Zuul’s Evil Disco

Today is a sobering moment. I cannot believe that Michael Jackson died yesterday afternoon. I always felt a personal connection to his work and his childhood, but as far as Zuul’s is concerned, Michael had a profound effect on us. Be it costumes, break dancing and moves, group vocals and harmonies, clothing styles, he had an impact.  And those of us who grew up with him during the Off The Wall, Thriller, and Bad years emulated many things he pioneered. He changed the face and landscape of music and video in the world.

Personally, he had a huge impact on me: The music, the jacket, the glove - even the fucking soul-glo gel in my hair. My walls as a child covered in his posters. I even took pictures of the television during one of the Grammy awards in the eighties - I was so obsessed. Many of us in Zuul’s had a great respect for him, and especially his showmanship.

All of us owned at least one of his albums.  One of my favourite memories were the impromptu “MJ sessions” with Ajay. We’d be doing something trivial, and if by chance Michael made it into the conversation, there was some sort of singing or dance move that would happen. Maybe you had to be there, but it was a fun time.

Whether you loved him or hated him, he had impact. We used to say ZED was like a bunch of David Lee Roth’s on stage at the same time, but it was more like DLR and a bit of MJ as well.

I can’t believe he is gone… My heart feels a little heavier today and I feel a small pin in my throat.

Thank you Michael. I’m a better entertainer because of you.  God bless and rest in peace.

www.zuulsevildisco.com

Man… was this album fun to make! Enjoy… Maybe I should tell the story of each song??

www.zuulsevildisco.com

01 - Bad Muthufunkaz.mp3
02 - Mr. Funkalupicus.mp3
03 - Soul Train Silly.mp3
04 - Evil Mopedal.mp3
05 - Huggy Bear.mp3
06 - Red Dawg Speedway.mp3
07 - No Fixed Address.mp3
08 - Wacky On The Junk.mp3
09 - Rancho Relaxo.mp3
10 - Snackmaster Love Sandwich.mp3
11 - Cop’s N Cameros.mp3
32 -  Happy Unknown.mp3
49 - Blink.mp3
66 - 6042 Baby.mp3
88 - Bee In The Hive.mp3

What can I say…it’s been a nasty last 12 weeks building the playroom for the kids and working like crazy. My projects at work end in June, or launch rather, so maybe at that time, I’ll get some of my life back! I started writing this post a few weeks after the last and have been adding to it now and then. However, today, being April 15, 2008, marks a strange day for me….

Eight years ago tonight around this time, I, in a quiet rage, quit Zuul’s. I had asked Matt Wilson of Strange Bargain to drive me to the band house to grab my drums and other small things, and then proceeded to go to James’ apartment across the street and give him all my Zuuls legal things, and wear a brave face. The truth of it is this: I was so enraged Anil was fired, let go, quit, dismissed - whatever - it’ s really hard to know what happened that night before at the club, that I protested by leaving with him. Sure, clearly I had my own issues with other members, and my own private demons turning me into a very challenging person to be around, but it was what it was: brief, quick, apathetic, and terribly traumatizing. James knew my departure was coming - he new I was messed up inside. I didn’t and was in pure denial. Even if things hadn’t went down the way they did, I probably wouldn’t have listened to him, which is unfortunate because we were very close.  It’s like they say: “Decide in Haste, Repent in Leisure” - and repent I did. I remember running into Ajay and Prince a few blocks from my place a couple of nights later, drunk out of mind, and sobbing uncontrolably - not crying, but sobbing. I felt totally abandoned and betrayed. James and I would eventually reconnect a year and half later, but it took a few things to be said and a few pitchers to be drank before we were solid - which took all of one night. More on this stuff at another time. I think it was the next morning I decided I needed to disappear. After a few weeks, I saw them play at Call the Office with our good friend Eric on the kit in my place. I had just seen Eric earlier that day on my last day to work, stopped in his store, gave him a hug - and tossed him my key to band van. We didn’t say very much to each other…drummers…whaddya gonna do. That night, however, as people asked me what time “we” were going on and the such, an even weirder thing happened. I stood there all by myself, arms crossed watching the show in front of them, and other people in the crowd watching me and giving me quite the radius. During the last song, Prince, who never wanted me to leave, put the mic to my face and I sang a verse with my “ex-band”. It was quite fucked up. The next morning, I left… At some point in the future, I’ll get into more details. It was just on my mind tonight as tonight as it is also Stew’s birthday.

Now, geting back to this post - the real post - part three of the beginning of this band…

When we last left our heros, they were recording in the basement of 200 Huron Street in London, frantically trying to write songs, and get the submission package ready for the Western Battle of the Bands…and let me tell you…we worked right up until 30 minutes to the deadline…thank God we lived down the hill from the school…mentally and physically, however, the whole thing seemed like an up hill battle.

