CONTRAST

You never look back until it is about to end. This is an inherent flaw of most of us, yet we continue to listen to those who have been through it and ignore this stigmatism until it hits us in the face. I have been playing in Contrast since our early roots playing our first show at a small, now defunct coffee house in Lakeland. In the 3 years since those initial days, I have glanced back at pictures and friendships that have faded and shows where we shined and shows where we failed.



When Patrick and I started writing music, neither of us expected it to come to Contrast. We wanted it, but everything is definitely different now then it was back then. We were different people and music was different. You had to have hairspray, play scales, and sing falsetto. We changed what we were to fit the times, but still cared about what we wanted, not what we were told to do. We only cared about where we had been and who we were. We wrote a lot of music together in Patrick’s garage with my old Aria Diamond through a Digitech RP-1 and a Peavey Short Stack and his second hand PA system and beat up Sinhiser mic. Throughout the years, we wrote both acoustic and electric songs, some of which were used in the early shows of Contrast and some that were used until the last show.



Josh Boles is one of the better drummers I have had the pleasure of playing with. He is an amazing writer, communicator, and beat applicator. He started out in a few small collections of musicians and settled into Voodoo Tuna with his brother playing guitar. They had touches of success in a full album recording, TV appearances, and playing the local circuit in the famed grunge venues of the Washington area. I came to know Josh through the company we worked for at the time. We hit it off well and I introduced him to Patrick as a potential fit into a spot that we have been craving for years. This line up was instrumental in the beginning idea and sound of Contrast. It was just Patrick, Josh and myself for a short while and we even had an impromptu outing at a friends party with just the three of us….it was a great whistle wetter.



We were then introduced to Johnny Tucker through a friend of Patrick’s as a possible fit to the bass slot. JT, as we referred to him, blew the lid off the other three members in his ability to both adlib amazing runs and in the ability to fit into the covers that the three solid members had settled one. This was the initial line up, short of a few try outs by Scott Jones and, my now wife, Misty Sybert in the bass slot.



We played a now defunct coffee house in Lakeland Florida as our first show and it was, needless to say, a little shaky. After a few times of the acoustic end, we played our good friend Brady Key’s Superbowl Party and a birthday party for a friend of a friend. We played a few covers (Lightning Crashes by Live, Plush by STP, and Black by Pearl Jam among others) and started slowly working in our originals. Our first real gig was at the Brass Mug in Tampa Florida and, again, we were shaky, but it gave us all a taste of what we needed to take it up a notch. We landed a gig at a small club called Traders in downtown Lakeland that was a standing every other week, 2 set show. It was fun and a great way to cut our teeth in live performance and dealing with mechanical failure, crowd control, and member conflicts. Those shows were invaluable. Contrast started playing more venues in Tampa; The Pegasus Lounge and The Masquerade in Ybor city. As we were getting a larger draw, we started getting larger shows, but we came to a situation that needed attention. We decided that JT would not fit with us musically, but was a great fit personality-wise and we hated to make that decision. Jon Berkenfield stepped up and changed ‘weapons’ from guitar to bass and fit in perfectly.



Jon Berkenfield was managing a local band and good friend of our band, Rigid when we met him. Once he knew the spot was open, he was first to step up and audition. He was still a little scratchy on bass, but definitely knew how to handle an instrument and had some prior experience in a few local bands as well. Jon played most recently with good friend Mike Coxwell in Xtinct until its unfortunate demise. Jon has a great history of music in his life and carried that to every practice and show.



We started getting more and more support and landed some shows with national recording artists such as NonPoint and 7 Mary 3 at the Masquerade in Ybor City, FL. At the height of that swell, Contrast suffered a huge blow in the choice of Josh to step down for personal family reasons. We all respected him for his decision, but we had to keep the wave going. Jon suggested his former band mate Mike Coxwell and we gave him a try.



Mike Coxwell played in a few smaller bands before linking up with old time friend Jon in Xtinct. We presented Mike with a CD or the current Contrast music and he blew us away by getting 2 songs almost dead on after two weeks of solo practice. It took some time to work him in, but he became an integral part of what would become our recorded sound.



We played a few warm up shows and hit the scene hard. We marked our distance on the walls and never even turned around to see where we had been. We didn’t wait around for grace or someone to give it to us because we enjoyed what we did. The praise came, but it was more for the music and the closeness we shared throughout this experience.



We went to a member of another band Thera who has a small personal recording studio and began recording what would become the only official recordings we would have as Contrast. We did a lot of open mic or semi-pro recording in the practice area (New Me is still only recorded this way and includes both Josh and JT in the recording). We put a lot of time and effort into the recording and got very good results, but the train had been slightly derailed with the two line up changes so close together.



My heart went into it until the end and it started to falter. Shows started to drop off and fans became sparse. We still had the same power into this train, but without tracks, it was beginning to falter. I could not go as fast as the train needed to go, so I decided to step down from my spot and along with some inside issues, it was the crack that broke the wall. It’s hard to realize where we had been with opening for national acts and playing 4 or 5 times a month and ending up where we are. Contrast had reached its end point and the surviving members disbanded. Jon and Mike are pushing forward with Living Proof (check them out on MySpace) and Patrick intends to find his way back to the scene at some time in the future. Me? I find myself wanting to keep making music in some form. I will be looking for a project local that wants to stay local. Write local, play local, and enjoy what comes at us even it if is just the same 3 or 4 venues every once in a while. My story is not finished, but this chapter is closed. I will keep the MySpace page up as a memorial and feature all members that graced the stage as Contrast and encourage them to keep in touch and submit their current info so that I can post it. It is not ending for me; it is going to begin with this.