HISTORY (Page 1)

The Tea Club has it's beginnings in Deptford, New Jersey in the late 1990's, where Patrick McGowan, then a young teenager, began to teach himself guitar. Growing up in a family where music was so incredibly important, it was inevitable; Patrick's father was himself an accomplished guitarist and songwriter, and had retired from pursuing a professional career in music in the 1980's to raise his family. When he began to see Patrick's growing interest in music, he decided to teach him the basics of playing the guitar. He also introduced him to the music that had inspired his own songwriting as a teenager, the progressive rock of the 1970's. Seeing how quickly Patrick took to both, he encouraged him to make his own music. Before long, Patrick had begun to write his own songs, much in the vain of early King Crimson and YES. Though a natural musician, Patrick had difficulty playing some standard chords, particularly when it came to "bar chords", due to the abnormal shape of his fingers. So he began to create his own guitar chords. The songs that he began to write as a result became more and more experimental, and his curiousity for bizarre chords grew. Friends and family were always surprised when hearing Patrick play, considering his young age and the complexity of his songs.

Inevitably, Patrick grew tired of playing guitar by himself, so he began to search for other like-minded musicians to play music with. After putting out several "Musicians Wanted" ads to disappointing results, he started to play with his friends around him. One of them was Jason Barsotti, a long-time friend and a budding drummer who lived in the same apartment complex. Young Jason and Patrick had jammed in local grunge bands together, but drifted apart when Jason graduated high school and began attending college and working a full time job. But around the Summer of 2001, he showed up at Patrick's apartment door with a new desire to play music seriously. Jason, a metal head, had begun to listen to and appreciate the progressive rock bands that Patrick had always listened to as a youth, and wanted to play drums to Patrick's songs. This began a period of long writing sessions at the only place they could find where they could play loud; Patrick's grandmother's garage. Patrick worked closely with Jason and created a handful of instrumental guitar/drum pieces. But Patrick soon realised that a third member would be needed, to bring melody and color to their songs.

Enter Dan McGowan, Patrick's brother, then 15 years old and an aspiring artist (who also casually played guitar and bass). At the same time as Dan was beginning to grow frustrated with the solitude of pursuing a career in the art world, he was also falling head-over-heels in love with the music of Sunny Day Real Estate, taking particular notice of the bass guitar work in the band. Picking up the bass again with a new seriousness, Dan expressed interest to Pat in playing in their band. So the three began to turn Patrick's guitar pieces into fully fledged rock songs, and it wasn't long before they had worked out a full set list of songs (including an early instrumental version of "The Moon", which then featured Dan on Keyboards, and would later appear on The Tea Club's debut album).

At this time, Patrick had begun to write melodies and lyrics, but didn't feel that he had the vocal ability or confidence to be a "singer" in the band. So Dan volunteered to sing the songs. However, after hearing recordings of his singing on 4 Track demos he and Pat had made, Dan was so embarrassed by the sound that he swore never to listen to the demos again and refused to sing lead vocals in the band. Enter JP Jenson, a friend of Patrick's from the church he was then attending. Patrick and Dan had both heard JP singing along to songs on the radio, and knew that he had the skill and the confidence. Thus, they recruited him, against his will, to sing in the band. Now that they had a complete line-up, they set up their first show under the name of "The Menacing Penguins". JP, however, refused to sing in the band if this was to be their official band name. So Patrick invented the name "Despair and the Smiling Machine" and changed the bill before their first gig. Their first performance was on July 13th, 2002 and was deemed a success, despite some tuning issues. (In the audience was actually a young Kyle Minnick, then a tender 13 years old.)

Over the summer of 2002, Despair and the Smiling Machine played a handful of shows, while Patrick, along with Dan, began to hone their song writing. Their newest batch of songs featured both brothers playing guitar, with Dan becoming more creatively involved as Patrick started to focus more and more on the vocal aspect of the band, to the point where a new song in their set, called "Windmirror", featured Patrick singing lead vocals. It began to become apparent that if Patrick was the one writing the lyrics and in a very autobiographical way, it would only be right for him to sing them as well, despite his insecurities. Despair and the Smiling Machine performed their last show on September 14th, 2002 at Full Circle Records, a record store and a favorite haunt of band, that featured local music acts. The gig featured Patrick singing "Windmirror" as well as Dan singing lead on a ballad called "Headlights". Soon after the gig, a financial disagreement, as well as Patrick and Dan's desire to sing their songs, resulted in JP being ejected from the band. It was time to start over.

It was agreed that Patrick would be the main singer and guitarist. Jason would continue on drums. Dan would switch up playing bass and guitar, and sing harmonies. And on the songs that both Patrick and Dan played guitar on, they turned to Jim Berger, Dan's comic book collaborator and best friend since grade school. Though he had no previous experience playing a musical instrument, Jim was a huge fan of Despair and the Smiling Machine and was very eager to be a part of the band. With the new line-up, they decided to discard most of their old material and choose a new name. After many band disputes, Jason infamously said "I think we all have a book of thoughts on what the name should be," which struck a chord with everyone in the band, and thus, they decided on the name "Book Of Thoughts".

