of today’s Texas music scene as the most advanced computer-interfaced synthesizer.

Little wonder, then, that 1985’s Texas Keyboard Tornados include classical artists, roaring R&B pounders, and electronically-enhanced synthesizer sorcerers. So the following musicians are the keyboard men (and women) we feel are the best ivory ticklers in the Lone Star State, circa 1985 -- the cream of the keyboardists.

Michael Clay

Michael Clay began his musical career in the fourth grade with the saxophone, then his grandparents gave him an acoustic guitar a year later. He was twelve when he sat down at a piano for the first time and found his calling. He’s studied classical piano for 15 years and just finished his third year at Richland College as a piano major. He would like to transfer to a European conservatory or school, but doesn’t rule out TCU or SMU.

The 29-year-old Clay has played in pop bands for about ten years (he was also a member of the progressive rock band Hands -- noted for their expert musicianship and groundbreaking compositions -- in the mid-70’s) and currently plays in the new-rock ensemble the Elements, as well as doing sessions, solo gigs and classical music recitals -- solo and with chamber ensembles.

He recorded an album with the now-defunct Non Fiction in LA in 1982 and would like to record with the Elements. His goals are to solo with major orchestras and to compose symphonic music and comic opera. He has always maintained a balance between the contemporary and classical.

Clay’s equipment consists of a Yamaha CP-80 electric piano and an Oberheim OB-8. He uses no effects.

Buddy Magazine - August 1992

The Beat Goes On

Presenting the 1992 Texas Tornados of Drums, the Lone Star State’s best and foremost practitioners of the Wham, the Bam, and the Holy Thump.

Martin McCall

Born in 1954 in Lamar. Missouri, Martin McCall moved to Richardson with his family in 1959. He began taking drum lessons at age ten and studied for one and a half years with Ray Windt (who is now a Ludwig drum representative). At age 17, he attended Richland College, spent one year at NTSU, and then one more year at North Lake College.

At 18, McCall began his professional career playing in “hundreds of bands,” including jazz-fusion group Aurora, which opened several times for Larry Coryell. In 1982, McCall won the Carmine Appice drum contest.

For the last ten years McCall has drummed for the Karen Bella Band.

He has also jammed with the Rodney Johnson Band, Buck ‘n’ the System,

Bill Swicegood, Jerry LaCroix, Smokey Logg, and Hai Tex Orchestra. His latest project is OogaBooga, a “world unity thing leaving cultures intact...something that would make a statement without being overly serious.”

His influences include Gene Krupa, Mitch Mitchell (from the Jimi Hendrix Experience), and “any drummer who has drummed for Peter Gabriel.”

Recorded efforts include the new self-titled Between the Lines LP with Joseph Brenna and Kristin Kundhardt; and his new album with OogaBooga, Simple World, which will be out soon.

McCall’s kit is a 1970 Ludwig black oyster pearl Octoplus minus one bass drum and one 15” tom. He uses a single bass drum with a double kick pedal and seven toms, along with Zildjian cymbals. His percussion instruments include octobans (designed by Billy Cobham), congas, and rototimpani (a rototom with a foot pedal).

Buddy Magazine - July 1996

The Texas Tornados of Bass and Guitar, 1996

The Texas sound, for some it’s the report of a .12-gauge on the opening day of dove season. For others it’s the grinding of a diamond bit on a dusty Austin-Chalk lease. For the rest of us, it’s the sound of a guitar laced with a smidgeon of sweet distortion, a singing violin-like tone that can make an audience quiver in harmonic sympathy with a bend this way or a vibrato that.

Texas is guitar country. Has been since before World War I, when Wortham-born Blind Lemon Jefferson brought the Texas Blues from his hometown to Dallas and then to the whole Midwest. Before Dallas-born Charlie Christian became the first electric guitarist to gain fame, with the Benny Goodman Sextet. Before Tioga-born Gene Autry strummed his way to fame as the first singing cowboy star. Even before Buddy Holly defined the rock trio format for generations to come.

Buddy readers need no further proof of just how deep Texas is immersed in guitar history. The successes of Stevie Ray Vaughan, Jimmie Vaughan, Billy Gibbons, Eric Johnson, and others have brought the rest of the world around.

The Buddy Texas Tornados are an elite corps of the Lone Star State’s finest musicians. The editors have been picking them since 1978. With so many fine players in circulation, choosing so few a year is a harrowing task. The Variety of styles in Texas is as wide as a Panhandle horizion.

We salute the new inductees for 1996 as they take their place alongside previous Buddy Texas Tornado guitarist and bassist inductees. May they spank their planks till the cows come home.

Ernie Myers

Somewhere in the verdant but scarcely populated creative den of iniquity, there is a great need for guitarists like Ernie Myers. A progressive popster

with the eccentric chops of Frank Zappa and the melodic instincts of Glenn Tilbrook, Myers has long been a silent warrior in the Dallas music community.

Heavily influenced by the Beatles, Gentle Giant, King Crimson, Yes, Zappa and Nektar, Myers and several chums from Carrollton’s R.L.Turner high school formed Hands, a prototypical progressive rock band whose songs were brain numbing in their intricacy and often lasted what seemed like several years in performance.

But with the dawn of New Wave, the group mutated into the Fun Guys and then the Elements, the latter an art pop band that won Buddy’s Best Unsigned Band award in 1984 (though the group actually flirted with several major labels before dissolving in frustration in the late ‘80’s).

Myers -- by then as adept at production, writing and singing as he is guitar -- again brushed the big time with Safety in Numbers before the band imploded in ‘91. The Elements briefly tried it again, as Shiny Beast, then folded -- but from the cumulative ashes of those groups has risen what may be the best: All the Tea in China (comprised of Myers, former Hands/Elements/Beast alumni Steve Parker and John Fiveash and former Safety in Numbers bandmate Steve Powell).

Ironically the group is breaking into the club scene just as the Houston-based indie label Shroom Records is preparing to release a compilation of old Hands material overseas.

Myers, whose stinging Robert Fripp runs work intriguingly against his own fishbone rhythms, plays a Kramer Ferrington or a Tokai reissue of a ‘63 Strat, and in lieu of traditional amplification utilizes a Boss ME-5 effects unit direct through the monitor system.

Buddy Magazine - August 1996

The Beat Goes On

Presenting the 1996 Texas Tornados of Drums, the Lone Star State’s best and foremost practitioners of the Wham, the Bam, and the Holy Thump.

Drums were the first musical instrument to which man set his hand. That’s pretty much a matter of universal consensus. So it follows that, if the Big Bang Theory is one of several versions of how the entire universe kicked off, the origin of the world of musical instruments man blows, twangs, and pounds would have to be tagged the Big Boom Theory,

Today’s drummer has a couple of noteworthy advantages over those musicians wielding other axes. This edge befits the drummer’s status as the one who coaxes and bullies new voices out of the oldest instrument in the world. As bandmates stand and toil, the drumlord surveys stage and crowd from an elevated seat on a throne-like riser. Since he sits behind a bulky drum kit, wardrobe considerations only apply from the waist up.

The drum’s upstage location might frustrate the more exhibitionistic percussionist. But it takes only the faintest trace of healthy paranoia to appreciate the undeniable benefits. The drummer is the farthest from the audience, and his co-players stand between him and anything overzealous mob members might hurl. The drummer is also closest to the fire exits in most halls. Nobody plays in back of him, eliminating the need to look awkwardly over his shoulder for cues.

To be sure, the drum community has some unimpeachably legitimate gripes, and far be it from Buddy to scoff at any of them. More equipment to schlepp to gigs, longer set-up time, the threat of replacement by a rhythm machine, and reliance on muscle for volume in lieu of a gain knob are all bonafide beefs, of course. Yet when they’re balanced against the fringe benefits outlined above, Mr. Drum Pounder comes off as nobody’s whipping boy.

