The 10-Year Anniversary of The Doldrums and Sitcom-Core
I meant to make a big deal about it when the date rolled around, but I ended up completely forgetting about it. This past March 9th was the 10-year anniversary of the first Doldrums recordings, the humble beginning of Sitcom-Core and a specific brand of low-fi chaos.
Me and my new-ish friend Mike Markowski had been hanging for about six months at the time. We were both the punkiest punks who ever punked, complete with liberty spikes and mohawk, respectively. Both of us fancied ourselves to be kind of semi-outsiders from the punk scene; we both readily admitted that we enjoyed other kinds of music, and we didn't subsribe to a lot of "scene rules." (Which made us MORE punk, if you ask me). Ow!
The day was March 9, 1996. I had been listening to a lot of Daniel Johnston records, and I had recently introduced him to Mike. Long story short, we decided on this day to create low-fi recordings like Daniel's in mildly the same vein. I had amassed a lot of poems I'd written during a rough patch, and I brought them over to his his house, where in approximately 6-8 hours we hashed out songs such as, "Scott Baio is My Hero," "Waffle in My Closet," "The Green Giant is in Rehab," as well as a couple Daniel Johnston covers that were at best insulting. The songs at this point weren't mostly "sitcom-related," if you will.
We called the tape I'm Bored, I'm Lazy, I Like The Doldrums. There were around 20+ tunes, along with sample interludes, most of them taken from Sonic Youth's The Year Punk Broke movie. (Don't ask me why). The tape made it's way to our friends in Solon and Aurora, to mostly positive and confused reaction.
Late Spring/Summer of '96, enter our good friend Gary Schad (a real indie-rocker, not the kind you see today). He and I began to do songs in the same vein, originally with the intention of creating a separate project. We had 2-3 sessions of recordings with hysterical laughter, and pounded out numerous quality tunes such as "Kimmy Gibler," "Bob Hope Sells Me Dope," and "Vinnie Delpino." We then decided that all these recordings should be a designed effort as The Doldrums, all three of us being members. Along with a recording session that Mike and Gary did together, along with an old solo effort of mine, I selected songs from each of the tapes, and compiled them to create The Doldrums opus, 1996's Ruined by the Camera. Strangely enough, the three of us were the band, yet we had never all recorded together at the time.
We were favorites among our friends (and most importantly ourselves), but never really more than that. We never did play a show, and really never thought too realistically about it. I was the one who took ourselves the most seriously as band, and looking back, probably too seriously. As we entered 1997, I deemed it necessary that we make a follow up to Ruined, which admittedly was disastrous. The entire recordings are a session Gary and I did, stuff I did myself, and songs lifted from the original I'm Bored session. The songs didn't have the same reckless joy that they did before, and it just wasn't that fun in the end. The basically marked the end of the group, though I continued to beat a dead horse in my mind.
I was island-bound in Summer '97, and Mike and Gary moved to Columbus. They subsequently started a group known as The Pinheads, and made some great drunk recordings, more hi-fi and guitar-based. Another member, Brandt Gebhardt, participated on multiple recording sessions. The Doldrums did reconvene for a couple ill-advised recording sessions on my trips back home in '98 and '99, which I take complete blame for instigating. There were some good songs created, but the spirit wasn't there. After my move back to the area in '01, The Doldrums got back together one last time, with Mike's 4-track, and made about 8 killer songs. I knew that was the end for certain, but it allowed me to put to rest a demon of sorts. I just wanted us to all have fun together recording for one last time, and we did. I had been already doing tapes as The Electric Grandmother, and I combined some songs I did with that session we did to make our last "album," if you will.
Here is the complete, and definitely out of print, Doldrums discography:
1996 – I'm Bored, I'm Lazy, and I Like The Doldrums (Me and Mike only)
1996 – Ruined by the Camera
1997- Government Music
1998 – The Return of Pete! EP (6-song hardcore punk session; I fought Mike on the title, but he insisted)
1999 – Chris Church: The Colossus
2001 – Marry Me (Doldrums/EG split)
I would love to at least get the songs digitally transferred, if for no other reason for preservation. The Pinheads made "albums" as well; I just don't have the energy to think of their names right now.
It wasn't always called "Sitcom-Core" until recently; I made that crap up about 4 years ago for The Electric Grandmother, and by God, it's stuck. It's now not just a musical sub-genre, but it's a philosophy…seriously, ask anyone. Though I've run with this thing personally, it probably would not have existed without Mike and Gary.
Sunrise, sunset…
I still have regular phone conversations with Mike about every 2-3 weeks. He's recently started a frightening horror-movie musical home project with our friend Darren Kaplan; but don't call it "Horror-Core." (That is a real sub-genre, by the way). I've hadn't had any communication with Gary for about 3? years, which my wife (only half) jokingly is glad for, because she claims that when he and I got together, we were the two most obnoxious people on Earth. That's kinda neat.
Even though I've had success as The Electric Grandmother (not to mention an Upchuck Berry pit stop), and I feel that my song writing has greatly improved since the Doldrums days, I still think the sessions for Ruined is some of the best stuff I've ever been a part of. No matter what I've done since that time, I've never laughed so hard while doing music than when I did then.
Here's to The Doldrums.
EG
Posted by electricgrandmother
at 3:50 PM EST
