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Drowning Pool

It all began around the end of 1983. All the local musicians would inevitably end up hanging on the counter at Peer Records in Newport Beach. The place had been there for as long as any of us could remember. Sandy floored Peer. It was a manageable place with all the current big time records finding the front and center position in the racks. But you could get anything there. Anyway, turns out there was this guy Chris Manecke who everybody in the scene knew. He ran the place. At the time Adam Elesh was in a band Landscape of Sound that was seeing some measure of success and playing places like The Concert Factory, formally known as the Cuckoos Nest, on an almost weekend basis. There and the Golden Bear on PCH. Always gigging at these spots. Any way, Landscape of Sound about run our run and, the “as expected” band hassles had begun.

Their bassist had walked out after a spat with his brother the singer and Adam was left to call on my short-term college days bass player Brett Smith, who was due to graduate at any time. Adam had few hopes of recruiting him as he was out with Bachelor’s Degree.

It’s kind of like the famous line of Keith Moon who told press that he was still sitting in with the Who after 20 years. Well, same with Brett and Adam. Brett joined Landscape of Sound and soon, ,was fed up with the state of the band. Adam and Brett were looking for new horizons.

​Brings it all back to Peer Records. Adam Elesh would hang out there most nights when not amorously engaged. Here was where he was schooled in the new music of the day. Anything hip and happening would find time on the turn tables: Cocteau Twins, Dead Can Dance, Joy Division, Durutti Column; all of it. Any way, Adam stopped in one night as usual, and Chris was not working. But what Adam heard was an amazing track. The guy at the counter said “It’s Chris’ band The Abecedarians”. “Smiling Monarchs” was the track. This was it. What the Pistols were to Joy Division, the Abecedarians were to me. The “it” sound. The future. The possibilities of an underground ground swell. the future was wide open.

Adam had been writing some new music himself and was looking for some collaboration. Chris Manecke jumped at the stuff and they basically jammed a couple of times then recorded what was to become Tragic Symphony. The stuff had great potential, but Chris was struggling to get the Abecedarians rolling and couldn’t commit too much time. So Brett Smith and Adam Elesh decided to start the search for two others to round out our new musical projects. They were answered by Andrew Crane of the Los Angeles Band Killer Wail and a young drummer fresh from a surf band called the Ripptides named Tom Doyle. They found a sound that seemed to work and so it began.

Adam's arts have always been inspired by literature. At the time he was a great fan of Herman Hesse. He was reading Magister Ludi and there was a particular passage that stuck in his mind. The academic Goldman was saying to the wayward aesthetic Narcissus something like, and he doesn’t quote “Us men of the mind live in an arid desert of thought, while you of the flesh have only the danger of drowning in a sea of the senses...” or something of that nature. They all agreed on the name Drowning Pool.

Drowning Pool's first official gig was at The Anti Club on Melrose Blvd in 1984. The reception was great and garnered us a “critics Pick” in the L.A. Weekly. They were off. Their first recording session happened soon after at, the best recording studio in town at the time, Evan Williams in Santa Ana. Chris Manecke agreed to produce “Uncork The Mind” and from this Drowning Pool made our first demo cassettes, which were to become our staple until record contracts appeared. This track turned a few heads. They were fans of the then 4AD label, and they were one of their first targets. They were to lose our drummer to a college-or-make it-on-your-own ultimatum, and so found by providence the amazing Jon Thomas. Right around this time an Italian label was putting together a compilation of L.A. underground bands which included the Abecedarians. Claudio DiGiambattista ran VIVA records out of Rome and upon hearing their latest recording of “Festival Of Healing” included Drowning Pool on this Viva Los Angeles I.

On the wings of the success of this release, he asked Drowning Pool to put together a record of their latest for a follow up Drowning pool release. This would come to be known as Drowning Pool or “The Bloody Boy” album. They were amassing quite a body of work by this time and felt they should put together an album themselves to shop around. This was again produced by Chris Manecke under the moniker R. P. McMurphy. It was to become known as the “Green Album” and was, by far, their most mature work to date. But still no takers as far as the domestic release. Around this time Adam Elesh received a phone call from Ivo Watts-Russell of 4 AD who was on the fence about Drowning Pool but was intrigued and offered Drowning Pool an opening spot in front of the Cocteau Twins at the Palace. The gig was great but it did not secure them a record deal. They decided to print the Green Album themselves with the hope that in doing so they would spark some interest in distribution. Caroline came forward and offered them a deal. The Green Album had wings. Many gigs were to follow it’s release. More interest from Italy birthed the EP Nierika. Local Orange County music maestros wanted "Edith, Hold Out Your Hand" for the “Ultraviolet” compilation. But internal difficulties follow too. They soon parted ways with Andrew Crane and were left with a large body of officially unreleased music. They started to write new instrumental tracks to bookend this material. A subsidiary of Bruce Licher’s Independent Project Records was interested in releasing this material. To do this they had heard of a great independent music engineer called Vitus Matare who had a studio in Mar Vista, Caliofrnia. Lyceum Sound was where they put the finishing tracks on what was to become Satori; a fetch and grab of all their cassette release to date. After this came their all instrumental release Aphonia, also recorded at Lyceum Sound and engineered by Vitus Matare. Their last release as Drowning Pool was an inclusion “The Italian Pop Song”, pole position, on Viva Los Angeles II.

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