SKETCHBOOK #1, page 62

This is an attempt at a t-shirt or flyer design for my band in high school - this is apparently early in our career, possibly the day or week that we came up with the name "Some Funky Croutons," since we dropped the "Some" pretty much right off the bat, and we were thereafter called "The Funky Croutons." I know, it's great.

We practiced in my friend Ben Strout's parent's basement, and they let us paint weird murals on the walls. We had one original song called "10,000 Ugly Idiots" that was basically a surfy instrumental. Our other standards: "Sweet Child O'Mine," the beginning of "Paradise City," the Dick Dale song from Pulp Fiction ("Miserlou," sp?), and "Freebird." We would usually do the intro like it sounded in the real song, but then since we didn't have a singer, I would just solo during the verse parts (I was the lead guitarist,) and then we'd skip ahead to the next recognizable change. Freebird must have been pretty funny to hear from another room. It would just be a minute or two of noodling over the slow chords and then inevitably, one of us would yell out, "Ok, go to the fast part!" which was our cue to jump right ahead to the awesomely intense Freebird jam that would go on for like half-an-hour.

We played one show for an audience: Ben threw a graduation party our senior year and we set up in the backyard. Our class president jumped in and sang Freebird. That was really something.