Creativity.
I think we’re all born with some degree of creativity. From the childhood prodigy that can sit at a piano and flawlessly perform classical pieces without ever having had a lesson to those who just seem to have a “knack” for doing things easily and naturally, we all seem to have that spark.
While most will never have the good fortune to parlay that creativity into a career of fame and fortune, there is always a deep satisfaction felt when something good has been created.
My friends and I fall into that latter category. We’ve created a good sized catalog of original music together and I sincerely believe that some of it is as good as what we grew up hearing on the radio or on the vinyl platters spinning on our turntables.
And that’s what we’re going to talk about here. Balls Against The Wall, or often called BATW for simplicity.
BATW was originally a trio of longtime friends who’d played in various bands as they grew up. Steve Lally, Ed Bielecki and Al Costa were the founding fathers of the band. Steve on drums, Ed on guitar and Al agreeing to handle bass duties, although he was a guitarist. As he put it, they found it impossible to find a like minded bass player and he’d been tempted to try and “grow one in the back yard”. All three shared lead and background vocals.
They began by playing covers of the songs they all liked, but also started writing and developing their own songs together. As time went on, the song list grew and the quality of the songs got better. When they played out, they’d do mainly covers because of the small amount of originals they’d finalized, but they’d add those to the list and were pleased at the positive response those songs got from their audiences.
I came into the picture purely by accident. Having just moved to the area, I called the number on a For Sale sign on a car parked on the street where I lived. As I met with the owner over coffee to discuss the car, the fact that I had an annoying downstairs neighbor came up. I said I’d like to lay my bass amp face down on the floor, turn it up to 10 and blow their walls and windows out. The owner got silent for a moment, then asked, “Did you say… a bass amp?” When I said yes, and that I was a bass player, he asked me to sit tight for a bit and got up to leave. He turned out to be Al Costa’s brother, and he left to get Al to come join the conversation in person. After a short jam session together, they added me to the group and that’s how it all began.
We all started writing. We’d bring a new song down to practice, go through a quick preview and then everyone would kick in suggestions and add their own flavor to the parts they were playing. In that regard, I always felt that we all wrote our songs, rather than individual writers. The songs wouldn’t have become what they were without everyone’s input. Ed booked us some time at Celebration Sounds, a local 8 track studio in the area. We’d been learning how to record, mix and master our music on Ed’s 4 track Tascam deck up to that point.
Now it was time to move forward. We met Dave Correia, one of the owners and engineers at Celebration and went in to do some sessions.
While we’d been pleased with the sound we were getting in the basement on the 4 track, we were blown away by the mix we got at Celebration. Our sound was really coming together now.
We were also landing some opening gigs at the venues that supported original music. Although the clubs in the mid 80’s mainly catered to cover bands playing top 40 lists, there were some prominent clubs for the originals. Lupo’s Heartbreak Hotel had hosted a lot of big names on their way up, including the likes of Stevie Ray Vaughn, and BATW appeared there as well.
At The Living Room, we opened for national acts like Jorma Kaukonen (the original lead guitarist in The Jefferson Airplane) and The Outlaws.
We had our share of those magic moments where the songs were incredibly tight, landed on every break, start and end perfectly and as we looked at each other, we shared that elusive dream about having a chance to make it, to break through and land a record contract…
but then, as John Lennon said, “Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans.”
We were all in our 30’s by then, complete with our share of obligations to families, to jobs and so on, so to risk it all by getting a bus and striking out with no clear path, no manager’s guidance was more than any of us could dare to try. Reality had reared its ugly head.
Ah, but we had our outlet for creativity. And as time moved on, we backed off some, Steve moved along to spend some time with cover bands titled Us and Straight On as the rest of us fell into the patterns of life that we’d built.
To an extent.
I came across a neat little gizmo from the brilliant minds at Tascam called a Pocketstudio 5.
The size of a paperback book, this offered 4 track recording along with a plethora of built in accompaniments. Drums, keys and more could all be programmed to align with the live tracks put down on the 4 tracks available. I got together with Al and we tried a few experiments which sounded far better than we’d hoped for.
The amazing sound we got from this little device lit a spark, and we soon found ourselves back in writing mode. This new wave let me to a trip to Boston to make another purchase, which we made good use of.
The start – our new 8 track Tascam deck aligned with Ed’s original 4 track deck and a reel to reel deck to master to, along with compression and reverb units. This ragtag setup proved to be the foundation which would evolve to the 24 track setup we’d finally call home.
This was our new home, in my basement. We’d also begun collaborating with Tubby Cesario, who Ed and Al had worked with in their Country Fever band. Tubby was a natural balladeer, with an incredible vocal talent and amazing quality songwriting. Given the two “worlds” from which we’d come, we evolved into what we called Crossroads for our next writing and recording journey.
Before we move along into the Crossroads phase, for those who’d like a collection of the music and history of BATW, here’s a link you can use to download a bundle. Mind you, this is a large file (nearly 10 Gigabytes), so it will take time to download. It’s a compressed ZIP file, which can be opened and decompressed by any operating system, no need for special software.
When you click the link, the page will show an error stating it’s too large to display, but there will be a box at the bottom to click and continue the download.
Just click the download box, and the BATW library will be heading your way. Here’s the link:
The Crossroads story will be coming soon – stay tuned for updates!
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