The Origin of Hurricane Alley by George Ziemann Okay, there are band stories and there are band stories. This one involves Carl and Cara trying to get out of Arizona and having Katrina blow them right back, conveniently landing in Tim and Manny's neighborhood. I've heard this story in bits and pieces, so I may have to come back and correct any parts that I get wrong in the re-telling. Hayden's Wall Carl and I worked together in Hayden's Wall from 2001-2002. We released one album, Big City. After that the band kind of drifted apart, but I was still going down occasionally to record Carl and Cara's originals. It's worth noting that Carl, Cara and I had written all but one of the Hayden's Wall songs. Iowa In the end of 2002 and the first half of 2003, I got caught up in trying to warn people about the RIAA. More specifically, I was interested in warning musicians. Then they started suing people. I made a lot of noise, but to what end I don't know. Then I got an "opportunity" to "do sound for one of the Beatles" (Pete Best), which was just the first in a series of unfortunate events during a summer that went horribly and completely awry. By the time it was over, I was calling the police to evict my friends (and band). The well was dry. Came homing feeling like a big-time failure. Huge debt. Big pile of PA gear, but no desire whatsoever to use any of it, and a sudden, intense dislike for corn. In fact, not too much interest in music at all for several years. The RIAA was ruining the business and no alternative existed. They turned up the volume on the lawsuits. I kept reminding people that if you turn off sharing, you won't get sued. People still don't get it. Katrina Remembering that Carl is a stockbroker, in 2005 he hooked up with Peter Schiff of EuroPacific Capital. As part of the deal, Carl needed to move to New Orleans. He and Cara went there and bought a house on the northeast side of Lake Pontchartrain, then came back to Arizona to move the rest of their possessions. If you've ever moved, you know that it is entirely possible that the television gets loaded on the truck a day or two before you leave. So you're probably down to FM on the last day. During the majority of the trek across New Mexico, Texas and Louisiana, the most progressive music on the radio will be Clear Channel's "Jack" format. They've probably got their little boom box on the front seat with them, mostly listening to their own music. So as they approach New Orleans, they haven't heard (or seen) the weather for a week or so. They did find it curious that it looked liked everyone in the world was trying to get out of town and they were the only ones driving in. For all they knew, it might be a sporting event or a concert letting out. If anything, they were pleased at their luck not having to fight traffic. It was smooth sailing all the way across town, across Lake Ponchartrain and to their new house. And, in an amazing stroke of luck, I may have found a picture of this event (at left - link to source). Note: Carl sez, "Yep. If it was a truck, that would be us..." It could have been the next day before they found out about the storm that was on the way. They had talked to one neighbor the night before, but she hadn't mentioned it. Now she was gone. Another neighbor filled them in, finally, and they did the best they could to prepare. Cara is writing a book about how all that went. Needless to say, they survived and have an interesting story to tell involving trees falling on the house, deciding it was safer outside, the aftermath, the cleanup, more trees falling on the house, waiting for food to arrive at the local store, and waiting more than a month for electricity. Their little neighborhood is concentrating on clearing debris. Flooding was not as severe on their corner of the lake. But they still don't have electricity. They still haven't seen the news. They don't know about the SuperDome, the Gretna sheriff who turned around people trying to escape downtown New Orleans, the dead floating through the city, the thirsty and starving on the interstate and around the Superdome for far too many days. For every story Carl and Cara still have told me, I've had one or two that we all saw on live television, but they had never heard about. After the insurance company fixed the roof the second time, they settled in and made a go of it. The following August, they had a baby girl, Shayne. While this was a wonderful thing, it was hurricane season again. The city itself was still in shambles. Now that they had a child, were they willing to put her at risk every summer just by staying there? Amado So Carl and Cara came back. For reasons I have yet to understand, they landed in Amado, Arizona. While this is very close to where they used to live (Sahaurita), it's "out of town" from a Tucson perspective and "almost Mexico" if you're in Phoenix. One thing you can say about Arizona is that, other than searing, this-is-what-hell-feels-like heat, severe weather is usually the least of our worries. Definitely no hurricanes. Oh, sometimes we'll get the remnants of one (if it comes directly up the Gulf of California), but after a couple of hundred miles crossing the desert, we'll just get some hard rain for a couple of afternoons. Tim and Manny I don't have all of this story either, but Carl's new home was about a block away from Tim's house and Manny's house. In fact, it was the same block; they were at different parts of the perimeter. Tim was from Boston, Manny's family is in Rio Rico, AZ. One day, Tim shows up at Carl's door. "Hi, my name's Tim. I hear you play guitar. I want you to be in my band." Carl has been considering selling all his gear and giving up music, because, after all, he's in Amado. Not a chance of finding a band to play in here, unless maybe you're thinking mariachi. "Have you got a drummer?" "Yeah, but he doesn't have any drums." So the "band" has a bass player and a drummer with no drums. You've really gotta appreciate Tim's optimism, or at least his salemanship. Carl thought about it, and after a few more visits from Tim, he decided a little trio was a good thing to do. "No problem. I've got a drum set. I was just getting ready to sell it." "Don't sell it. We're not dead yet." That's kind of been our recurring theme. We may be aging (and I'm the oldest), but we all still have our chopsWe thought about making t-shirts that said "INDY" in big letters and "I'm not dead yet" in smaller letters underneath. Recording In January of 2008, Carl said he was moving back to New Orleans and wanted to know if I'd come down and record his band. No expectations, just an attempt tp capture what they had. I said okay, but if Carl was moving away forever, I'm going to bring my keyboards and jam, too. That was my fee for recording. Cara talked Carl out of moving back to New Orleans. A few months later, they asked me to come back and record some songwriting demos -- Tim, Cara and Carl, doing simple vocals and acoustic guitar. We spent two days and laid down those basic tracks for about 40 songs. In the summer, I found out about TuneCore. Suddenly, independents had actual distribution without the need for dealing with the unsavory elements of the record business. This removed the "Why bother...?" answer to "Should we record an album?" First, I remixed the Hayden's Wall album. By then, The Hurricane was ready to record. By the time it was finished, the band changed its name twice (first to Hurricane Force, then to Hurricane Alley), another 20 or 30 more acoustic versions of upcoming songs were saved off, and I was now a member of the band. Next Up... Throughout the process of recording Category One, I've been getting bits and pieces (a bass track here, a drum track there, maybe one more background harmony) that I need to finish off the next album. I think I've got most of it now, but I still have some of my own parts to play. We're got more than 75 songs to choose from for the next album, but we took the easy way out and let the audience decide. Don't have a clue what we'll call it yet (not Hurricane Alley), but our web audience has picked out our next collection. The top 12 to 15 songs on our download stats (more if necessary to hit 45 minutes) are the next album. If I don't dawdle, it can be in stores for Christmas. Then we'll put up another batch of rough originals and see what else you like.