MUSICS

Perhaps the most important part of the switchll.net experience is the music. Your beloved sitemeister Mike Clauss (occasionally known as Mephisto M. Stormbane) has been involved in a plethora of musical projects of a veritable bazillion different styles. First a little history...

My musical career began when I learned to play the toy guitar at age four-or-so, and wrote two songs, "Power to Power" and "Zap Into Zones," both instant cult hits. Though I wanted to perform these for what would doubtlessly be an adoring public, I was too far ahead of my time and my local school administrators could not handle the intricacies, the complex and multi-layered harmonies and poly-rhythmic counterpoint of my magnum opi. Sadly, these works were put to rest shortly thereafter. I simply couldn't bear it to see yet another generation reject the inescapable future of sound.

Around this time I started learning the piano from the 1991 Miss Washington, and playing more conventionally acceptable music. Having started keyed instruments at 5 and playing on and off ever since, you'd think I would be really excellent at them. But those are the breaks I guess.

It was about this same time that I decided that I wanted to play bass. I came to this conclusion from seeing Nirvana and how awesome Krist Novoselic was. But I was small and basses are big, so I learned some other instruments in the interim. A year studying the Irish folk harp, a year studying the trumpet, even some time trying the guitar, but none of these quite took - surprisingly, the guitar least of all. The trumpet perhaps took the most, and it was with the trumpet that I had my first group music experience, playing with my grade school marching band and even marching in the St. Paddy's Day parade playing "Amhrán na bhFiann".

Then, when I was 12, I got my first bass. It was a 1977 Fender Musicmaster, a 3/4" size godsend. My life was changed forever. I learned my scales and technique and church modes and jazz modes. All this prepared me for playing in ... The Bishop Blanchet High School Pep Band. Well, that, and playing in the backup band for the jazz choir too. These two experiences taught me important lessons. The pep band taught me that no matter how much more talented the band is than the football team, the jocks are always the more important part. The jazz choir taught me that singers are not necessarily musicians. But, more importantly than learning to be bitter, I also started learning to play the upright bass.

As a sophomore, I was suddenly had seniority as a bass player and moved from lowly jazz choir crony to lowly jazz BAND crony. A step up in every way. I also played in the school's production of Pippin, a zany 70s musical about Holy Romans, quests for identity, and apparently, body stockings. Then there was junior year, spent (having just discovered black metal) being angry and predictably 16, trying to write extreme metal songs, not particularly succeeding. But the jazz came along fairly well and I played as a soloist in a major high school jazz festival, and in a combo at a local competition hosted at Seattle's Tula's.

After junior year, I abandoned high school for community college and abandoned jazz for stonery hard rock. This was 2002, and I joined a band at the time known as a The Pisasters. This changed quickly to Adrenochrome, which changed after our first show to The Lilim. The Lilim rocked for a little over a year and then exploded in drama.

From there I went on to a jammy hard rock band called Gnome. Gnome was problematic.

Then there was Terrenon, my long-lived but less-than-prolific metal solo project. I wrote a number of songs, of which there are two decent recordings. I always meant to do more with it, but the sort of people who are me have a hard time actually making solo projects work the way they ought to. Still, I got very practiced at song writing, and at this point I had become rather a handy guitarist.

Also at this time I was living in Bellingham, Washington, and started playing with Whiskey Galöre, a folky rock band of Irish goodness. This was a blast and if I still lived in Bellingham I'd probably still be in the band. If they are ever playing in your neighborhood, go see them. Also while in Bellingham I played in a metal band called CÅVE. This was an excellent band, even if we only did learn five songs in nine months. The June 2007 CÅVE sessions produced a couple of decent recordings, included herein.

After moving back to Seattle from Bellingham, I did session work for upcoming metal project Eye of the Devil, live work for local rock acts Starshifter and Vigilante Santos and Her African Barking Spiders, and did assorted work as a part of erstwhile Seattle-via-Chapel Hill project Teapot Dome. Before the end of my time in Seattle, I had two more awesome recording projects. One was on banjo with old time/dixieland band Twilight Motel, and the other for myself: the progressive metal clusterfuck Colwyn, which you should all go and listen to a whole bunch.

Among the instruments I've been known to play are a 2001 Ibanez BTB-510 bass (Charlene), a recently purchased, unmarked black bass (Hattie), an 80s white Hamer Scarab rumored to have belonged once to Queensrÿche's Chris DeGarmo (Terrordactile), an Art and Lutherie dreadnought acoustic (Gwylim), a La Patrie classical (Fletch), and several tin and low whistles (The Little People).

Some old favorites: The Lilim - Bonus Track ©2003 by Mike Clauss and Wes Hiserman Terrenon - Jesus Christ Superzombie ©2005 by Mike Clauss Whiskey Galöre - Devon O'Rourke ©2007 by Mike Clauss CÅVE - The Last True Metalhead ©2007 by Mike Clauss and Jason Stevens