Sometimes I absolutely hate social networking websites.
I can care less about the constant status posting of some people on Facebook. I do not need to know how many steps it took for you to get your mail this morning or how tired you are and wish you could sleep in some more. Truth is some of these posts are just TMI, too much information.
I also love social networking websites too.
These days it is so much easier to reconnect with friends of the past without driving all over the city to find them. There is no awkwardness in finding old friends on social networking websites. All you have to do it request to be their friend and suddenly you have reconnected instantly.
In the case of this post I have reconnected with a old friend, rather friends and I owe it to the social networking site Facebook.
When I was just a young punk kid I had the pleasure of hanging around a high school band foursome called Witch’s Veil. I remember going to a certain house I am sure a lot of my high school friends remember having good times at and would watch them play in the backyard garage.
Years later after high school and a break up, the band re-grouped with a most of the original members and called themselves The Veil. By this time I had become pretty good friends with the band and hung out with them on many occasions.
At my young naive age I wanted nothing more than to be in their band but alas there was no room for me. Jacob, Norm, Jamie, and Bryan were all great friends to me but they had control of the direction of the band and honestly they knew I could not play an instrument had my life depended on it let alone needed an extra person to their band. I could sing some, but they already had two great singers that took control of the songs. I knew it was not happening but I never stopped thinking of how fun it would have been to partake in band practice.
I understood and never really bugged them about my short lived dream. Still, I was fascinated with being around them so I hung out at their practice space and watched them do their thing. I loved the process of a jam turning into a 4 minute rock bash complete with guitar solos and drum solos.
Still I wanted to be in that damn band so badly. I remember one night I grabbed a tambourine and started keeping with the beat. They guys got a kick of it and before I knew it I was labeled “Tambourine Man”. From then on I would grab a tambourine and a beer at every practice and play along to all of the songs. I became an unofficial member of sorts…
Soon they invited me on a world tour and I would supply the hardest tambourine solos everyone had ever seen….no…that did not happen.
Hell, I did not even play live with them it was just a practice thing for kicks and giggles. The truth is they did not need a live tambourine man, and I knew it. They did however need a friend and a fan to support them. I was pretty good at doing that.
They would invite me to their shows and I as well as a good group of friends would attend as many as we could. I hung out with them before the shows, and drank with them after. I was almost a roadie of sorts but never helped them move their equipment but did drink their beer.
The band later broke up because of indifferences but still remained friends throughout the years. After all the foursome knew each other since high school. They still remained friends but just did their own thing musically with some staying in bands and others starting families.
I did my best to keep in touch with them all but sometimes you just can’t help what happens over time.
When you grow old your life changes and everyone know that. You meet new people, move in different directions, and sadly lose touch with good friends. I lost touch with the members of The Veil but not completely. Once in a blue moon I would run into them and they were just as happy to see me as back in the day. The term friend for life comes to mind when I think of them.
In 2007 the world lost an amazing person as Bryan Collyard lost his life in an accident. I can honestly say he was one of the more friendly people I will ever have had the pleasure to have in my life. He and hung out a lot throughout the years before, during, and after The Veil. He was a good man and everyone who knew him would say the same thing.
I heard rumors of the rest of the band getting together after Brian’s passing and jamming out. A couple of weeks ago Jacob messaged me on Facebook letting me know that the band regrouped and were going to be playing a show. Someone who I have not kept in touch with for years found me online and informed me of plans with the rest of the band.
Jacob informed me that he, Norm, Jamie, and friends created Way Of Life after jamming out a bunch of times after Brian’s passing. The remaining members of the band knew that Brian wanted them to go on and after two years of intense jam sessions they decided to start playing out live.
This Thursday Way Of Life will be playing at the Beachland Ballroom at around 8:30pm. I will be in attendee and would not miss this for the world. Tickets are only $5.00.
To get a small taste of their music head over to their MySpace page.
Band Bio:
Way of Life is a “Straight up Rock n’Roll” band in the vein of the Stones, G n’R, and Social D. Norm, Jacob, and Jamie originally played in the popular Cleveland 90’s band The Veil, regularly selling out venues such as the Odeon and Peabody’s and opening for national acts such as Creed and Days of the New. James Genero has also been a long time Cleveland musician.
In the original band, Jacob played drums, Scott played bass, Jamie sang, and Bryan Collyard played guitar. After the passing of their loved long time friend and guitarist Bryan in January of 2007, the three, without really much effort at all, started getting together and ‘jamming’ some of the old tunes they use to play together. Being a group of friends that enjoy getting together by a good camp fire and breaking out the acoustic guitars and hand drums and having jam sessions, they in this case also did so, getting together at the houses, the three all playing acoustic guitars and singing the old songs. After getting together a dozen or so times, they realized it felt good and somehow was just right- they liked the positions they assumed instrumentally, thus deciding to keep those roles and seek out a drummer and bass player. They have found the perfect bass player and drummer.
After two years in the making, Way of Life is ready to come out. Way of Life stands for exactly what the Cleveland music scene is; a Way of Life…………