12-01-01

Time has been slow in Berkeley...

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the Zero site
1999-2021
by Andy Bloxham
since 7-11-99


Fast To Nowhere

http://punkmusic.com/fasttonowhere

Fast To Nowhere is the band that I play in. Justin Hebert is our bassist and main vocalist. Jamie Sims is our guitarist and second vocalist. And I, Andy Bloxham, am the drummer. We're a punk rock band. I'm not real big on saying we're exactly like so and so in the music industry, so I can't tell you who we sound like, other than it's directed more towards the Hardcore/Skate punk genre of music. So far, we have one cd recorded, although it has yet to be pressed or distro'ed other than the usual burnings that we make for people. The cd is entitled "Kill All Monsters," although not directed specifically towards the childhood fable "monsters." The monsters could be anything from big business, to corrupt systems, to even how a local community gathering place is ran. I guess that could be a mission statement for the band. "Look at everything from multiple angles, instead of just assuming the first thought as actual fact.

We formed in the fall of 1997. At first, it was just Jamie and I. Justin wouldn't become apart of the band till the following summer. But for that period where it was just Jamie and I, it was, honestly, the ugliest, shittiest music you would ever hear (mind you, some may say that our current stuff sounds like that, too... opinions, opinions!). Jamie was playing a right handed, Wal-Mart level guitar that someone gave to him, upside down in support of his left handed playing. My drumset was the same introductory drumset that I had been using for five years earlier. The heads were taped up, the cybmals were either cracked, shattered, or destroyed due to their cheap quality. And with those intruments, combined with a real lack of actual coherent talent with each other, Jamie and I would play covers (and the occasional, but always soon scrapped original) every weekend in either the rent house that his parent's owned, or in the shop behind my house (on a side note... the shop behind my house is still our place of practice this day). At the time, we thought that it was just cool being able to play punk rock with someone else. The quality of the music was an after thought. This is actually where our name stems from. I concluded that at the level that we were accomplishing during that time, we were nothing but "Fast To Nowhere." We kept it as our band name.



Things would change during the summer of 1998. Justin Hebert, a guy Jamie went to school with, was finally coming around on his bass knowledge. We decided to bring him out to practice one day. After that moment, the members of the band were finalized. Jamie had a new guitar, I had bought a new drum set, and we had a bass player to play with us. For the first time, we were somewhat of the definition of a "band." We continued to learn and play covers, but we were also trying to work in some original tunes, as well. A few shows sprang up during the fall of 1998, although they were hardly anything worth mentioning, other than them being social events where a band was needed for nothing more than for someone to say "hey, a band will be there." So, our first real, actual show didn't come until the summer of 1999, almost a year with us together as a complete band. And, after that show, I think we could refer to each other as being apart of a band. The fun, joy, and excitement of being in a band was there at that show. People had showed up to hear music. It was all something so new and exciting. Things were starting to swing forward for us.

Come summer of 2000, we had already had a good many shows under our belt. Number of shows started to go up to almost around once a month. The summer of 2000 was especially a good summer, as we had shows every two weeks during that time. It was also when we decided to record all of our songs for a cd. Overall, we had eleven songs, plus a (secret) song. It took us 11 hours, but it was a total blast. Many copies were burned to give out to friends and people who had never been to shows. Some liked it. Some probably lied and said they liked it. But regardless, we were just happy to finally be able to have something that proved that we were a band, and a recording band at that. Shows continued, off and on, as we readjusted to going back to college. Currently, we're having the cd mastered before we start self releasing copies of the cd to an actual public (friends and classmates don't count). So, as this happens, cds (as well as mp3s) will be availible here on the site for those curious enough to see what this whole "Fast To Nowhere" thing really is.


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