Jabberwock began sometime in 1990. The initial line-up consisted of Tony Gregor on bass, Mike Gattis on guitar, Dana Robbins on guitar and Jude Lemrow on drums. I was not yet in the band so my memory of this is quite hazy but I think they played one gig with this line-up.
Sometime in the fall of 1990 I was approached to record an extremely rough demo for the band in my basement. I was playing in a band called 911 at the time with Chris Kieta/drums and Jeff Saranacki/bass. This would have been a very shitty sounding demo as I had a crappy Vesta-Fire brand 4-track cassette recorder that was used.
Sometime during this process Jude suggested that I become the singer for the band. We were a bit reluctant at first as Mike, Tony and I tried to play together back in high school and it just didn’t quite work. Anyway, we had one rehearsal and Dana announced that a classmate at WMU was having a party and he lined it up for us to play. This was going to be a totally punk show as I didn’t know any of their original songs nor the covers they were playing. We played the party and it was the beginning of The Couch House. I recall drinking a lot of Bell’s to get through the night as I certainly couldn’t be sober and attempt to sing a bunch of songs that I didn’t know.
Shortly after this Dana left the band and this line-up continued for a while. I remember we continued playing at The Couch House regularly and were sort of the house band for a while. We definitely played the night the house caught on fire. The parties kept getting bigger and bigger until they started selling tickets to them. I remember people offering to buy tickets outside of the house for $20!
At some point the band recorded a 13 song demo on an 8-track 1/4” machine. We titled this Buffalo Plaid and tried to use this to get gigs. We also sent them around to some labels and got some interest from some indie out of El Segundo, CA but it didn’t work out. These were mostly songs written by Tony and Mike and had an early R.E.M. influence, which didn’t really make us fit in with the heavier sounding bands in Kalamazoo.
This line-up also played a festival on WMU’s campus that was organized by Martin Klemm of Banter Clan. I think Twitch may have played their first gig at this festival. It was a benefit show but I can’t recall what organization was the beneficiary. I do remember that Thought Industry was scheduled to play but Brent had some illness that affected his voice.
Some other gigs that we played were a hemp festival in Bronson Park. We played early in the morning, perhaps something like 8 or 9am and made it onto the local news channel. I mainly remember that it was quite cold and I was quite happy that I didn’t play the guitar in the band at that point. King Tammy also played this gig but I don’t remember any of the other bands, perhaps Jah Kings also. We also played at Rick’s American Café but only for the money. The frat boy crowd barely tolerated us but I seem to remember being paid $150 or $200. Now that I think about it I think it wasn’t yet Rick’s, rather some other name. Nonetheless, it wasn’t a satisfying gig in any way. We also played out of town in East Lansing at Small Planet. This also sucked and it didn’t seem as if there was a scene in East Lansing similar to the one in Kalamazoo.
One of my favorite gigs with this line-up was a show at The Intersection in Grand Rapids. Rollinghead had the gig but had to cancel at the last minute and called us. When we arrived Ferg was there as he hadn’t heard the gig was cancelled for Rollinghead. This was one of those play the whole night gigs so we were definitely going to repeat songs and make shit up. At one point we started playing a funk influenced song and I started singing about crack. We lived in a neighborhood that had some crack in it so I was just making up lyrics based upon things I had heard outside. The offending line was “got your rock, nigger”. The owner of the club got really pissed and kicked us out. He did pay us but told us we would never play there again.
Our final gig with Mike on guitar was at Club Soda. I’m pretty sure this was an opening slot for Rollinghead. I’m not sure if we warranted the gig but we were very early supporters of Rollinghead and I think they were returning the favor. We played a new song called Skull Fucking which was a bit different than anything else we had done up to that point. A friend of the band had a Devo suit (the yellow plastic one) that I wore at the gig but shed it quite quickly as it was way too hot! Mike had to leave the band as he had a very young child and moved from Kalamazoo to be with the child and his wife.
At this point Jude, Tony and I tried to find another guitarist. After a while we decided that I would play guitar. We started writing new songs rather than playing the old ones. This line-up started getting some decent out of town gigs and we recorded five songs in Ann Arbor. I think the recording engineer’s name was Chris Taylor and he was recommended by some of the guys in The Sleestacks, which began our relationship with Leppotone.
Two of the songs from this recording were slated to be the second single on Leppotone. The front side was Forward Sending and the back side was Off the Line. The length of these songs required us to have the 7” play at 33rpm and we couldn’t get a decent test pressing. Something was wrong with the DAT mix we had and when we sent it to the plant to be pressed it kept coming back with a bit of distortion. Digital distortion, not the cool kind like on Jesus and Marychain’s Psychocandy. We also had some t-shirts made at this point to sell along with the single.
I recall playing gigs with The Sinatras, one of the venues being Pepper’s of all places! What the hell were we doing playing at that place? We got the gig and asked The Sinatras to play with us. I remember Ron didn’t have a guitar for that gig so he played mine. No one really showed for it but it didn’t matter as the two bands played for each other. We played at least one more gig with The Sinatras at a Leppotone showcase that I think was at Club Soda.
There were definitely some gigs with The Sleestacks, one at K-College and definitely another at some place in Battle Creek. I remember everyone being quite drunk at the end of the night and having a big jam with The Sleestacks.
At the time we were planning on releasing the single and booked our own Midwest tour, more of a mini-tour. We played in Grand Rapids (Reptile House) ,Cincinnati (two nights) Huntington & Charleston, West Virginia and Indianapolis. The gig in Indy was at The Patio and it went quite well. They invited us back and I know we played at least one more time there.
We played at The Reptile House at least a few times and one of the gigs was an opening slot for Zuzu’s Petals. I think the singer/guitarist Laurie was dating Paul Westerberg at this point but we didn’t talk about it. I read Laurie’s book recently but Jabberwock didn’t warrant a mention.
Around this time we somehow landed some gigs in Chicago after much perseverance. We played at Lounge Ax (prior to Sue dating/marrying Jeff Tweedy), a shit-hole called Dreamerz (we went on at 3 or 4am as they had a late license) and The Beat Kitchen.
The Beat Kitchen gig was significant as on the way to the gig some of the equipment that was stacked in the van fell and the snare drum cracked me on the side of the head. I ended up with a concussion, fractured skull and hematoma. As I now had a closed head injury and the bones in my right ear-drum were vibrating faster than normal I wasn’t in much of a condition to play music. I tried for a little while after this and we even added another guitarist, Mike Meader to the band. I recall playing a gig with Mike at Missia’s.
Finally, I decided to leave the band. I was in a fog with the head injury and couldn’t do it any longer. Tony, Jude and Mike Meader continued and definitely played more gigs. Tony took over singing duties and they rehearsed in the house that Jude and I were living in at the time. This is the end of the Jabberwock story from my perspective as I don’t recall details after I left the band.
I went on to record some songs with Jude on drums and Dean & Dave VanDyke from Rollinghead. These sessions were recorded under the moniker of Hoarse. Later, Jude and I joined forces with Chonk and Bob Klomparens from FAQ and formed Gift Horse.