We’re sure 1996’s Texas Drum Tornados would agree. Ask any of those high priests of percussion’s purifying power and you’ll hear similar replies. It’s not martyrdom or masochism that keeps them on those thrones behind their kits -- it’s sheer love, bordering on religious devotion to the Wham, the Bam, and the Holy Thump.

John Fiveash

If there is a drummer (other than Chris Layton or Earl Harvin) with a more impressive pedigree than Dallas’ John Fiveash, he’s yet to surface.

In his extensive history, Fiveash has been an integral member of Hands, the Elements, Non-Fiction, Lightning, Voodoo Cowboys, Shiny Beast and All the Tea in China, and his session resume in both California and Texas is staggering.

He spent his high school years playing in a drum corps, and remembers Rush’s Neil Peart as being the coolest human on earth, at least until Fiveash joined Hands. At that point, he became enamored of Bill Bruford and Stewart Copeland, and his own style as a human metronome with a totally inventive and singular style.

Fiveash plays Premiere drums and a variety of select cymbals, and -- depending on the size of the hall -- always has at least one straight-from-the-Orient gong perched over his right shoulder.

He’s currently in the studio with All the Tea in China and rehearsing for a reunion appearance of Hands at a progressive rock festival tentatively scheduled for late fall, in California.

Elephant Blog

http://elephant-blog.blogspot.com/2007/11/michael-clay-plays-music-of-adrian.html

Adrian Belew Blog

Thursday, November 15, 2007

Michael Clay Plays the Music of Adrian Belew and King Crimson

a few years ago when our dear friend Ian Wallace was alive and well and living here in Nashville, he and Margie and Martha and I had dinner with a mutual friend from Dallas, Michael Clay.

the restaurant was The Capitol Grille* located in one of downtown finest old establishments, The Heritage Hotel, a completely refurbished art deco wonder. the chef of the restaurant, a friend of Margie's, prepared for us special tastings of various amazing dishes. served one at a time, each entree was appetizer size and ran the gamut from meat and fish to pasta and deserts. bite by bite, it was a fabulous meal.

there was a pianist playing classic rock songs rendered in a psuedo-classical fashion. I commented on how interesting the music was and how certain pieces took a minute to identify. I thought out loud how nice it would be to have a song of mine done that way. Michael is a fabulous concert pianist among other things. he said, "I can do that." and indeed he can.

that is how the two of us began a project of adrian pieces and adrian/krimson pieces played by Michael on concert piano in a fashion befitting wine and delicacies. over the last two years many MP3s have been passed my way by Michael and I've enjoyed every note. I love hearing the songs in such a "high-art" context. this saturday we will meet here at StudioBelew to take a look at what's needed to complete our collaboration.

then we hope to share it with you.

*the Capitol Grille in Nashville is a top notch restaurant

but is not to be confused with the small chain of Capital Grilles

(spelled with two A's) in various major cities which happen

to be my favorite fine dining establishments anywhere.

Posted by adrian belew  at 3:52 PM

Guitar Player Magazine

www.guitarplayer.com/article/adrian-belew/jun-08/36123

(June 2008) 

Adrian Belew likes to keep a lot of plates spinning in the air at once. ... he’s collaborating with classical pianist  Michael Clay, he has posted one ...

Proclamation: The Occasional Gentle Giant Magazine

http://www.blazemonger.com/gg/fanclub.html

Golfing with GG

By Michael Clay

http://www.blazemonger.com/GG/humor/mclay.html

Ages I ago I detailed some of my encounters with GG and I think I told the story of how my band, then called Prism and later Hands, were fortunate enough to open for GG at a place called the Electric Ballroom here in Dallas. This place used to be called the Sportatorium and local, semi-professional wrestling used to be broadcast from there. It was essentially a huge barn made of tin. When I was a small boy I used to watch the likes of Fritz Von Eric and Chief "Wahoo" McDaniels "wrestle" in a very poor, grainy, black and white broadcast from this barn. That the likes of Fritz Von Eric and Kerry Minnear, within the same decade, performed under the same crappy roof is one of my favorite ironies. Anyway, Prism secured the opening spot for GG and the Electric Ballroom management was kind enough to let us set up very early that day. We were scheduled to arrive at 2:00 P.M. I think. Now our drummer John, a very fine man and a killer drummer, (still) but perhaps a little insane back then, decided to show up early because he had the largest collection of noise making devices known to man. He also wanted to schmooz John Weathers without anyone else there. So early he arrived and found his beloved Weathers amiable and receptive.

For John the distance between piece of junk to art object to unique percussion instrument was a short one. His engineering skills were such that he could polish and mount these various found objects in a professional manner. His "kit" was an organic monster that grew exponentially. Bruford-inspired and trained in traditional jazz (Krupa, Rich, etc.) he could make an incredible racket. John, like the rest of the band, had a straight gig during the day. He was groundskeeper at a golf course. One night he stole a part of a machine that is used to dredge golf balls out of the water and pick them up from a driving range. The back part fo this machine is made of several metallic disks with a central axel running through them. So John fabricated an "instrument" that was like several concentric and flat cymbals mounted on one tall stand. It made a sound like a cowbell but with a little smoother tone and varying pitches. The rest of us ridiculed this thing for two years. We made fun of John's found sounds and were sometimes embarassed by the looks people gave his set up. So to think that he was going to foist these things off on one of our idols was really embarassing. But John had the last laugh.

At the sound check John was able to show Weathers his setup and explain it in detail. To our suprise Weathers was impressed and interested. It was truly surreal to see Pugwash banging around on all this crap (with enthusiasm) that the rest of us had been more than a little critical. "O well" I thought. Later that night, after the end of a dream come true gig for us, John and Weathers were hanging out together and they decided that they would get their gear tommorrow. I suppose that Weathers like to be there when the roadies tore down the stuff. I really don't know. Prism had no roadies so we had to be there to tear our own stuff down. So that next day John wanted to give Weathers a gift for being so cool. Weathers really liked the golf ball thing and so John tore it down and gave him most of it. (he kept some of the disks to torture us with) "Oh no!" we thought. How stupid to give our heroes a piece of fabricated junk as our only gift. Weathers thanked him profusely and promised to use it on the upcoming album which turned out to be  The Missing Piece. "Yeah right," we all thought. That's the last of that. We all worked very hard after that to remove a lot of "found" percusssion from our music. We thought the thing was finally gone.

Some months later The Missing Piece came out and naturally we bought it right away. I remember Ernie the guitar player calling me and asking if I had heard Winning yet. "No," I said, I hadn't had the chance to hear the album yet. I could hear him grin over the phone. Later that evening I pulled the cellophane off the LP, sat down with a joint and my girlfriend to hear the new Giant offering. Then Winning started. There it was... the thing! True to his word Weathers played it for the percussion intro and the percussion breakdown in the middle. As our only legacy with Gentle Giant there was the clanging piece of junk from a golf course. More irony fom the Electric Ballroom/Sportatorium.

So pull out your CD's. Give a listen. The thing is there and has an unmistakeable (for me anyway) clanging sound. If you can hear it then you'll know why this album really is ‘The Missing Piece’ (of junk) for me.

Progression

The Quarterly Journal of Progressive Music

http://progressionmagazine.com/

Issue 40 - Spring 2002

on the cover: CD Inside! Full-Length Sampler from SHROOM RECORDS

http://www.progarchive.com/album.asp?id=11120

page 154

Behind the Shroom Records sampler

A track-by-track description

By Richard S. Patz, Shroom Label President

HANDS, “Knock/Enter”

From Twenty Five Winters, Sp-2111

The new record embodies musical thought and experience stretching across the three decades of Hands history. Each member brings individual influence, and the band has a deep sense of collective experience.