The deadline was a Friday afternoon and James and Anil and I had worked all night. Stew bailed out on us – but for reasons deemed acceptable by any roommate – lucky bastard. In the very early hours of Friday morning, we finished the last mix-down for the demo using the four-track and a ghettoblaster to test on. What an accomplishment! We had actually done it. It was time for celebration! Unfortunately, we didn’t have any booze to drink, but Anil – Indian Party Leprechaun to the rescue – did have “alternatives”.

So what did we do? Well, what any normal healthy university kids would do to celebrate a momentous occasion – eat a few grams of magic mushrooms!!!

And oh what fun we had, laughing and listening to our mix over and over - we had just over 4 hours to kill before the 9:00 am deadline so we planned to stay up and James was going to deliver it. Then I looked over the entry requirements in the Wester Gazette and realized we forgot to write the bio. Holy Shit. We were high as kites…

This is where I truly think the concept of Zuul’s graduated to the “ridiculous”…we start typing furiously on James’ super-fast 286 computer…gigling and writing in stream of consciouness, making shit up and writing things like “..DONT GIVE JAMES THE KEYBOARD” and “We raent even goingg to spel check this” - seriously. In retrospect, I cannot believe I suggested we do this… I can’t believe James agreed…James…who turned out to be quite the manager years later, agreeing to this madness, and Anil…Anil just laughing at us and trying to convince us we only needed bacon sandwiches to fix this problem. So, we printed this monstrosity of a bio on James’ super high tech dot-matrix printer, sealed the envelop with beaming pride, and took it to UWO Entertainment. To our utter shock, they accepted us, stating very blatantly that anyone who was crazy enough to form a band in less than a week, write and record five tunes, and “get drunk” and write a bio, they had to see. They didn’t think that anyone could make that shit up. Apparently, they listened to the demo and laughed their asses off while they passed around our bio. Somewhere in my house, I have that original piece of paper - when I find it, I will post it so you can see for yourselves. There is also video footage of our first show somewhere around here too, but I can’t find it.However, I did find this little goodie..

This was a promo video that Western Film helped us with. Kim, the editor was a sweetheart and took all our crazy footage and created this for us so we could put promo packages together. No other band on the circuit was doing this, and it was pretty cutting edge at the time. However, by this point, Ajay’s sense of humor - a comedy that fits no classification - had influence on the script. Originally, Joel Krass (Bomb 32 / Headstrong) did the voiceover, but it was too sexy. This video shows clips from our infancy in 96 when we were five, to late 1997 when Maria Lindsay, Warren, and Ghetto Glen were all part of the act. I am pretty sure at this point Prince was still recording the shows for us and hadn’t joined yet. You’ll see the puppet shows, Warren’s Flashdance tribute, Myself, Joel - a.k.a. “House of Priest”, and Jon Cohen (Bomb 32 / Headstong) - a.k.a. “I’m too sexy for my Jon” practicing dance moves with me, Agent Drek on the Frying Pan, Evil Kev, Soynzorrow from da’hood, Maria fixing Chris hair, James with long hair, and of course, “Slam Daddy Jay Jay” Massey in prime form in his new wig. Above, you’ll see a classic picture of James and Ajay before the dreadful “summer of haircuts” in 1997 at the Brunswick Hotel. This video - now 10 years old is pure cheese, but we loved making it at the time. I hope you enjoy.

I guess that’s it for the birth of the band. If you have any suggestions for the next post, let me know. I’ll keep digging for gold in the archives and try to put together a slide show or something soon.

Keep the funk alive,

D.

www.zuulsevildisco.com

I know I last wrote 10 weeks ago, but I promise not to let it get that long between posts again. I feel that I have so much to tell here, that I may have to break this up over the next few weeks.

Where did we last leave off our heroes? Oh yes… Trying to get into Western’s Battle of the bands! Four days til the deadline and we had nothing but a pack of smokes left! No one except Anil was home so being the natural “Hannibal” (A-Team, not Cannibal Lecter), we decided to go to him for strategy. Faced with numerous academically impossible situations, we knew he’d have a solution. His words of wisdom? “Fuck it, let’s just do it. You guys come up with some riffs and we’ll figure it out.” I’ll never forget that. Essentially, in the next few minutes James grabbed all his shit out of his room (which was next door, so really not that far, just heavy), and started going over rogue riffs from his mind’s library. I did the same. Most of the riffs we had were Fish Food and Shrine riffs that either didn’t make it to a jam session, or we hadn’t had the chance to refine before showing our respective band mates. However, one riff, basically happened by accident and gave us our name. I’ll get into the roots of the name at some other time, but the demo track “Happy Unknown” essentially gave us the “Evil Disco” part of the name. Fortunately, I actually have the first few minutes of this demo where only moments earlier, I said to James, “Man, that riff sounds like evil disco…”, and James just smiled huge, said “Yeah Man”, nodded, and kept doing it… genius.

