http://www.3eb.co.uk/ 3eb.co.uk - Third Eye Blind message board. 3EB discussion, guitar tabs, media trading as well as other topics in the chit chat section. en Fri, 18 May 2012 11:21:10 GMT vBulletin 60 http://www.3eb.co.uk/images/Back2Basics/misc/rss.png http://www.3eb.co.uk/ http://www.3eb.co.uk/showthread.php?15322-quot-In-Blindness-We-Trust-quot-June-1995&goto=newpost Wed, 16 May 2012 00:51:44 GMT I don't know how I ended up on the old SJ.com today, but I found an article I'd never read and after a good chunk of searching to no score, I figured I'd post it up for anyone else who missed it too. An interesting read:


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"In Blindness We Trust"
SF underground's new vision: Third Eye Blind.

By David John Farinella
Sound Check, June 1995; Volume 1, Issue 2.


"Stephan, are you pacing?"

"I always pace when I'm not on the phone. I'm a shark. I've got to keep moving. I do the same thing in clubs. Keep on rolling, or I die." Without realizing it, Stephan Jenkins has just defined everything that his band. Third Eye Blind, is about. With their ramshackle demo tape that has created a bidding fury without even being released, their live stage presence, intensely smart lyrics, and hyper-driven music, 3EB is all about never standing still.

From their first show as a band last December until last month's BMI showcase, this quartet has set the scene on fire. With Jenkins on lead vocals and guitar, Kevin Cadogan on guitars, Arion Salazar on bass - and rotating drum team composed of the ex-Counting Crows drummer Steve
Bowman and former-cracker stickman Michael Urbano - Third Eye Blind has it all. They've got so much of it, nobody in the band is really sure how to define it.

Stephan, on the sound: "post-modern-velvet-organic-rock-aggro-farm-punk." Kevin: "I can't really pin it down." And Arion: " Oh, man. I kind of think it's John Denver meets Velvet Underground. I know we're going for the Velvet Underground, early 70s rock thing with some super cheesy ballads thrown in there for good measure." Okay? So, Kevin Cadogan, would you be surprised if a mosh pit broke out at a 3EB show? "Some parts, no." He pauses to take a breath. "I think hopping and jumping... shoulder touching would be appropriate." Got it? Good. Let's move on. Woah, woah. Stop. What are these guys? The next grunge masterminds? The next best singer-song-writers in the pop market? Urn, yeah.

As Stephan says, "I think it's hard to put a nice tag on our music because what we do is not really retro, but it's not the environment those kinds of schools of music come from, but ours is something that's different." And it's a sound that is continually changing and, chances are, will keep changing. "We are not developing a formula," insists Stephan." I think it continues to change, like we did a song recently that has an autoharp. What self-respecting punk band would do that?"

Indeed. In fact, after our initial, conversation Stephan phoned back to tell me about an article in Gig Sheet, which is a London-based music magazine. "The writer knows more about Third Eye Blind than I do," he says with a laugh.


Where It Started

For the record, their first gig as a full-fledged band was on Dec. 8, 1994, at the Paradise Lounge. It was a sell out. It was the beginning, and it was kind of an ending, since that's when Third Eye Blind went from a little known dub band to the potential next big thing. In fact, they've been called "the next big thing" by so many different magazines and writers, that the band isn't impressed anymore.

"I think that's kind of dumb," says bass player Arion. "If somebody wants to say that, that's just so moronic, it's ridiculous. I'm just gonna rock." Stephan echoes those thoughts:

"I'd love to say something cool like: 'Yeah, we're shooting to the stars', but, um, you don't need me to tell you that. I feel like we're doing something that's really real to us and I don't wanna get distracted from that."

While the three permanent members of 3EB have been playing around the San Francisco music community for years - Stephan has played with Splash, Puck and Zen, and a number of other bands; Arion has (played with Fungo Mungo for the past five years; Kevin started playing around at the age of 14 with Cult of Bigness and spent time in college writing with Toby Hawkins who is now singing with Laundry - they never really found anything that was worthwhile until they came together, quite by accident.

As the story goes, Stephan was in the studio recording a demo tape, playing most of the instruments by himself when Arion walked in on a tip from then 3EB drummer Curveball. Arion says, "I went into the studio and they had this super cheesy song they were doing, so I threw down a little cheesy bass part and it worked." It was love at first sight for these two, in fact Stephan (and Kevin) call Arion the best player they've ever played with, to which he responds, "I'm like probably the only bass player they've ever played with." That demo landed them a gig opening up for the Counting Crows at the Fillmore where Bowman heard them for the first time. Kevin's first exposure happened a bit differently.

"It was a stroke of luck, actually," is how Kevin explains
it. "I came to see another friend's band and I recognized Stephan from Puck and Zen, so after the show I went up and introduced myself." Stephan recognized his name, believe it or not, from a demo tape that Kevin had played on and the two hit it off right away. That demo, from the band by the name of Bloome, caught Stephan's ear right away.

"He's very honest in the way he plays and he's really different," Stephan explains his attraction to the new guitar player. "He 's not a guitar god, he doesn't play fast or anything, but he's so unique in what he does."

"What was cool about meeting Stephan at that time was that I was going through a time where I thought I had given music its shot. I thought I had to accept the fact that it wasn't going to work out," Kevin says. "I was kind of surprised he recognized me from the demo and that he was interested in working on some stuff with me," says Kevin. But work together they did half of the new 3EB songs are co-written between Kevin and Stephan.


Where It's Going

Without naming names, it's uncouth to name names you know, the buzz is that every major (and quite a few independent) record label on the free earth is looking to sign Third Eye
Blind. Of course, that's an exaggeration, but let's just say that there have been a flurry of phone calls between the band's manager and the 213, 310 and 818 area codes. The band, of course, is taking it all with a very low key attitude.