The next step was to professionally record a demo of their music. Managing to gather enough money between them, they turned to Kevin Stehm, who recorded bands in the basement of his church where he had put together a studio (called Godsong Studios). A highly stressful experience, the 5 song disc was recorded in two days, most of the performances done in one or two takes under the time restraints. Dan drew up artwork for the CD, and they made up copies to sell at shows and use in their press kit. Book Of Thoughts only played a total of 3 shows when creative tensions began to surface between Jay and the brothers. It was around this time that Patrick and Dan began to take particular notice of the drumming skills of their friend from church, 14 year old Kyle Minnick, who was also Book Of Thoughts number one fan. Kyle played drums with his brother Justin, a singer and guitarist. The two pairs of brothers would occasionally jam together. It wasn't until Kyle and Justin showed the McGowans a song they had written together that Patrick and Dan saw the shocking technical and creative skill that the young drummer was already demonstrating. The jams led to the four forming a side project, called "A Dying World" (a Sunny Day Real Estate reference, as all four shared a mutual love of the band). After performing one show together, the chemistry between Patrick, Dan, and Kyle became obvious. Amongst the personal and musical conflicts, Pat decided to break up Book Of Thoughts and A Dying World and start a brand new band with Kyle as the drummer.

By October of 2003, it was, again, time to start over. The guys would write all new songs together, neglecting all of the Book Of Thoughts material (except for two works in progress called "Mr. Shlappy" and "IceClock"). This time around it would be Dan mainly on guitar and occasionally singing lead, while Jim would do the majority of the bass guitar writing and playing. Patrick would remain on vocals and guitar, with Kyle on drums. Immediately the four clicked. Kyle's drumming provided the perfect energy for Patrick and Dan's intense and often dramatic songwriting. The excitement of finding like-minded musicians AND personalities in each other caused a creative burst that lasted the entire Autumn, and resulted in the band improvising for hours on end, and writing an entire set's worth of songs. This included a 10 minute epic called "General Winter's Boney Skull", the first shamelessly prog rock song that Patrick had ever written, and the Dan original "Little Tripper", a bizarre pop song that had more in common with early Beatles than YES and featured Patrick on drums. Kyle's refusal to play drums on a song unless it undoubtedly improved it in his own opinion resulted in Patrick and Dan's acoustic songs, such as "Hammer-Heads", being used. Things were coming along better than they could have expected, and anything seemed possible.

Patrick's voice was becoming a focal point. He was discouraged by some negative feedback about his singing on the Book of Thoughts demo, stemming from his strained and intensely raw performance, and his and Dan's absolute refusal to use any kind of pitch correction or auto-tuning on his voice. To gain more control over his singing, Patrick started taking vocal lessons from Steve Childs, a local music teacher who taught guitar, bass, and drum lessons as well. He only took a few basic lessons, but the results were immediate. Steve was also in the process of installing recording equipment in his music studio, and offered to record Patrick's band once everything was up and running.

The four were excited to play their material live, but knew that this would involve the inevitable and painful task of naming the band. The origins of the name "The Tea Club" are a bit of a mystery. When asked, any member of the band will give a different answer. Patrick responded, when being interviewed on the internet radio station "Sun-E Radio", by saying that they took their name from the group of slaves who built the underground railroad system during the Civil War and called themselves "The Tea Club". Other explanations from band members have claimed that the name comes from a series of science fiction paperbacks sold exclusively in adult novelty stores, a tarot card found in the woods, and a local schizophrenic man who grew up in the McGowan's neighborhood. "I have no idea what the hell it means," once stated Dan McGowan, who only says that Patrick came up with it and it was the one name they could all agree on.

With their new name decided, The Tea Club performed their first show in an abandoned peach factory to a group of freshman high schoolers who were more interested in Weezer than in experimental rock. Their second show was more successful, played at a church with a significantly larger audience, where Dan infamously cut open his finger playing and bled on their equipment, and Patrick sported a white t-shirt on which he had written "THE TEA CLUB SUCKS". The diverse crowd was impressed; the teenagers compared their sound to Nirvana and Radiohead, while their parents likened them to early Genesis.
Their next show required them to have a professional recording of their music, so they recorded two songs with the sound engineer from Kyle's church, Bob Oudyk. They quickly recorded a reworked version of "The Moon" and an acoustic instrumental called "Silos" in time to play the show. This found them at Club 218 in Philadelphia, where they played two songs as an audition for Capitol Manangement. The company president, Robert Metzgar, was there for the audition and was impressed by their originality, saying that they had "the new sounds of modern electric rock" and telling them to send him their full press kit when it was finished.

New material continued to pour from them, and as they waited for Steve Childs to complete his recording studio, they set about recording another demo. They returned to Kevin Stehm's studio, again on a very limited budget. They recorded three songs: two brand new ones, "Zebra" and "Zero Wave" as well as "Mr. Shlappy". Due to the basement studio being flooded halfway through the recording process, Kevin finished the songs at his own home studio. He was instantly impressed by the quality of Patrick's voice, and was very encouraging of the band, even mastering the demo for free. The tracks sounded great, and after discovering the wonders of MySpace, anyone could hear them. They started to build a local following who admired their young age and musical skill but also their accessible melodies. Along with other home recordings, they put the songs on a cd, nicknamed The Stehm-O, and gave them out at shows and sent them to labels. One track, "Zebra", was even included on a compilation cd called Tables Will Turn # 8 put out by Velvet Blue Records. Live, however, things were a little more alienating towards pop music fans. Inspired by 70's King Crimson, the four had begun to introduce extended improvisations into their set, which started off strong and ended incoherently, with their audience confused.

Page 1 | Page 2