Here’s a sample of those first few moments after, the actual Happy Food version recorded the next day, and the hidden track of Funkalupatropolis that was recorded at CRAP Studios in Whitby in Summer 96 with Dave Curry behind the board.

So…while you are enjoying mash of nonsense, let’s continue with the story… In the next few hours we basically dumped everything out and started recording it on a small Ghettoblaster so we could keep track of what was what. Here started three great Zuul’s traditions. 1. Cassette demos on any cassette you could find…you may have noticed the Alanis Morrisette tune at the end of Track 1 up top… James’ road trip tape. 2. Naming of songs in work form to be something sexual: i.e. “play the ‘In-The-Ass’ riff, man”. 3. Lyrics written in 15 minutes or less, while drinking. The only deep meaning most of our songs had after this whole fiasco, was “deep throat” deep. Over the course of the four days, sleep was less available, and the lyrics followed suit!

The room: We jammed and wrote in Jam’s room and mine. We recorded everything in my room, as the drums were there, but used the bathroom shower for some vocals as we had no real reverb effects module. We duct-taped a Shure 58 mic to my ceiling and recorded the drum tracks while James lined out headphone to me and played in silence. He’d then do his take to the drum track, and then I’d lay the guitar down. Group vocals were done around the mic in one take as we only had 4 tracks! We’d tried to get an 8 track from John Bellone music, in downtown London, but they only had a Four - even though they told us they had an 8 in stock. I have an audio clip of James on the phone as proof! We had two old guitars and no extra strings, a mixing board from Chris Graham (future trumpet), which covered my bed, a guitar amp from my old Delaware Hall room-mate Mike Knoll (who plays Mr. Funkalupicus in our first video, and is quite an accomplished Entertainment / Music writer in Canada), and some guitar peddles from Ajay (our guitarist, as heard on the 3rd Track above). I’m not sure why, but both Chris and Ajay were busy with other shit and couldn’t help us record, but they were both in… regardless of if we made the battle of the bands. Brothers in arms, right from the start.

So, the next few days we convinced, our roommates Vicki, Maria (future ZED alto-sax, and my main squeeze), and Cheryl that the noise was necessary, and they let us do our thing. Stew and Anil would go upstairs and write lyrics, and James and I would work out riffs. When we wanted to try something, however, it became an issue…would I play drums, or guitar…? Drums was my strong suit, but I needed to work out stuff with James to a beat. Anil to the rescue. My brown brother could only play one beat, but he could do it at many many tempos! Stew, on the other hand, was a rhythm train wreck. Even when he was on stage in his Michael Jackson jacket, sweat pants, and afro, the ladies found Stewie irresistible… so he was happy to let Anil take the sticks. I’ll post more of the jamming sessions for this really soon, so you can hear Anil on drums. Stew’s efforts will be heard shortly on “No Fixed Address” - our first CD promo and radio single that followed afterwards.

What’s next? The rest of the Happy Food tale, more jamming session tracks, and the rest of the Happy Food Tracks. Let me leave you with two things: James talking to John Belone music, and Cops n’s Cameros Happy Food demo, the first song we actually finished. …And where does “Happy Food” come from? Well, you’ll either have to spark one up and go see your fridge, or get Stew’s Mom to send a care package of “special brownies” to your home.

Keep tha funk alive,

D.

Hey Cats…sorry I’ve been out of touch. Been a busy Christmas season at work! I was hoping to post some stuff this past weekend as I found a ton of old shit at my folks place in a box. What’s coming this week? Some demo’s from the infamous first recording session that led to our “Happy Food” demo. Hope the start to your new year has been funky…

Slaps and tickles,

D.

In September of 1994, I was in Delaware Hall, at the University of Western Ontario. There, as an impressionable new Frosh, I made the acquaintance of a character by the name of “Juan”, who seemed to be running the show. This Indian-party-leprechaun-type dude would later reveal himself to be Nilz (a.k.a. Nillis, Anil, Vanilla Mal-hatred), and would eventually become our third founding member. Actually, during Frosh Week, Nilz was going by the Sophmore name “One”, but I heard “Juan”, so I figured he was some really friendly Mexican dude, not the crazed party-planning machine and Hall President he proved to be. Now, Anil was all about “Education” and mostly focussed on “Anatomy”. He was of two mind sets: 1. “Enjoy” anatomy - like genitalia - frequently arranging an array of activities whereby his feeble young soldiers would explore and conquer, and 2. “Destroy” anatomy - like the liver - frequently arranging various barbaric rituals where we hoisted double-pint chalices of ale (included in the “Welcome to Western” packages he designed…) in victory of a war we were fighting against “the man”. After one such evening, I gathered what strength I had left the next morning to get some breakfast from the cafeteria…which is where I ran into Jaymz (a.k.a. James, Jammy, Jam) for the first time.

