After the 1994-1995 school year closed, we spent our vacation in Orlando, USA. This was a different trip to Orlando than the ones we had had before. We usually would stick to the Walt Disney World Resort complex and maybe venture out to Universal Studios Orlando. But this time, we ventured further. We went to outlets and Busch Gardens and Ron Jon Surf Shop in Cocoa Beach. I asked my father to take us there because Phil had bought his chain wallet there.
To my surprise, my Dad loved the store. All the surf apparel. He bought T-Shirts, beer can holders and a bunch of other random stuff.
To my disappointment, I did not find Phil’s wallet. I did eventually find one at a kiosk in Florida Mall. It wasn’t as sturdy but it would do. I wore that wallet for so many years. Those buttons tore holes in the back pockets of all my jeans.
Then we went to the Orlando Guitar Center. I was like a kid in a candy shop. So many guitars! There was Slash’s and Jimi Page’ Les Paul, Jimi Hendrix’s white Strat (which was really strange… a regular white Strat but with an upside down left-handed headstock…). And, by the corner, Kurt Cobain’s sunburst Jaguar….
I started sweating buckets. I picked it up off the wall mount and sat on a nearby amp, laid it across my lap and played the opening chords of “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” There wasn’t a soul in the world that could bring me down from that cloud 9.
Except for my father.
Who refused to pay for it.
It really was very expensive. Especially after the conversion rate.
My heart sank. Ok, it was too expensive. So I looked around the shop and started pointing to cheaper guitars. “How about that one? … Or that one? … This one is 200 dollars cheaper… And this one?” But he wouldn’t budge. My mom even felt sorry for me. I heard her whisper to him “c’mon buy the kid a guitar.” But nothing.
I got into the car feeling like a kid who had had a candy waved in front of his face, had had a taste of its wonderful sweetness and had it yanked from his mouth and told it was too sweet for him.
I couldn’t believe I was leaving empty handed. (In retrospect, I should have looked at effects pedals…)
So we got back to Brasilia. My Rock Axe with its misaligned neck there, waiting for me. Fucking Rock Axe. I took some querosene and rubbed off the logo and with a sharpie traced “Fender” in its place on the headstock. Then I took some silver paint and filled it in with a thin brush. I asked my mom to buy me some point 10 stencils and I used it to write “Stratocaster” under it.
Now I was satisfied. No one would be able to tell the difference form a distance. Or so I thought.
So back to school we went. I was now the 95-96 school year. Mark and Phil were Seniors and I was now officially in High School. During our usual meetups at lunchtime, we all shared our holiday adventures. Phil was especially very excited about his vacations. He and fiends from Virginia workshopped their singing chops. Especially harmonizing for background vocals. He wanted to test it all out now, but with the disbandment of The Misconceptions, he needed to start a new band. There were no drummers left from our “gringo” posse, so he bought a drum set and took it upon himself to be the drummer. Mark was his first call to play keys. Now they needed a singer, a bassist and a guitarist.
The singer position was crucial. They needed someone who could embody the front man position and understood music. Mark L, the one who played saxophone with Mr. Honn for The Misconception’s last tape was an in-the-closet rocker. He was a Southern Baptist Christian whatever, and his parents did not allow him to listen to rock music, because it was from the Devil. The only rock band he was allowed to listen to was Christian rock band Collective Soul. Poor kid… So he kept a stash of pirated tapes of Pantera, Bad Religion and other assortments of good music. His favorite band was LIVE, with songs like “Pain Lies On The Riverside” and “I Alone”, which we covered in our jams. Of course, he accepted the invitation to be lead singer.
To play bass, Phil invited Paul. Paul was a Marlboro chain-smoking tough-looking motherfucker. But he was super cool. He definitely looked the part. His bass chops were simple, but straight to the point. Nothing fancy. He listened to some pretty heavy rock. I particularly remember him being a fan of New York hard rock band Anthrax.
Now, for the guitarist position. I have no memory of it. I just know I accepted on the spot. 🎉
We used to hang out at Phil’s house quite a bit. It was a huge house that belonged to the American Embassy where only he and his mom lived. So Phil converted one of the empty rooms into our rehearsal space. I took my “Fender” Rock Axe and my amp and effects pedals to his house and quickly found out that it would never do. So Phil let me use his amp. It was a 1980’s 100 watt Marshall JCM 800 combo with two 12-inch Celestion speakers. It was loud. It was very loud. So I plugged in and was almost ready to go.
Eventually Phil let me borrow all his gear. Aside from the Marshall, there was a cherry burst 1982 Gibson Les Paul Standard guitar. The machine heads has been swapped. Phil would chain his signal from the guitar into an Dunlop original Crybaby Wah, then into a Boss DD-3 delay, then into a Boss BF-2 Flanger and then a ProCo Rat 2, finally into the Marshall.
Now I know that this is backwards to the common thinking. The usual is to first connect into the distortions, then into the modulators and then into the Wah. I’ll never forget what he told me about his reasoning for this. He said:
“You can wah the distortion or your can distort the wah. I’d rather distort the wah.”
I’ve built my signal chain the same ever since.
I don’t remember what we played. Aside from the school band music and the entire Nirvana catalogue, I couldn’t really play much else. But the cool thing about playing with these guys was that they were all about writing their own songs. Sure we played covers, but we were very much composing our hits, too. During one particularly fruitless rehearsal, we were just hanging out in our positions. I was twiddling a four-note ascending riff on the guitar and Mark was playing R.E.M.’s “What’s The Frequency, Kenneth?” of off a tablature in a Guitar World magazine.
D, A, G…
Suddenly, Phil jumped to life from behind his drums screaming “That’s it! Mark, play that backwards! Marcelo, keep playing what you’re playing!”
G, A, D…
So we jammed on those three chords, then added a couple more. Later, Phil and Mark L. wrote lyrics to that jam. It was about a girl who suffers domestic violence from her father.
This became our first song, “Debrider”.
Debrider
Written by The Spinning Jenny's
A feeling that's lost
When she closes her eyes
Her mind is enslaved by what right
But her body's so full of what's wrong
Torn up inside
She's lost her mind
All she wanted was to be happy
She just wanted to leave it all behind
And I wanna love her
I wanna make it all right
But she says it's okay
The beatings weren't bad tonight
A bell cracks down the hall
Sounds like a bomb in her head
And even if rain goes unfelt
She keeps a bat under the bed
And I wanna love her
I wanna make it all right
But she says it's okay
The beatings weren't bad tonight
(Her dad slams the door)
(Torn by rage)
(She picks the bat from the floor)
(The bloodstains are still on the wall)
I wanna love her
I wanna make it all right
But she says it's okay
The beatings weren't bad tonight
I wanna lover her
I wanna lover her
I wanna lover her