From The Start: Hands Down

On a local message board people have been talking about my old band Hands Down and it got me thinking a bit. I use to play in a Positive Youth Crew Straight Edge band a couple years ago called Hands down. If interested you can download almost everything we recorded HERE.

This has the demo w/ lyrics, live CIUT set with interview and a cover we only played on the radio and 3 unreleased songs that we recorded for a 7" that never came out (we lost the cd that had all 5 songs on it), 2 are from the sampler cd/tape and 1 me and mike found a couple weeks ago when looking for the full 7" on a cd.

We where a band for a year and a half. Looking back on this band it has pretty much changed my life. I moved to Toronto spring of 2002 and I really did not know to many people in Toronto at the time. I meet Chris thou my roommate at the the time and he was looking for a bass player for a band he was about to start. I emailed him asking if I could come out and jam with them. I played bass a bit during highschool just messing around with friends in a garage, but i did now know if I could play seriously, It worked out and the band got going.

Mike was not in the band at the time. It was just me Chris and Lenny. Our friend Tim was going to sing in the band. but after one practice with me he seemed to disappear. We had a couple practiced without him just working on the songs we had written. Chris was interested in singing for the band so we made a post on a local message board that we where looking for a guitar player Mike got in touch and Chris moved to vocals and the rest is history. The band never really went anywhere we played in and around Toronto alot and made it to a gig in Montreal and did a weekend in upstate NY with Blue Monday. We recorded for a 7" that never came out and I think this is what ended up killing the band. Mike did not like how the way the band was going so he decided to leave the band. He told us this after the Blue Monday show we did in Mississsauga, I did not really want to do the band without Mike it in. We got an offer to play with Champion, Final Word and Keep It Up at the 202. I thought this would be a perfect show to call it a day.

I meet some of my best friends though hands down. I really don't know where I would be without this band.

I seem its kinda fitting that I post this now cuz I am about to start a new project with some friends in the new year. Its going to be in the vein of the Midwest indie / emo movement in the late 90's . It will be good to get back into playing the bass again and making music I really enjoy.

Here are some pictures of the band and band relelated things that I have on my computer from the band. enjoy.

This was Our First t-shirt design:

This is Our good friend Victor Ha he designed the cover of the sampler tape and the pocket design for our second shirt: ( we took these photos for our website to show people what colors of shirts we had)