That first time James and I crossed paths was both a memorable and awkward moment. Let me explain… If Mr.Miyagi (RIP) was to have looked at us, he would have said, “Same. But different.” James was wearing a green lumber jacket, jeans, a Metallica t-shirt, and had long hair on top with a shaved-around head, earrings and a goatee. I was wearing a red lumber jacket, jeans, a Metallica t-shirt, also had long hair with the head shaved around, earrings and a goatee. James, short and white; Dré, tall and brown. So, after a few awkward glances, we exchanged some memorable first words.”Sooo, uh…you like Metallica?” “uh…Yeah” “Cool man.” “Yeah.” Yup, with conversation just like that we became best pals! Eventually, at the end of the school year we decided to get a house together with “Juan”, and a crazy guy named Stew (a.k.a. Stewpid, Haze) - a man who while sober, rearranged the official Western Car sticker to say “University of Western Omelette” - a true scholar. And so we moved to 200 Huron Street in September of 1995.

Now James and I came from two different bands and we almost needed unofficial approval from these guys to put an act together. James came from a five piece named Fish Food For Mozus, based out of Iroquois Falls Ontario, (north of Timmins -yeah man , there’s stuff north of Timmins), and I came from Shrine, a three piece from East Toronto (Whitby, Ajax). Fortunately, for Jam and I, both our respective band mates were totally cool about what we were doing. At that time, little did we know that Zuul’s would end up becoming more than our goofy side project, or how much all these guys would end up being a part of major Zuul’s events and shows, in many ways. The only real difference between our bands, was the way we talked. “Down South”, a term they use “up North”, they said the word “like” at the end of a sentence. So, if we said “that was like really messed up”, they would say “that was really messed up…LIKE”. We’d say “Man, that’s like fucked.” They’d say “Man that was fucked, like.” We all had the same rock and roll blood, so we could still communicate, but conversations at our house were like crazy like.

Left: Fish Food For Mozus circa 1993. James Leacock, Metal-Dru Swartz, Derek Marshall, Eric Soine, and Eric Girrard. Right: Shrine circa 1993. Me, Jeffro Gaudet, and Tobias Fennessey.

After our first real set together, playing cover tunes at a house party for soon-to-be ZED guitarist and trumpet, Ajay Massey and Chris Graham, we started talking about putting something together for real, but what would we call ourselves? At that point in time, our collective creative genius inspired such promising names as “What AIDS Vaccine?”, “Butter Ball Big-ass” (mocking our good friends Butterfly Back Bacon), and “Captain Zuul and the Skydivers of the Secret Carpet”. We needed a name as good as “It Came From Uranus”, y’know?

But…what exactly got the ball rolling? It was a concert at Call The Office in London a few weeks earlier where we paid $5 to see the Rainbow Butt Monkeys (now Finger 11) - $5! We had never seen anything like these guys: It was like David Lee Roth, Angus Young, and the entire cast of the Chili Peppers - with a trampoline! And the crowd was jumping like a mob from a NWA concert. They kicked the crowd’s ass so hard, shoes were coming of people’s mouths! I was so enthused, I think I freaked out Scott after the show when I saw him at the front door. Later that night, James and I decided that our band would follow a similar recipe to this. The recipe was:

1. Non-stop movement and energy.
2. Flashy, ridiculous costumes & accessories (i.e. Afro wigs, capes, and dildos).
3. A complete mockery of Rock and Roll stage antics (i.e. synchronized moves)
4. Lyrics that had everything to do with nothing (with an endless supply of the lyric, “Baby”)
5. Progressive funk grooves.
6. Puppets.

The first version of Zuul’s Evil Disco circa 1995, at 200 Huron Street, London Ontario. Left to Right: Jam, Me, Stew, & Anil. Can you see Tom Jones, Motley Crue, and Big Bird in the background?? Man did we ever fuck that house up… Mouse over to see us in 2004.

In late February of 1996, James rushed home to tell us there was battle of the bands happening on campus and that we still had time to enter…exactly 4 days to submit our promo package. Now, what did we need for that? A demo, a bio, a GUITARIST, SONGS, a NAME, a MIXER, more cigarettes? What would our heroes do? Well that story is for next time, but I can tell you this: We bought a few cans of Red Bull’s grandfather and got started right away.

All the flava and twice the caffeine? Sign us up!