Music Style Early 80s, experimental, homemade electronic music

Musical Influences David Bowie, Joe

Similar Artists Joe

Artist History Like many unanticipated life-altering events, Bob and the Steves was conceived on just another night in a college dormitory. Sitting around, sipping some beers, and enjoying the slightly unhealthy ambience of Kimmel Hall, Room 104, we decided we wanted to make a record. It's not that we new anything about making music or forming a band. It's just that we listened to a lot of music--in those days it was mostly Elvis Costello, David Bowie, Joe "King" Carrasco, the B-52s, or the Rolling Stones--and figured we should do that. We weren't musically inclined, although occasionally, if properly motivated, we might actually sing along to a record. Assuredly, "Dear Doctor" never sounded worse. But we just figured, "Why not? It can't be that hard, and who'll ever notice, anyway?" So, at this point, we did what so many other students in America have done before and since--we started a rock'n'roll band. However, where most other students would have sold their rusted '74 Chevy Nova and bought a guitar, amp, or some drums and actually learned how to play music, we opted for a different route to stardom. That night, we began to write the first proposal of our academic careers. The Richter Fellowship committee at North Central College must have had a short list of applications for the summer of 1983, because our proposal for a homebrew electronic music project sounded like a good idea to them. With a $2,600 grant, Bob and the Steves were thus born, and soon we were building various electronic circuits designed to make mostly rude and unpleasant noises. The project included two months sitting in my parents' basement, soldering various transistor and op-amp circuits and listening to Men Without Hats over and over again. It was a mind-warping experience unique to the time. Recall that things were different in 1983: one simply could not purchase a 800-MHz PC and a 16-bit sound card equipped with wavetable synthesizer, sound font editor, and full-duplex record and playback capability. Back then, making electronic music actually meant making electronics. Today, it just means downloading a MIDI sequencer and clicking "Play". If Bob and the Steves had today's technology, we may have sounded better and produced more, but we sure wouldn't have had as much fun. With most of the fellowship money, we rented various professional recording equipment, including an Otari 8-track recorder, a massive 24-channel mixer board, and a really good microphone. In addition, we borrowed a quarter-track reel-to-reel tape deck, a couple cassette decks, an amplifier, and a couple sets of speakers. We took all this incredibly expensive and fragile equipment, dragged it down to the basement, and connected it directly to our poorly grounded, unshielded menagerie of silicon, copper, perf boards, and rosin core solder. For a month, we turned knobs, pushed buttons, pulled patch cords, and rolled tape. Surprizingly, the project didn't suffer a single casualty--human or instrument--except for an AC adapter to a digital multimeter that somehow fell below the waterline in one of the basement floods that followed some of the larger summer downpours. In retrospect, that single month was a very productive time for Bob and the Steves, especially if you consider our musical ineptitude. Although our first recording attempts were pathetic and mercifully lost, the band progressed quickly. By the end of the month, we had preserved over an hour of functional electronic music, which was packaged on the ultra-rare casette "Meet Bob and the Steves." Selections from this cassette were performed at Bob and the Steves' only public performance ever, which occurred upstairs at the student union, North Cental College, during the fall quarter of 1983. The tape's A side consists of a number of artistic soundscapes that were justified--at least in our minds at that time--by Eno's ambient music series. In listening to them now, they fall well short of tolerable, except perhaps the odd little "I Got One." In contrast, the gems of the summer session are on the tape's B side. Classic originals include "Nightlife", "Kill a Commie for Mommie", "What's Wrong with that Girl?", "Hey Babe", "A Castle Wall", "1984", and the instrumental "Pump It Out". Covers include "The Ballad of the Green Berets" and "Colbenminen", the latter being an obtuse interpretation of Devo's version of "Working in a Coalmine". The majority of each of these songs was produced electronically, using the homemade synthesizer, except for vocals and a few odd effects. "A Castle Wall" employed a number of hammers and other tools found lying about the basement for the midevil battle sounds. "Kill a Commie for Mommie" used a pair of Radio Shack walkie-talkies to modify vocals and generate feedback screeches. "What's Wrong with that Girl?" includes a legitimate acoustic guitar track, which was enhanced using this funny little switch on the front of 8-track. For "The Ballad of the Green Berets", there is the sound of a kazoo; however, it was actually made using a Bathtub Bazooki, which was a silly looking toy from the early 70s that was much larger and louder than your typical kazoo. (I loved that thing when I was young, but I bet my parents regretted the day they bought it for me.) The last $300 of the grant money was used to press 300 copies of a 45-rpm single, containing "What's Wrong with that Girl?", "1984", and "Kill a Commie for Mommie". In contrast to the cassette, the single was freely distributed to any and all who might actually want one. (One "fan" used the lame excuse that he didn't have a turntable and did not really want the record, but we made him take one anyway. Beyond that, we drew the line at actually paying people to take it.) In spite of our best efforts, nearly 200 still sit in the original shipping box. After 1983, Bob and the Steves were no more. Oh, yes, there were always plans for a reunion, another record, a video, and perhaps even a live show. But it never materialized, and each of us moved on to the rest of our lives. Some of us pursued solo careers, but individually none was able to regain the success of the original band. However, for many diehard fans, Bob and the Steves live on, if only in legend. In fact, the magnitude of the legend grows steadily as time dissipates the limitations of reality. The lucky few who were there in 1983 and witnessed Bob and the Steves in their glory often speak of superior craftsmenship, musical mastery, and commanding stage presence. (Thanks, Mom.) Soon, Bob and the Steves will be recognized as one of the most important bands to emerge from the far western suburbs of Chicago in the early '80s. But the truth is, Bob and the Steves was just a bunch of regular folks who happened to be in the right place, at the right time, and didn't quite do the right thing.

Group Members Ned Corron, Bill Goesle, Kevin Ford

Instruments Homebrew electronic synthesizer, acoustic guitar, bathtub bazooki, walkie talkies, and various hand tools.

Albums 1983

Location Madison, Alabama - USA

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