Tram Tower

BIO: While playing with Andrew and Kevin in Cardenas, I was also playing in a two-piece band with Greg. We named it Tram Tower, and I was able to play in both bands for a while. However, it became clear after several months that joining forces into one band would be beneficial for all, as well as clearing up some time for me to play more video games at home at night while unemployed in Seattle. The “new” Tram Tower was much more prog-rock influenced than Greg and I’s version of the band, and there are traces of the Police in the guitar, drums, and vocal stylings at times. This band ended after about a year when Andrew Squire announced that he was moving to New York City. While the three remaining members tossed around the idea of finding another drummer, I think we all agreed that this band was done and we recorded other songs together off and on while I remained in Seattle before moving to Portland after getting married. I am trying to locate some of these other recordings, which included the roots of a rock opera that never saw the light of day.

Band Members: Sergio Chavez (bass, keyboards, vocals, drum machine), Greg Golden (guitar, drum programming, keyboards, vocals), Kevin Fullerton (guitar, vocals), Andrew Squire (drums, percussion, electronic drum pads)

Years of Operation: 2001- 2002

Location: Seattle, WA

Song List:

The following songs were recorded by Greg Golden and I on his computer and my 4-track when we were a two piece:

End Days

La Llorona (this song was written in Spanglish and features samples from a CD of New Mexico folklore)

Pieces

These recordings were made on a Jaz disk 4-track recorder with the full band:

Freak Out

Heroes of the Underworld (a modern day Robin Hood story)

Inertia

Looking Backwards

Pieces

Pluto and Neptune

Prosecutin’

Redneck Contractor (a reference to ghetto contracting, a type of under-the-table carpentry that Kevin was involved in)

Extra info: We played a lot of shows, many at our own rehearsal room which was in a large industrial warehouse underneath the West Seattle bridge, but unfortunately no live videos or recordings exist of them.  We also recorded a whole slew of songs that are in various stages of completion that I need to find some way of dumping down from their original Jaz Disks.

Videos: Here is a video of us playing at Patti Summers’ Lounge in Pike Place Market in Seattle in the spring or summer of 2002 (in QuickTime format).  The audience consists mostly of my immediate family members who came out to Seattle to visit me and attended this afternoon show.  There is additional footage of us having a barbecue in my backyard after the show, but at the last minute I decided to just include the performance clips.  The two songs performed are “Southern Bros” and “Looking Backwards”: