Jon with this bizarre looking little keyboard thing that ironically enough, sounded amazingly like a bizarre little keyboard thing and Mike Ladd, who seemed to have an aversion to wearing shoes, or maybe a fetish for only wearing socks and looked capable of springing into a homicidal rage at any moment. I don't remember Jen Jackson being there the first night, but she may have been. There were a lot of other people hanging around, which made me feel awkward as the newcomer to the room.

    I seem to recall that Sweet Home Alabama was the first song we did. I had of course heard it, but didn't know it. I was able to fake my way along, as I did with pretty much everything we played that night. My first thought was that it was a great thing to be in a band with a singer again, but what struck me most forcefully was when it came time for the guitar lead and Mike played it.

Correctly!

Up to that time, I had never been in a band with a guitarist who could actually play leads. They would jump around and attempt to improvise, but not really play them, being more interested in “looking” like a Guitar God than being one.
When that lead started, the angels came down from heaven and lions lay down with lambs and all conflict in the world came to an end as God himself told me that I had finally arrived and that this then would be the band with which I would finally achieve success

    At least it seemed that way, though if I remember correctly, I just got a stupid grin on my face which may have lasted for a couple of days afterward. The nature of that success would not be exactly what I hoped for in my rock star fantasy life.

For the first time in the 5 years since had starting playing, I was in a real band.

The Jen Era

I remember Chimera in 4 different stages, depending on who was the lead singer at the time. The first vocalist was Jen jackson. Jen was someone I don't really think I understood at the time, and there was always a little bit of tension between us. Looking back now, I think it's because I had always been in heavy or hard rock bands and that's where my heart was, and she was more into the new wave, punk type of thing, that at the time I really didn't care for (though I've come to appreciate it much more now, especially in a world full of britney and n-sync). I was finally in the greatest band of my life, and she was pulling it in directions I just didn't want to go in.

She was always nice to me, and I think she was probably amused more than anything by this arrogant little kid who only wanted to play Aerosmith covers. Still, I know that at times, (even a lot of the time) I was probably not very nice to her, and I would like to take this opportunity to publicly apologize to her...

As for what we did in those days, well... I don't really remember much in the way of gigs with the exception of the very first official Chimera gig. It was in the gym at Wachusett high school (which would become our home turf, and every year we would somehow manage to stage a bigger and bigger show... but that's in the future). Somewhere there exists a tape of at least part of that night. The thing that I remember most clearly from it was my own clumsy attempt to dedicate a song to some friends of mine in the audience (it would be a while yet before I felt at all comfortable talking into a microphone) and Jen's increasingly desperate query to the crowd after every song: "why isn't anybody dancing?". The highlight was the one and only time we ever played Free Bird. The song by which all guitarists were being judged at the time, the one that everyone supposedly knew, but few could play correctly... We played the hell out of it for a very long time, and in the end, the roar of the crowd (and remember, this is on tape and still exists somewhere) was simply amazing, and would give me chills anytime I was able to find and play the tape afterwards.

This was also the first time we met Larry Boria. Larry was a fast talking somewhat slick type of person who seemed to know an awful lot about the music business, or at least the local music business. He had come with the PA we rented for that night, and by the end had decided that we were a project worth his time to try and influence. Being a bunch of teenagers without a clue and being that he had already demonstrated that at the very least, he had a really big PA, we were willing to hear what he had to say. He would eventually become our manager.

The last song to be recorded was an original. I had never been in a band with someone who could actually write a song from beginning to end, and Sweeter than a lilly was a pretty good song. I think it still holds up pretty well even now. I still have no clue what makes a lilly from the sea so sweet, or even what that means.. I'm not sure Mike knows either, and he wrote it... but hey, who am I to ponder the imponderable..

The last gig of the Jen Era would also be the first gig of the Leslie Era. It was a battle of the bands at E.M. Loews Theater. The contest was judged by applause, so we never stood a chance of winning, another band had brought seemingly their entire school with them. I clearly remember a bottle being thrown at Lance. I don't remember much more about it, though the set list is on the Chimemorabilia page.

That was when the band was more for fun than anything, and it wouldn't last long. Chimera was to become a business... not a very profitable one, but in some ways a very efficient one...

To be continued...