The new CD begs the question, “What if Hands had stayed together from 1980 until the present?” Hands  proceeds to answer with a combination of tried-and-true progressive rock principles coupled with new ideas, fresh technology, and seasoned musicianship. Hands did not wish to “revisit” their old sound or produce anything that might be construed as “retro”. Instead, they chose to speculate about a sound that might have evolved from their progressive rock heyday of the 1970s. The new Hands album is not easily classifiable. To label it merely “progressive rock” ignores the classical, rock and ethnic influences that shine throughout this varied work. Some tunes are jazzy, some of a classical framework, and some are purely pop. Hands just lets the sound be guided by their creative spirit rather than the dictates of any style. Twenty Five Winters is a statement that is bold and new. At a time when bands comprising older musicians rest on their laurels, Hands tosses the tired notion of retro rock and plays, from the heart, something familiar but very new.

Progression

The Quarterly Journal of Progressive Music

http://progressionmagazine.com/

Issue 41 - Summer/Fall 2002

pages 36-40

Hands-made sucess

It may have taken more than two decades,

but this ‘little’ progressive band from Texas

is finally getting a fair shake

By MARK NEWMAN

Chirognomy is the art of palm reading, a pseudo-science that portends to predict the future by reading lines in the hand and analyzing its unique characteristics.

You don’t need to be a palm reader, or fortune teller for that matter, to know that a musician’s future invariably is tied to his hands - regardless of instrument or compositional preferences.

For musicians Michael Clay and Ernie Myers, few things are more important than Hands - an extremity in the annals of ‘70s progressive earning belated and well-earned applause.

Hands is their labor of love, an enterprise that enjoyed wide acclaim when their first CD finally saw the light of day in 1995 as the inaugural release of Shroom Records. Two more CDs of archival material followed, before the release of new tracks earlier this year.

Their latest effort is called Twenty Five Winters. It’s an appropriate title given that the Hands legacy goes back a quarter century to the unlikely setting of Farmers Branch, Texas. “We all went to the same high school,”

says Michael Clay, Hands keyboardist and composer, recalling his teen-age years at R.L. Turner High School in the northern Dallas suburb.

“We gravitated to each other because we listened to the same music,” explains Ernie Myers, Hands guitarist and the band’s other primary writer.

“We formed our own little unit.”

Clay and Myers are like opposing digits on the same hand. Clay knew how to read music, took formal piano lessons starting at age nine and played saxophone in the school band. Myers, by contrast had “zero” music training. “I learned completely by ear,” he says.

What they had in common was an appreciation of groups like King Crimson, Yes, Emerson, Lake & Palmer and Jethro Tull - an affinity that wasn’t as rare as might be expected in the land of ZZ Top, rodeos and J.R. Ewing. “While that stuff does exist, Dallas is really just a huge metropolitan area like Chicago or New York,” Clay says. In fact, Clay and Myers grew up not far from the campus of North Texas State University -

outside of Boston’s Berklee School of Music, possibly the country’s best jazz school.

“We listened to a lot of progressive jazz, fusion and experimental jazz,” Clay says. “Acts like Mahavishnu Orchestra, Weather Report, Miles Davis and Soft Machine were strong influences, especially on me.”

The embryonic beginnings of Hands are found in two distinct musical endeavors. While Clay was rehearsing in his bedroom with another guitarist, the slightly older Michael Barreyre, Myers was jamming with drummer John Rousseau and guitarist Steve Parker above the concession stand of a drive-in theater. “It was called the Rebel Twin, complete with rebel flags and neon lights,” Myers says.

“That’s were I saw the movie Woodstock 13 times. We rehearsed in a room next to the projection booth.”

While Clay’s roots were in classical music, Myers was a dyed-in-the-wool

rocker, spending his time figuring out the licks to Black Sabbath, Grand Funk and Rolling Stones tunes. “One time I hooked my guitar up to all the drive-in’s metal speakers,” Myers says. “It took me like an hour and a half to turn on every single speaker, but it sounded pretty cool.”

Myers was into rock music, but he didn’t really get into the art-rock scene until his father brought home a record that changed his life. “It was Jethro Tull’s Aqualung - I was only 15 or 16 at the time. It was a lot better than the music I had been listening to.”

His musical awakening was further nutured when he met Clay, who had his horizons broadened a couple of years earlier. “I remember hearing the second Spirit album, The Family That Plays Together,” Clay says. “Spirit was really kind of a progressive rock band for that day and I really thought the record was incredible.”

But it was one Robert Fripp who completely turned his head around. “In 1970, I managed to hear ‘21st Century Schizoid Man’ on the radio and I went out and bought the first King Crimson record,” Clay says. “I was pretty much hooked on progressive rock after that.”

The two groups merged and became Ibis, referencing “Flight of the Ibis,” a song on the only McDonald and Giles album. It was about the same time, that Myers moved with his family to California. “We lived in Malibu for about a year,” Myers says. “We thought we’d like it out there, but we just didn’t fit in - although it was fortuitous because that’s where I met [woodwinds player] Skip Durbin. I brought him back kicking and screaming.”

Ibis was essentially a cover band that played the Dallas area. The group had an extraordinarily eclectic set list, covering everything from Tull, PFM and Zappa to Johnny Winter and The Allman Brothers.

Eventually, the band changed its moniker to Prism. “We dropped the name when we found out an Ibis was a bird that sucked the shit from its own ass.” Clay recalls with a laugh.

As the precursor to Hands, Prism incorporated more and more originals into its set list. Clay soon expressed the desire to find a string player to benefit the band’s new musical direction. Through a newspaper ad discovered by Rousseau, Prism added Paul Bunker, a truly talented viola,

violin and guitar player.

“We started flirting with original music around ‘74 or ‘75,” Clay says. “By 1977, everybody was bringing songs into the band. We generated a lot of music very quickly.”

By the time Myers returned to Texas with Durbin in tow, the band had moved into a house on Valwood Street in Farmers Branch. It was there, according to the band’s bio, that “girlfriends, other musicians, friends and just the idle curious formed an atmosphere where creativity and musical experimentation were the norm.”

The band house became a commune-like gathering place, a subculture haven of sorts, where freewheeling debates on artistic, political and social topics shared time with parties and impromptu concerts. “Everyone in the world came there - it was one of those places where there were people 24 hours a day,” Clay says. “It was insane, but it allowed us to come together as a band. We were all really good friends, who liked the same things, who did the same things.”

This was the 1970s, of course, but Clay says the drug of choice was music. “My god, we practiced like six night a week,” he says. “We lived together the rest of the time, so there was very little time when we weren’t working on music or at least throwing around ideas.”

Finding places to play wasn’t that difficult in those days. “There were a lot of rock clubs that were open to the idea of good music,” says Myers, who recalls seeing a young Eric Johnson perform with his band on numerous occasions. “There was always a pretty good live music scene here, especially in the ‘70s.”

Even when they felt their hands tied by a lack of suitable venues, the band never despaired. “We would play almost anywhere,” Myers says. One time they set up a generator on North Lake, a man-made watering hole near Farmers Branch, and 2,000 people showed up.

Prism eventually vacated the Valwood Street house and moved into a series of warehouses called Yancey Camp, where the group continued to hone its collection of original tunes. It was there that Myers’ father and a business associate heard Prism and agreed to invest money for the band to make a recording.

“It wasn’t like he came out with a suitcase full of money,” Myers explains. “I

had to ask him for it, but my dad was always supportive of our music. I think they appreciated our talent, the level of musicianship and our commitment.” Thus began the first of several recording sessions which later would comprise the first Hands CD.

