THE HISTORY OF THE GRINDERS

 

One of my coworkers here at Intel told me about a band that he was playing bass with the was just starting up but he didn't care for they way they wanted to have him play his bass parts. He asked me if I wanted to go with him to rehearsal and see if I would be interested in taking his place. I went to Mel "The drummer's" house and heard them play about 10 original songs mixed in with about the same amount of classic old Rock n Roll. Somehow I took over and played bass with them. We all seemed to get along just fine after a few rehearsals and one night we were playing at my place and my coworker friend stopped by to pick up his guitar or something so we had a chat about what he didn't like about the band and all of a sudden Earl and him got into a very loud finger pointing almost to the point of a fist fight breaking out. Somehow my friend left with his stuff and Mel - Earl - and I looked at each other and laughed. Not sure what happened but he was out of the band and I was in. We kept working on building up our songlist to over 20 songs when a friend of mine asked if we wanted to play at their house on their newly built deck for Sandra's College Graduation Party. We did and it was our 1st night playing out as a band. Lots of food drink and fun.

 After that we played a set in Albuquerque and a local blues bar opening for "The Memphis P-Tails" a great sounding blues / rockabilly band. AFter that we played at a party for a friend of Earls in an old Church that was converted to an Art Gallery. Again Food Drink and Fun but we haven't earned any money yet as a band. We played at "The Launch Pad" in ALBQ for a couple of sets as an audition but never got hired there either. We did 2 shows outdoor in KNOB HILL at a local park on Central Ave and a week later on the sidewalk in front of a local toy store but no gigs came out of those jobs either. Finally a friend of Earls hired us to play his Wedding Reception at "El PINTO's" which went well. I had my 50th B-Day Party at a friends backyard with a swimming pool and we had a great time playing as a band but no pay again.

  My good friend Russ Binyon always has a huge party in Edgewood every year in which he calls "RUSSFEST". He has about 8 bands playing outside and every year it gets bigger and better. We played there in 1999 and 2000. Each year we were the closing act and that wen't well. The crowd dug us and we had lots of fun but no pay. Finally Mel who worked for channel 13 had us play at Winrock Mall during the morning news off and on for 2 hours from 5-7 Am one morning. The station was featuring local bands and we had a chance to finally get on TV for a song or two. Nothing came of that either. It was unfortunate that we didn't get any work. The Band sounded tight.. The original songs were pretty good, we were unique and just didn't have much luck with finding work. Our singer Earl moved on with another band and after a few months moved to New York City to try his luck out there. From what I understand he moved out to San Francisco and eventually moved back here to Albuquerque, New Mexico. I finally got on contact with Mel Shelton last week and we had a nice talk. Who knows, maybe a local reunion may happen with the Grinders and we can try a few songs  again