"Then I said farewell to sunlight..."

Monday, July 22, 1995. Disembodied played their first show in Orange County.

We had all heard the ‘Existence In Suicide’ CD, and the ‘Confession’ 7” was probably available for the first time on this tour. ‘Diablerie’ would not be out for another year or so. Marshall was somehow in contact with the band, an odd feat for a 17-18 year old in a pre-internet and pre-cell phone era.

Jason Welsher set up the show at the Mesa Bible Chapel, a church on Orange near 17th street in Costa Mesa. Aaron Stone’s dad was the pastor, and he let us have a few shows there. It was really cool of him to let a bunch of wild young people, many of whom had viewpoints and morals that were in direct opposition to his mission… but in a way that is one of the most Christian things he could have done- open up his doors to provide a safe space.

Jason also played drums in Burial, which will forever be one of my favorite forgotten local bands. Jason told me yesterday when I asked him about the show that he was stressing that Disembodied showed up late, and that he made the flyer. If you notice, the flyer has both black and blue inks. Back then, we did not have access, nor the technology, to make flyers with the use of a computer. This was all done by hand, and the double color process made by running the paper through a copier at Kinko’s twice, probably for free with a stolen Copy Card.

Two days before this show, on July 20th, I played my first show in a band on a stage in front of hundreds of people. This could be (and should be) it’s own post. In fact, I had a whole part of this story written out about how I was not yet in a band at this point, when I realized that a photo I had sent to Chris an hour prior was indeed taken this same night, while I was playing bass in Enewetak. Worthy of mentioning here is that the Gorilla Biscuits shirt that I was wearing was the first punk shirt that I had purchased with my own money, in 1992 or 1993. I had a huge purge of shirts in 2010, and I could have sworn that there was no way I would have sold this shirt, but it is lost to the sands of time.

A kid named Jody Minnoch sang for Disembodied on this tour. If I remember correctly, they booked the tour and then simply could not find Aaron. Jody had also sang (sung?) for a band called Everlast which had an incredible 7” record called ‘Drown The Self’. He kind of looked like if Jason Lee in the Blind ‘Video Days’ era was into crust punk. For sure not the same voice or presence as Aaron, but that was ok at the time. Jody passed away in 2014.

I know that I have a handwritten setlist for this show somewhere, but the search on my hard drive only found photos of my children circa 2011-2014, save for this photo of Tara that I had scanned-

I was 19 years old when this happened. It’s wild to know that there are people in this story that I have mentioned that I still talk to on a regular basis. Songs that I still listen to. Memories that I still hold on to, many of them just bits and pieces that may not even be worth or capable of being mentioned.

It’s wild to know, as I alluded to earlier, that all of this happened with only land line telephones and pagers. People crisscrossing the country in a van for months, playing to a room full of kids that you hoped had your CD, that you hoped would buy a shirt or sticker or patch. If you want to set up a show, I can give you Jason’s pager number aka the Dietrying Hotline.