“From early on, we recognized the importance of recording - that’s why there’s so much recorded material from those days,” Myers says. “Our goal was always to get a record deal.”

Meanwhile, Rousseau was busy contacting the promoters of a Dallas-area

Gentle Giant concert in hopes of landing a spot for Prism as opening act.

“He did everything but sleep on the doorstep of the promoter,” Myers says.

“He was not going to take ‘No’ for an answer.”

The band was not unfamiliar to folks at The Electric Ballroom where Gentle Giant was scheduled to play. An early incarnation of the band had opened for blues guitarist Roy Buchanan. “We were basically booed off stage,” Clay says. “Unfortunately for us, Roy Buchanan showed up late, so we had to play even longer. It was a terrible experience. But it did get our foot in the door with promoters for the venue.”

Rousseau’s perseverance eventually paid off. Prism was rewarded with the opportunity to appear on the same stage as their heroes. “It was a pretty amazing experience,” Myers says. Encouraged by the crowd’s enthusiastic response at the Gentle Giant gig, the group focused on recording efforts at January Sound studio.

The sessions were not intended to be a means to an end, only to get interested parties to sign the band. With the exception of one 45-rpm single, nothing was ever pressed for public consumption.

“Although we considered them to be more than demos, we never turned the recordings into any sort of product because their purpose was mainly for shopping to labels,” Myers says.

The band contacted “almost everyone,” with responses ranging from tepid to disinterested. “Disco was king at the time and it was hard for even established bands to keep their deals,” Myers says.

Prism was still shopping its music in 1978 when the band had to endure another practice room change to a storefront warehouse in East Dallas

(actually Garland, an area of the city spoofed on Fox-TV’s “King of the Hill”

animated series). It was about the same time that the group learned they would have to change their name. A simple name search discovered the existence of the Canadian band Prism on Arista Records.

“We went through a jillion names,” says Clay, shuddering at the memory.

One name seriously considered was Vincent Baboon & His Trial Balloon.

Thankfully, common sense prevailed. The name of Hands, which was suggested by a couple of the band’s members, seemed to sum up a great deal about the band.

Over its history, the band was able to survive many personnel changes. In

fact, there are not enough fingers on both hands to count all the musicians who came and went. The names of 16 musicians appeared on the first Hands CD, and yet the “emotional upheaval” of musicians coming and going never threatened to impede the band’s progress.

“It’s always traumatic when members leave, particularly when you’re younger and you’re in a band that’s more of a tribal exercise than just a professional playing outfit.,” Clay says. Fortunately, the band always had a firm grip on its musical direction, even when various members escaped its grasp.

“Hands has always had a modus operandi,” Clay says. “Our musical direction has always been fairly clear and up-front. When a new person came into the group, it wasn’t like the sound and intent of the band had to change.” Likewise, the band never consciously attempted to sound “different” from the mainstream. Yet, this was a time when bands like Yes, ELP and Kansas were big arena acts. “Back then I don’t think we were aware that we were playing progressive music,” Clay says. “We were just trying to do music that emulated the bands that we liked at the time.”

One bright spot in the early history of Hands is when the band courted Ken Scott, engineer and producer behind David Bowie, Elton John, Supertramp, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Jeff Beck and others. “Ken Scott really liked the recording a whole lot,” Myers recalls. “He told us on the phone he would have been interested in bringing us into the studio but he had just started to work with Happy The Man and the Dixie Dregs. He didn’t want to do too many things in the same genre.”

Hands’ music, indeed, shares much with those well-known progressive acts, especially via prevalent use of the flute and violin. “Obviously we were disappointed,” Myers says. “We were just a little late on the scene.”

Even so, Scott’s reply was much more encouraging than responses they got elsewhere. Clay and Myers laugh at the memory of band member Skip Durbin taking tapes to the studio of Dennis Dragon, who played with the Beach Boys and was the brother of keyboardist Daryl Dragon of Captain & Tennille fame.

“Skip took the tapes to his studio, but Dragon stopped the tape in the middle of the instrumental ‘Zombieroch’ and said, ‘What is this?! Fuck you music?’” Myers laughs. In other words, Clay explains, “He hated it!”

Undaunted, the band kept practicing and writing tunes. “We never had any doubt that we’d eventually be signed or break out of our little cocoon.” Myers says. But by 1979, Clay began to wonder. He had read an interview with Robert Fripp that painted a dismal picture for progressive rock in the musical whirlwind that was fast approaching.

“Fripp didn’t think large, complicated bands were going to survive the next few years - he thought the answer was small, mobile units,” Clay says.

“What the punks were doing didn’t go unnoticed by me. I thought things were going to change and they did radically after 1980.”

Hands didn’t fold after Clay’s departure. Myers found an able replacement in session keyboardist Shannon Day, who would later join the Texas hard-rock group Point Blank. “If it hadn’t been for Shannon, we wouldn’t have kept going,” Myers Says. In addition, Mark Menikos replaced Paul Bunker on violin. Still, the handwriting was on the wall. Although the members of Hands continued to record, they still couldn’t buy a record deal to save their lives and eventually disbanded.

Clay, in the meanwhile made a record with a band called Non-Fiction which was signed to Elton John’s label, The Rocket Record Company.

The project was short-lived and Clay eventually found his way back to Myers. “After the death of Non-Fiction, Mike and I got together in 1982 and formed a band called The Elements that included Steve Parker and John Fiveash from Hands,” Myers says.

A new wave band with a progressive edge, The Elements came close to signing a deal with several major labels. In fact, the band would have signed with Polygram if it hadn’t been for Derek Shulman, a former member of Gentle Giant. Clay actually had a close encounter with Shulman a couple of years earlier. “Derek had gotten into production,” Clay says. “He had married a girl from Dallas and I knew he had moved here in 1980, so I told Non-Fiction’s manager to contact him and try to get him to produce the band.”

After meeting Non-Fiction in the studio, Shulman agreed to work with the band. “We had all but signed the deal when Hugh Padgham suddenly became available,” Clay says. “I didn’t have anything to do with it, but the label wanted Padgham as producer and they basically screwed Shulman over.”

Flash forward a couple of years. The Elements were in the middle of a bidding war between labels when Polygram stepped up to the plate with the best deal. As it turned out, it was too good to be true. “Derek Shulman was now the head of A&R for Polygram and as soon as he found out the band included three former members of Non-Fiction, it was all over,” Myers says.

Essentially, Hands got the middle finger from Derek Shulman. “It was ironic

because one of our biggest heroes of all time killed our deal,” Myers says.

“It was all because another record label had cut him out of the deal at the last minute and he remembered that.”

The Elements were still a hot property, however. The band, which played a five-state area around Texas, was managed by Charles Vessels, the former road manager of Three Dog Night. “He knew everybody and eventually we were going to sign with 21 Records, a label which was headed by Fred Haayen, who worked with Golden Earring and had recently signed John Entwistle and Alvin Lee.”

Haayen flew the band to New York where they went to the 21 Club to meet Entwistle and Lee. “We were going to be his first new wave act,” Myers says. “We waited four years to sign with him. Then the label got into financial trouble and folded.”

The group re-formed as Shiny Beast, a progressive pop band that took its name from Captain Beefheart’s Bat Chain Puller LP. “We’ve never stopped playing music,” says Myers, who also joined a pop-rock band called All the Tea in China, an act that still performs today.

Hands, however, remained silent into the ‘90s, although Clay and Myers talked about someday reuniting the old band. Neither had ever stopped listening to progressive rock, even when pursuing other musical avenues.