"It's cool that we are getting the attention," confirms Stephan. "Yeah, it's cool to have people with gigantic checkbooks around that want to give you money to go do what you do anyway. That's a good thing." The game plan, according to Stephan, is to play some more gigs, let their tape go out and then talk to some labels. They also might take a drive down to the South parts of the Golden State to see what's happening down there. "Our manager has big rat 62 Bonneville and the trunk is so big we could probably fit all our gear in the trunk."


What It's About

In addition to the Stephan's ranting voice, Kevin's soundscape guitars, Arion's melodic bass lines and the interpretations of both Bowman and Urbano, what 3EB offers its listeners are great stories. Told mostly though the ironic eye of Stephan Jenkins, each Third Eye Blind song has a little something to tell its listener about the world in which they live. There's an important caveat here, according to Stephan. "If you don't have a sense of humor or a sense of irony, then you're not gonna get what we do and you'll say that we're heinous."

Take, for example, Stephan's takes on the "gangsta" world of rap. "Hollywood glamorized my wrath/I'm a young urban psychopath/I incite murder/for your entertainment/Because I needed the money/What's your excuse?/The joke's on you."

The song, in classic Stephan speak, opens with the line, "Miss Jones taught me English/but I think I just shot her son..." Each 3EB song portrays a gritty look at the world - kind of like Charles Bukowski with a guitar - full of realism, but lacking any type of depression. Stephan calls each song a journey that holds both a redemptive and subversive quality.

"I think it kind of finds a place for a redemptive sensibility that's not sticking your head in the sand," is how he puts it. "I think they just sort of embody a feeling, but I do think it's about release and that's the only reason I can explain why people are coming to our shows." Then, a few minutes later, he says, "plus, we're groovy."

While each Third Eye Blind song has a true sense of place, meaning you can see where Stephan has lived and felt during various times in his life, he doesn't want to be known as a chronicler of any one area. "It's just a place where I lived, a source of imagery that was provocative. We live our lives and music is a way of focusing something that is redemptive. They are urban stories, my life and my friends." Although redemption is foremost on his mind, it is not his message.

"I think it's something that inevitably happens," he explains. "Our music has something that even though it's melancholy, it's sort of building things up, not tearing things down. It's funny because I like bands that tear shit down. I think that's what art is, you create and destroy and I think we are moving into a period where we are creating again." He points to the song
"Scattered," which will be his most misunderstood song, and the lyrics:

"So turn the music up louder/and spit out the taste of gun-powder/and we'll have a bonfire/burn it all down let's take it higher." (The song will be misunderstood because of it's inferences to the death" of Nirvana leader Kurt Cobain. It's not a song about Kurt Cobain's death, Stephan takes pains to point out, it's about how he felt afterward.

"I think that capsulizes my whole way of looking at life," he says. "I like to make things. I'm certainly a wild person. I'm not fuckin' James Taylor."


What It Means

By the way, the name has nothing to do with a certain part of a man's anatomy. "Most people think it's a dick thing," Stephan says, "but it's not. To me I think it's about music in a blind time and I think it's where people's dreams are dead and music fills the void and sort of creates that whole-imagery for me. But it's also sort of ironic, eye-blind." The thing about Third Eye Blind is that they seem to truly possess the D-I-Y punk attitude of yesteryear. While the flurry of buzz rampages around them each member seems to stand still and laugh.

"It's so hard to take this so seriously," Kevin Cadogan says. "You know what I mean? 'Cause it's not really a serious thing for me, I mean it is, but I try not to get all pretentious about it and say that it's my vision. It's just rock ideas and I like to get up there and work out a bit."




Both Stephan and Kevin think they should say something important, but they can't think of anything.

Arion, however, has got the definitive statement. (Sorry, Arion.) "You can say that I said that when you come and see Third Eye Blind you know rock and roll is gonna set the night on fire."

A few minutes later the phone rings. "Hi, don't say that thing about rock and roll settin' the night on fire. Forget that, okay?" Um, sure.


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Sourcelink: http://www.stephanjenkins.com/news/o...00/june00.html ]]> General Donny Patterson http://www.3eb.co.uk/showthread.php?15322-quot-In-Blindness-We-Trust-quot-June-1995 http://www.3eb.co.uk/showthread.php?15318-3EB-pre-Blue-vote-list-(re)emerges-anyone-has&goto=newpost Wed, 09 May 2012 22:58:32 GMT So for anyone with access to a computer AKA anyone with facebook you should check out this photo XEB posted on their FB page. It's a list of votes everyone had for songs for Blue. Evidently everyone voted for Caroline and Sorry yet neither made the album. There's songs on here I've never heard of.

https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net...96408518_n.jpg

I would hate for in anyone withe Vault access or Vault leaks to share with us the stuff on the list including Light That Hits, Lipstick, Pack A Halo, and No One Home. ]]> General Spray Can http://www.3eb.co.uk/showthread.php?15318-3EB-pre-Blue-vote-list-(re)emerges-anyone-has http://www.3eb.co.uk/showthread.php?15303-Did-you-get-to-see-3eb-live-w-Kevin&goto=newpost Thu, 19 Apr 2012 17:15:40 GMT Just wondering. Kevin's been out of the band 12 years now. I'm curious, how many members here can say they got a chance to see 3eb play live w/ Kevin? Or is it the case that for nearly all of us, our memories of going to shows are from the post-Kevin era only.


I never got the chance. I didn't get out to my first show until '04. And my last show was in '09, probably forever. So I've only seen Tony play. ]]> General The Flicker Fade http://www.3eb.co.uk/showthread.php?15303-Did-you-get-to-see-3eb-live-w-Kevin