One of the highlights of my recent trip back home was meeting up with Joe and RJ for a night and playing some old songs. The three of us hadn’t played together in about 8 years and we hadn’t played this batch of songs in probably 12.
Slackjawed was Joe Ziemba, RJ Porter and Mike Downey. We existed as a band under this name around 1995-1997ish. We self-released 2 cassettes and then changed our name to Wolfie.
On April 24th, 2009 we got together and played a bunch of old songs. This is the only one we caught on video. I apologize for not grabbing more video and for not getting RJ in the shot. I was so caught up in the moment that setting up the camera barely crossed my mind. But this is better than nothing.
Thanks guys for a truly amazing night of doing what we love to do. It really meant a lot to me.
Joe Ziemba is Beaujolais. This is his debut album entitled Love At Thirty. I received this in the mail today but have been spending quality time with a cd-r of the album for a couple months now. I can’t tell you how well-crafted and meaningful this record is.
Joe and I go way back. We went to high school together. Before I even knew him personally I started by watching him play drums in a powerful punky band that was tighter and, well, just plain better than all of the other bands in our high school (and there were surprisingly a ton of them). I was jealous and I was inspired.
Joe and I got to know each other and became quick friends. He got a Tascam 4-track before anyone else I knew. Joe also played guitar, sang and wrote his own songs and would make side project cassettes and pass them around school. This was the first time I realized that you didn’t have to have a record label or be famous to put out an album. It pretty much changed the way I think, even to this day.
Before too long I was playing bass in a band with Joe. We started playing his solo songs live and eventually I started bringing in my own songs, which I sang. We recorded these songs on Joe’s 4 track and even though I had a 4 track of my own by then, he really taught me how the machine worked. I watched him twist knobs and bounce tracks together. He would give me tapes of his songs and I’d pass him a tape of my songs. There were many hours of discussions about these songs and many more hours of us rehearsing these songs and performing them in front of audiences.
We learned to be musicians together. We experienced the good and bad of it together. We always managed to let the good, no matter what the ratio was to bad, shine through and grow, never seeming to get discouraged.
We then started the band Wolfie together and released a bunch of stuff and toured around. To make a long story short, what I basically did for a good long while was make music with Joe. And more importantly, we grew up and experienced life with each other to lean on.
For some people making music is just something you do for a while, then move on to something else. For Joe it is how he documents his life and deals with it. It’s not a novelty and it’s not temporary. This album is a document of a dark and promising time. There are really shitty times in life and it’s up to an individual’s inner strength to move forward and somehow come out a better person in the end. Everyone deals with life in different ways. Love at Thirty is how my good friend Joe does it. And it’s quite an amazing thing to observe.
You can preview songs and purchase this album via Parasol.