“What really flabbergasted me was when I heard Echolyn’s As the World in 1995,” says Clay, who also worked as a concert pianist in addition to writing film and television music. “I couldn’t believe that there was still anyone doing tight, punchy, progressive art-rock like that - and it was on Sony, for god’s sake!”

Hands was ultimately rescued from obscurity by Richard Patz, a long-time friend and relative of Hands bassist Steve Parker. Patz was in the process of starting Shroom Records and he wanted Hands to be his first release.

“When he was a little kid, he became enamored with the band,” Myers says. “He thought we were like rock gods.”

Hoping to spotlight progressive rock, hard rock and psychedelic bands from Texas, Louisiana and Oklahoma, Patz felt Hands was perfect for his new label. The band gave its consent and the first Hands CD was finally released in 1995.

“We were pleasantly surprised by the response,” Myers says. “It’s not that we didn’t believe in the music. We just were surprised that there were so many people who would be that interested.”

The CD was released to great reviews and sold well, particularly in Scandinavia and Europe. Two more CDs of archival material were released to wide acclaim: a compilation of Prism material called Live ‘75-’77 and a Hands collection entitled Palm Mystery.

Clay and Myers say the only disappointing aspect is that the music hasn’t been released in the order it was recorded. Even the first Hands CD features music taken from a five-year period.

“It’s really a mishmash,” Clay says. “The songs really aren’t in the order we recorded them or intended them to be released. Even the order of the releases is not chronological.”

Not that anyone’s complaining. After nearly a quarter century, the group is just happy its music finally saw the light of day. “It’s really neat to see the fruition of all the hours we spent rehearsing and recording,” Myers says.

The music on the first Hands CD would have fit nicely alongside its contemporaries of the time: Happy The Man, Jethro Tull, PFM, ELP and Kansas. Palm Mystery is comprised of recordings made after Clay’s departure, though a couple of earlier tracks are included. The Prism CD is an excellent live document of the band’s earliest incarnation. It includes covers of Gentle Giant’s “Plain Truth” and King Crimson’s “Great Deceiver.”

Although the members were always given ample opportunity to flex their impressive instrumental chops on tape, the strength of their work lies in their restraint: The band produced complex progressive music without being overly self-indulgent.

“We’ve always had a strong sense of song and melody,” Clay says. “We tried to restrain the solos - that’s always been the aesthetic within the band,

and anyone who came into Hands understood that very well.”

Acclaim for the rediscovered Hands encouraged members to discuss reuniting. It was suggested, first by Shroom and then by Myers, that a reunion CD be produced. In 1996, ex-Hands drummer John Rousseau -

“He always seems to be the instigator in these things,” Myers says - offered rehearsal space in a video facility where he worked at the time.

“A bunch of past and present members got together and we had a big, two-day rehearsal at this place,” Myers says. “Mike had some new songs

and I thought it was a good idea, so we got started.”

Although the various members had stayed friends through the years, it took a while for the band to rediscover the chemistry it had in the studio. “It was a difficult process,” Myers says. “Making an album now isn’t as easy as when you’re 17.”

“I thought long and hard about what made those old recordings special and it’s that group mentality,” Clay says. “We had a group aesthetic that gave something extra to the music. It took a while for us to get that back.”

Not surprisingly, the sound coming out of that Dallas studio wasn’t the same as it was in the ‘70s. “As we got into the project, it became clear to me that I really didn’t want to revisit that sound, at least not in any contrived way,” Clay says. “As far as I was concerned, ‘70s prog-rock was dead and gone. It was time to move on.”

Even so, there was pressure to reproduce that “classic” sound for what would become the Twenty Five Winters album. “[Shroom label head] Rich

[Patz] did say several times that the people who might buy this record will want a lot of mellotron and mini-Moog,” Clay recalls. “That really left a bad taste in my mouth because I hate retro stuff.”

Clay, who prefers the ”art-rock” tag over “progressive rock,” says he thinks a truly progessive band should be looking forward, not backward.”

“Progressive needs to be the mode of working, not the label,” Clay says.

“It’s not really progressive if we stack a bunch of mellotrons and mini-Moogs on top of everything with operatic vocals.”

Needless to say, it pained Clay when he read some reviewers claim the band had changed its sound with the new music. “Some reviewers made the comment that the music wasn’t as complex, which is really a bunch of crap,” Clay says. “A lot of the music is actually a lot more complicated - it just doesn’t sound that way because it’s more smoothly integrated.”

For example, “Dance of Light and Darkness,” the fourth track on the new CD, features an extended a cappella arrangement suggesting Gentle Giant.”  “Ernie’s original demo of the song had a vocal counterpoint in the middle of the tune,” Clay explains. “Bob Dixon [the producer] and I thought it would be cool to have this a cappella vocal at the beginning and end.

Once we started to layer vocals with Ernie, he just kept coming up with lines that worked. We mixed those lines together and it turned out nicely. It is somewhat Gentle Giant-like and so I’m sure that’s how we justified it.”

The album’s finale, “Leaving,” is a nearly 12-minute opus featuring lovely piano lines from Clay and gorgeous French horn from guest Chris Dulen, along with an instrumental break that would be at home on a King Crimson record. “It’s actually the oldest piece of music on the record - I wrote it in 1990,” Clay says.

As a whole, the new CD showcases a level of musicianship and production not found on previous recordings. Clay says it reflects the band’s love of meticulously produced records like Sgt. Pepper..., In the Court of the Crimson King and Close to the Edge.

“In the past those types of productions have eluded us because of expense,” Clay says. “Now we have our own Pro-Tools gear and it really gave us the freedom to do the types of edits and mixes that we could have  never pulled off with analog tape at the cost of $90 per hour. We were simply trying to make a fascinating recording - and we held nothing back in that pursuit.”

The band also took the opportunity to make a comment about the music business. The album opens with the lyrics: “Twenty-Five Winters and counting/Any kind of knock has forsaken our door/Running for our lives/And still flying metal kites/In slight wind.”

“In the past, Hands’ mistake was trying to fit what we were doing with corporate rock,” Clay says. “By the time we got around to making our best music, the days of Yes and ELP were gone in the record companies’ minds. This time Hands is taking the music directly to the people who enjoyed it. There has always been an audience for this music, which obviously, lives on.”

Gone are the days when Hands came up empty. Today, the group is smarter and leaner. The band is now composed of Clay on keyboards, sax and guitar; Myers on guitar and vocals; Rex Bozarth on bass, Stick, cello, and vocals; and Martin McCall on drums and percussion. Hands already has begun writing songs for their next album, and is playing live in the Dallas area to fine-tune their sound. The band was also set at this writing to appear at the ProgDay 2002 festival in North Carolina.

“When you consider how progressive-rock fans tend to be ravenous and obsessive, it’s cool to see people who really like this music be able to finally get the CD,” Clay says. “That they treasure our music as part of their collection is even more cool.”

Sea of Tranquility

http://www.progressiveears.com/sot/parsers/interviewparser.asp?intidx=44&bhcp=1

Hands - Full!

An in-depth, history packed discussion with keyboard ace Michael Clay from the legendary Texas prog group Hands.

By Pete Pardo

Discussions in prog circles regarding the elite masters of the 1970's usually rotate among the bands that made it big, either with album sales, FM radio hits, arena tours, or line-up longevity. Such acts as Genesis, Yes, E.L.P., King Crimson, Gentle Giant, or even Jethro Tull, might usually be a part of these discussions. One band who was not quite as lucky to have hit the "big time" as the above mentioned groups, but possibly came fairly close, is the Texas band Hands.

While this complex and influential band remained extremely busy with touring and recording (they opened up for Gentle Giant on numerous gigs), that major label deal always eluded them. The band's sound drew from contemporaries of the time such as Kansas, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Frank Zappa, Dixie Dregs, King Crimson, Happy the Man, and of course Gentle Giant, and featured a myriad of musical instruments that came together to form a highly unique sound.

Not until a few short years ago had any of the early-recorded material been released, and since, a renewed interest in the band has occurred. One can only wonder what might have been had that opportunity come knocking for Hands back in the 70's, but on the eve of a new CD chock full of recently recorded material being released, the possibility of major recognition seems in store for the band.

Michael Clay, longtime keyboard player for Hands, recently was kind enough to share some frequent communications with me via the Internet, and gave us a superb, in-depth look at this fabled and legendary band, past, present, and future. For the first time, here is a complete look at Hands.

Sea of Tranquility: The band Hands has been around since the early 1970's, and has quite a storied history. Can you describe the early days when the group first came together?

When I arrived at High School in 1971, I was the only person I knew at the time that ever listened to Lizard by King Crimson, Spirit and Beethoven in one sitting. I met a girl named Dianne Barreyre who had heard of Crimson. We became friends and she introduced me to her older brother Michael Barreyre. He was into all sorts of strange music that I had not heard, and was also studying the guitar in a serious way.

After a time Michael and I decided to form a band and play some of the music we'd been listening to. He had a friend, David Carlisle, who had a Rickenbacker bass and was into Yes, the Moody Blues and Crimson. We used to hang out together with some of my friends from high school (Michael and David were older and long out of high school) and formed a sort of…artist clique, you might say. We called ourselves the Crimson Cult after King Crimson.

We were very much into Abstract Jazz like early Herbie Hancock, Weather Report, and progressive bands such as Yes, KC and the like. The one album that we held up as a milestone and played the grooves off was Close to the Edge. One night at a party we were fortunate enough to hear Three Friends by Gentle Giant. That had an immediate effect on our cult and it swayed us more in the direction of tight, composed rock rather that the loose, abstracted jazz we were so fond of.

Classical music was also a big part of our listening experiences those days. Michael was very knowledgeable about classical as was I and those standards were our guide in terms of discipline and dedication. So there was always a lot of respect and admiration for schooled, trained musicians.

I had met guitarist Ernie Myers at a mutual friend's party. He had been playing with John Rousseau, a drummer, and some others above a drive-in movie theatre projection room. They had also been playing outdoor gigs at East Hill, a popular place at the lake for kids to get stoned and what not.

So Michael Barreyre, David Carlisle, John Rousseau and myself decided to get a band together. I asked my good friend Sonny Solell to play sax in the band and that was the beginning of the decade of progressive music.

We called ourselves Ibis after "Flight of the Ibis" by Ian McDonald and Michael Giles. We played one or two gigs, I think, and after the second gig which was at a place called Deb's Danceland, we decided that Carlisle wasn't going to cut it. In the meantime, Dianne Barreyre, who had introduced me to her brother Michael, was dating a very talented guitarist and singer named Steve Parker. He came and sat in at the last gig of Ibis and when we got rid of David he agreed to come on as the bassist. He was not really a bassist but had a great voice and learned the bass very quickly.

We changed our name to Prism shortly after that. Prism had a few original tunes but mostly we did covers. John Rousseau searched through the paper and found Paul Bunker, an ex SMU violinist. Paul played viola mostly and he read music very well. We had a few jams at John Rousseau's house and afterwards Paul joined permanently. The band played several club gigs and did very well with our strange set list of Zappa, Mahavishnu Orchestra, King Crimson, and Jethro Tull, as well as Johnny Winter, Allman Brothers, ZZ Top etc.

Tensions at this point between Michael Barreyre and the rest of the band reached an unworkable stage. While all this was happening, Ernie Myers had moved to Los Angeles, California, where he met Skip Durbin, excellent woodwind player, at a party thrown by some of the Eagles. They hit it off and Ernie convinced Skip to move to Texas saying that they would eventually be part of Prism.

Not long after Ernie's return to Texas Michael Barreyre left the band, and we subsequently replaced him with Ernie. Long before Michael left, Sonny Solell had decided to leave the group but he still let us rehearse at his place. He remained an ally of the band for years to come. The band added Skip on woodwinds and Prism was complete. We played several gigs and slowly the cover tunes faded and originals took over.

After moving rehearsal venues two more times we then heard of the Canadian band Prism, who were going to release their debut soon. Since we didn't have a deal at that point, and being afraid of reprisals by their label Arista, we decided to change our name. After what seemed like an eternity we decided upon Hands.

We were playing all original music by that time and had done a couple of high profile gigs, so we changed our name roughly around the time that we were finishing up the first recordings for what would become the first CD, Hands.

Later on we added Tom Reed on vocals and became a seven-piece. After a while, in 1979, I decided to leave the band. Paul Bunker left some time after that and Hands then hired Mark Menikos on violin and Shannon Day on keyboards.

The band recorded several of the tunes we'd worked on while PauI, Skip and I were still part of the band. The songs they recorded are many of the tunes that make up Palm Mystery. Hands finally disbanded in late 1980.

Sea of Tranquility: Talk about the state of progressive rock around the time of the Hands recordings, especially in your home state of Texas (an unlikely source of prog music I would say!)

At the time that the recordings for HANDS, our first release, were made, what you would term progressive rock was pretty huge. What we were doing, although we tended toward the obscure later on, was to emulate bands that were then very popular. Bands such as ELP, Genesis, Pink Floyd, and Yes flourished in those days.

When Hands was a going concern, Yes was selling out Memorial Auditorium which seated 25,000 people, as was Jethro Tull. ELP had to do two shows in large 20,000 seat auditoriums. Most of this music was British but there were some American acts such as Kansas and Zappa that did really well. (Although I don't really consider Zappa progressive rock)

Jazz-fusion was big at the time as well with Return to Forever, Mahavishnu Orchestra, and Weather Report. We, the band and our clique, never really made the distinction between rock, progressive rock and jazz-rock. Because there were so many progressive acts in the mainstream we just considered it a way of doing rock music. We were never consciously doing progressive rock with a capital P, but felt that some rock was better than others in our eyes.

Our members liked a lot of other bands that were not termed progressive as well. I just don't think that those bands influence made its way into our sound. For instance, we were (and still are) great Beatles fans but their sound never found its way into our music. I love John McLaughlin almost obsessively but I could never incorporate his sound into what I was doing. A lot of us liked heavy bands like Black Sabbath, Mountain, Cream and so forth, but these great bands never found their way into our vocabulary.

The point is we were not trying to do something apart from what was very popular and mainstream. I do not think progressive rock is actually a style per se. It is really more of a process much like the fugue is not really a form in music but more of a procedure. You can approach anything "progressively." Take for example the Dixie Dregs, who were at times doing what I would call progressive country. It is simply pushing whatever you're doing, be it Metal, Country, Blues, Rock, to it's logical (and sometimes illogical) extreme.

We loved Zappa, King Crimson, and Gentle Giant. Their voice found their way into our music so we sound more like those artists than others, but we didn't emulate them because they were of a particular style.

Progressive rock in Texas was/is like it is everywhere else in the nation where there is a huge metropolitan area inhabited by baby boomers and the generation that immediately followed. As I stated earlier, a great deal of progressive music in the seventies was also mainstream music that was readily available. I bought In the Wake of Poseidon by King Crimson in a grocery store if you can imagine that!

So there has always been a healthy appetite for progressive music in Texas. I saw Gentle Giant five times in Dallas, and have seen Tull and Yes too many times to count. Zappa is another act I caught live more times than I can count, mainly in Austin, a place Zappa loved. In north Texas, due to the proximity of University of North Texas, (formerly North Texas State University) a prominent jazz school, there have been rich opportunities to see all kinds of Jazz.

I was very influenced by seeing Weather Report live. Seeing the late Bill Evans was also a life-changing event for me. Chick Corea and Herbie Hancock were also on hand to blow me away. Also, there is a well-established classical music culture here due in some part to the Van Cliburn competition. As you know, the kinship of classical music and progressive music is all but assumed.

As far as the progressive climate for today, I think it's good for bands that are established and have some history in progressive rock. New bands touting the progressive label have an uphill battle, but they can make it here, as there are plenty of fans willing to buy all kinds of product if only they can find out about it.

The same is true for Austin, a town known for root music and country but is really just like Nashville in that it holds incredible musical diversity. One would expect that Texans were predisposed toward country and blues music. Those genres are here to be sure but in no way capture the lion's share of the listening public. There are actually more country format stations in New York State than there are in Texas. Texans, I believe, don't really care about genres and labels as much as say Los Angeles or Chicago listeners. The crossover from wildly divergent charts is very much a dynamic here. We are not so much concerned with stylistic purity, but whether something is genuine and well executed.

Sea of Tranquility: What are some of the your favorite songs from the 2 Shroom releases, and why.

Personally I like "Triangle of New Flight" from Hands. I find that song oddly beautiful. Also, I enjoy the distorted bass solo in "Dreamsearch"; a rare moment where production, emotion, and musicianship happily intersected. From Palm Mystery I like "New Skies" quite a bit. It is Skip's best song in my opinion. I also like "I Foreign I." That song captured our great pop sensibilities and strange humor all in one piece.

Sea of Tranquility: How close did the band come to ever scoring a major label album deal during the early years?

Back in the 70's, during the first go-round, we came very close to a major record contract with Ken Scott and his production company. He was very interested in our music but our timing was bad since he had just invested a lot of money into Happy the Man. An investment he didn't recoup. I think Ken Scott's progressive experience can be heard on The Cars albums. If we had had Scott, I think we would have done at least as well as Happy the Man or Gentle Giant.

Our band lived only to record and tour. If we had received even modest notice from the industry we would have stayed together, but I think the Sex Pistols, Clash and others ended our hopes of becoming mainstream. When Robert Fripp released his solo album with short hair and a suit, and talked of becoming a small mobile unit, it signaled a great change was in store for me.

Sea of Tranquility: Once the band split, how busy did the individual members stay in the music industry?

Right after the final Hands disintegration in 1980, Skip Durbin, flutist and woodwind player, moved back to Los Angeles where he was originally from. Paul Bunker, violinist and guitarist, moved to the desert of Southern California ala Captain Beefheart, and we really don't know what's happened to him. I think Skip saw him a few times in the early 80's, but that's about it.

Skip has continued his musical involvement by playing in various live groups of all styles, studio sessions and composing and playing film music. He is also a film editor and does very well with that. Skip has a great interest to play on the new record but as of this writing he has been unable to get to Texas to record his parts. He is a major part of the sound and I hope we can get his tracks down very soon.

In 1980 I joined a band called Non-Fiction. We had a bluesy female vocalist named Karen Selden and a straight-ahead rhythm section. Non-Fiction played a strange, blues-tinged, cheesy science-fiction version of what would have been called new wave music. We had interest from Danny Hutton's (of Three Dog Night fame) management company and we backed up Fear, Lee Ving's LA punk outfit, at the Rancid Scum Square Garden in Dallas.

Drugs and poor, unprofessional musicianship eventually cratered the band. Concurrent with Non Fiction, Ernie played in a band called Cottonmouth, a driving southern rock style band. I don't think it lasted too long.

After the demise of the first Non-Fiction, Ernie and I formed a band called The Fun Guys. I had also returned to school to finish my music degrees. The Fun Guys were a snappy, power-new-wave line up that had elements of Talking Heads, League of Gentlemen, Split Enz, Police and other power pop, power New Wave influences. That band was the acorn for what would eventually become our greatest commercial success – The Elements. The Fun Guys were three ex Hands members and Paul Hollis, drummer from the defunct Non-Fiction. We eventually replaced him with John Fiveash, the final Hands drummer. Ernie Myers, John Fiveash, Steve Parker and Michael Clay were The Fun Guys for about four months. Our only gig was a bar mitzvah at a Ramada Inn.

At that point, Charles Vessels, the husband and manager of Karen Selden from Non Fiction, called me. He had assembled two great guitarists, (Chainsaw) Mike McCullough and Gary Compton,plus ex Non Fiction bassist Bill Farrell. Because Charles had worked extensively with Three Dog Night, Toto and Elton John, he had gathered some major label interest for Karen and some of her songs. Charles Murdoch, executive at Elton John's Rocket records, was forming a new label – Mega Records. The label was backed by Rocket that was backed by (I think) WEA. Murdoch had offered a deal to Vessels and ordered him to put the band together.

John Fiveash, Steve Parker and myself defected to Non Fiction. (v.2.0 as it were) It was an unhappy scene as Ernie was not invited to play by Vessels, and The Fun Guys were just starting to sound promising. Non Fiction was then Karen Selden, Mike McCullough, Gary Compton, Steve Parker, John Fiveash and myself.

Power ballads and power arena rock ruled the day as evidenced by Toto, REO Speedwagon and the like. We were no different but incorporated a few "progressive" elements into the music as well as extensive Police, XTC and synth-pop (Duran Duran, Human League, Eurhythmics, etc) influences.

Strangely enough, Derek Shulman of Gentle Giant had just moved to Dallas after the final Gentle Giant demise. He was looking to get into producing and management. I had the label call him and consider him for producer, and for a brief wonderful time, he was the producer slated for the Non Fiction debut album. Mega Records stiffed him when they thought (erroneously) that Hugh Padgham would be interested in producing. A fact that Derek wouldn't forget and would come back to haunt us later. We all went to LA and recorded the record at One Step Up studios where the Eagles had recorded the Long Run. The album was poor and lifeless due mainly to drugs, infighting at the label, and the misplaced production of Jerry Marcellino. It charted briefly, we toured for about a year and then the inevitable disintegration.

Concurrent with the above history, John Rousseau was gaining knowledge and becoming involved with video and film production. He continued to play his drums and worked with other bands and recording projects. He remained in close contact with Hands members and took part in jams and writing sessions. At one point he staged a massive performance at his wedding involving about 12 musicians from the entire Hands history.

Skip Durbin continued to hone his skill as a film editor. He played on many recording projects, collected instruments and continued to compose. He gained work doing film music for art films and documentaries.

After the Non Fiction heat-death there was a lull. After a period of time I had the idea of putting a Police style band together. The success of the Police, the new King Crimson album Discipline, Oingo Boingo, and a host of other creative bands, lead me to think that quality music could be done and very successfully at that. We could do great songs but just not in the epic format of earlier Yes, King Crimson influenced progressive rock. With that The Elements were formed consisting of Ernie Myers, John Fiveash, Steve Parker, and myself; the original Fun Guys, two thirds of Hands.

The history of the Elements is long and storied and deserves an article of its own. We were together close to 8 years (longer than Hands) and had no less than two major record deals fall apart. One deal went awry because of Derek Shulman who had risen to power at Polygram. Derek still held a mild grudge over being stiffed by Non Fiction's management. We backed up Culture Club, Jason and the Scorchers and Francis Canon, and we were handed awards by Don Henley and at one time were the most popular local band in Texas along with the Nelsons. The Elements officially ended in 1988-89.

After the Elements Ernie went on to play with the excellent Safety In Numbers. They developed quite the local following and garnered good rotation on local alternative rock stations.

Steve Parker continued to raise his children and get back to his acoustic guitar skills. John Fiveash did studio work and raised his family. Skip continued in film work, as did John Rousseau.

I went on to do television music, namely America's Most Wanted and Cops and several award-winning commercials, as well as furthered my classical piano career, which continues to this day. I've played with significant orchestras and chamber ensembles in Boston, San Francisco, and Dallas, in addition to publishing classical compositions and several piano pieces for young to intermediate players. This work is my first love and continues and enlightens my involvement with Hands.

Around 1993-94 Ernie Myers and Steve Parker started to play acoustic guitar oriented music. Later in 1996 they added John Fiveash and Steve Powell, ex-The Fact bassist, and formed All the Tea In China. They play melodic, progressive, acoustic style pop; strong melodies and excellent musicianship in the manner of Dave Mathews and Neil Finn. Their CD Steep can be heard at their label's website, Ridgeback Records. They continue to gig and release CDs.

Mark Menikos, the former and current Hands violinist, plays in the Celtic band Brothers Three. They have won awards and headline concerts and festivals featuring Celtic and folk music.

Rex Bozarth, current Hands bassist, is a professional bassist and string player. He plays many symphony, opera and studio gigs, and plays in the Jazz ensemble Trio Blanc.

Sea of Tranquility: When did discussions regarding the band getting back together take place?

The idea was there after the first release of Hands, the CD that contains so much of our archival material. We were unprepared for the positive response that we would eventually get. Earnest talks containing real plans and agendas didn't materialize until 1997.

That summer, we brought everyone together who were involved in Hands in the past, that had an interest in the project, for a monster jam that lasted a whole weekend. John Rousseau, the original HANDS drummer, had access to a television studio where he produced his video work. We assembled there over a blistering hot weekend and worked on ideas, jammed and actually rehearsed. It was fun to get together with everyone after so long. Although many of us had continued to work together long after Hands, it was strange to have everyone (almost) in the same room with the purpose of reinventing some progressive music.

Sea of Tranquility: How has the Internet helped in Hands gaining exposure the last few years?

The Internet has helped Hands to the degree that it has helped the so-called "Indie movement" and provided an alternative distribution model. Although the lion's share of our sales have not come from the internet, it has certainly provided us with a continuum of exposure that wouldn't be possible with traditional press and promotional efforts. Through email and websites we have a very direct contact with fans and industry professionals.

Most people do not mind getting an email every day but they would certainly mind getting a phone call with the frequency and depth of my web campaigns. In that way, the web is useful. The negatives of the web are that so much music tends to devalue music in general. Things appearing only on the web are perceived as cheap or free and having little value. This is seen in a lot of people's attitude toward MP3s and the like.

People that would never think of buying a CD, making copies and distributing without the consent of the copyright holder for profit or notoriety, are freely distributing MP3s often without consent of the copyright holder. I don't think this is from lack of respect for the artist or composer, but a mentality that says that things that are on the Internet are cheap or free and to some degree…disposable. The yin and the yang of the Internet have yet to be balanced in my eyes. I have confidence that it will be brought to equilibrium.

Sea of Tranquility: Can you go in depth for us regarding the upcoming new CD?

When the original Hands recordings on the first Shroom release started to gather steam in 1996-97, there was a feeling among Ernie, Rich at Shroom Productions, and myself that the world had indeed changed again. It was now fashionable, in certain circles, to utter the name of Progressive rock again without being stoned to death as a dinosaur.

For years I had gone "underground" with my love of Yes, Kayak, Jethro Tull, Godley and Crème, and the venerable Gentle Giant and King Crimson. It became clear to me, and to Rich and Ernie I think, that there was a market for our musical thought from ages back.

There probably always was a market for Hands; we simply had no way to get to it. With the advent of the Internet and the rise in stature of the indie movement, a crack was opened into that market. I think the idea for a new CD first came from Rich of Shroom fame. It made sense to Ernie and myself because it is so rare that all the original people in Hands were still available in some form or another and still playing music. I think the desire to show those who had bought the original Hands music that we had not stopped, had not devolved, but rather evolved and were all very much alive in the music world, was the driving factor behind the new music. That was the beginning of the idea and that idea floated in the ether for some time before anything was written.

At some point, Ernie and I decided to write some tunes. We got together several times with an eight track, guitars and a keyboard and recorded what we had been working on individually. Those demos became the basis for the new CD. Concurrently, I worked on a composition that was sort of a sequel to "Zombieroch" from the first Hands CD. This was written out in classical fashion and I simply entered the notes into my notation program and later turned it into a sequence for demo purposes. We then took a song Ernie had written several years earlier, 91-92 I think, and sampled it into the computer and then rearranged the parts. We also added some intro and a coda. Then, I decided that a song I had written in 1991, a four-part suite called "Leaving", was suitable for Hands. With that tune the lineup for the new CD was complete.

The process for recording this monster has been daunting to say the least. The world is not the same as it was in 1975. Back then all we ever did was play and rehearse. "The BAND" was an exercise in tribal dynamics as well as a musical effort. Our worlds revolved around one another. However, today everyone is a professional.

Their careers, understandably, consume a great deal of their time. Some of the guys have wives and children. Home ownership and the realization that there is more to life than being another Gentle Giant has directed the efforts of all the mature Hands players. Given those considerations, that we are able to turn out the level of music on this CD, in any quantity at all, is nothing short of a miracle to me. The players are now able to accomplish in one studio session, with little rehearsal, what it would have taken us months to do back in the seventies.

We are shooting for a Spring 2001 release. I think we can make that. As far as titles, we do not have one as yet. We may title it according to the CD's loose concept; that of entering a large house or structure. The songs are ordered to represent various rooms of the house and, of course, that house and its rooms are a metaphor for stages in life both private and public. Accordingly, the CD begins with the song "Knock/Enter" and ends with the suite "Leaving." To be sure though, this is a loose concept album and at least two of the songs are only linked in a vague fashion.

The songs are, I believe, the logical progression from the early Hands music. In other words, what would we have sounded like if we had kept going and absorbed the influences of the years passed. We'll never know that sound for sure, but I think this is a very good approximation. It is definitely Hands. The sound is unmistakable, but it is Hands progressed, Hands anew, and ripe in concept and execution.

Sea of Tranquility: Any plans for live gigs?

Yes, most definitely. We were scheduled, tentatively for this year's NEARfest but we will have to await 2002 to make an appearance there, and are still trying to get a Progfest gig final and I hope to have a confirmation on that soon. Progday's organizers want us to play at their festival on Labor Day. We will play a CD release event here in Dallas at a venue yet to be determined, and are also considering several small club and medium size hall type gigs in Austin and Dallas. I don't think you can sell or properly promote a CD without live performance unless you're Madonna or the like.

Sea of Tranquility: How do you see Hands fitting into today's prog scene?

I hope to carry on somewhat in the spirit of King Crimson - a band that has a long history but continues to re-invent itself with every turn. I don't think there's any point to playing retro anything. Even classical music must be re-created anew with each performance. To try and sound as we did in the seventies would be futile and, I think, probably impossible.

Once we find this new band's sound then I think we can safely determine where we want to go with it. The prog market, so-called, is wide open. Your own magazine attests to its vast variety. So I think we'll have people that consider themselves prog fans liking this music and some that are into new music, maybe alternative fans, finding themselves into it as well.

We definitely have a history and one that we are proud to build on, and Hands will always serve the music and the fans of that music. Inside the album Acquiring the Taste, there is a credo served up by the, then young, Gentle Giant members. It states that they have done their most creative work at the risk of being very unpopular. I'd like Hands to pick up that same guidon and carry it past where, I think, Gentle Giant may have laid it down.

Whatever space in today's prog scene that is concerned with genuine musical thought, artistic excellence, and a purity of purpose, is the space that Hands will inhabit.