Now, on with the story-telling portion of the page... Hello and welcome to The Forty-Two Story! Somehow, most likely from Forty-Two's Home Page or Mark's Home Page or James's), you've been linked to this page. We existed for a long time essentially titleless, and we used to exist as such mostly between performances, only assuming a title because our crazy gig-hosting friends demanded it. We are currently called Forty-Two, and the name . . . well, it's very personal and a long story. The story of this band is a long and arduous journey, with many twists and turns, and the story is here, but before we begin we should make something clear. Our band is not meant to be mean or degrading to any creature that walks, crawls, or just sits on the Earth, but due to a former misunderstood title, we may have seemed insensitive to Jewish persons, those with diabetes, or persons with long hair. The truth is, our band contains one person from each group, and in an attempt to accurately describe ourselves we may have unfornuately stumbled accross some un-PC terms. We would once again like to reinforce that we are representatives of each thrown together in this cosmic jumble of vibrations we've come to comprehend, in an enjoyable fashion, as music. So here's the story.
Unfortunately, rhythem guitarist Matt was not a Beatles fan. So the music the band played usually ended up being not the Beatles.
The band had two gigs that summer. Neither performance went off completely as planned, but there were enough Beatles covers ot go around. At Jen Checcio's party, Matt played like two songs, and then went down the shore. Jerk! The other, was actually bassist John's party. James was in Pennsylvania at the time and Patrick wasn't part of the band at that point. For this performance they usurped the name Nocturnal Emissions, but then they found out some band in Montana alread had that name.
The band kinda toiled for a while, with tentative plans to write a song for the South Plainfield High School Talent Show in March of 1997. Which they did, as you would know if you'd followed that last link.
In the remaining two months of school, the musicians didn't write much with each other, but it was evident where the band's core was and what the immediate future would hold. Mark, James, and Patrick, tired of the frustrations of writing, practicing, and gathering with so many people, decided to get back to their beginnings, screw the world, and just write music. Though John and Matt were still good friends, and talented musicians, it was clear to the trio that this solution was supersaturated; too many musicians were spoiling the mood. Practice time was impossible before, as the group never got together, with everyone, for a single practice. (In fact, the band never practiced all together for the talent show until the dress rehearsal the day before!) Mark, James, and Patrick set up a regular weekly schedule, to be sure that practice time was always found. And amazingly enough, the band started writng. Writing well.
During their time apart, each had done some of his own writing, and all had grown tremendously in his musical abilities, so when the band began to get together in June following their simultaneous graduation from high school, the sounds eminating from basements around South Plainfield were indeed unexpected. All had a sort of roots-returning, and the music that was immediately churned out (as was incredibly difficult before) was very much influenced by earlier pop music. Patrick's fling with blues during the previous months had given the band an infusion of Stevie Ray Vaughn; James's and Mark's improving vocals and constant harmonizing during the school year had given the band a sound that transcended basic rock; James's incessant piano practice had begun to pay off; Mark's study of percussion led to many new sounds, especially considering he no longer had his drumset; and the band's music was now becoming the band's music, not just a song here or there that someone liked to cover or wrote for something else.
Seeing as Patrick was once again a main fixture in the band, yet it harkened back to the early days when just James and Mark began writing, the band went for a new old name to describe itself, and thus was born The Diabetic, The Jew, And The Long-Haired Spoo, soon replaced by The Band Formerly Known As The Diabetic, The Jew, And The Long-Haired Spoo.
Plans for the summer of 1997 expanded quickly from jamming once in a while to weekly practices to plans to record with Sucky Records. Also planned was a performance at the second annual FUSIN festival, but the band had to cancel at the last minute.
As the end of the summer neared, plans to record fizzled as everyone prepared for school and work. The band began a disconnected period, and practices were near impossible with distance and time constraints on everyone's back. But they wouldn't let the man get them down.
All it took to get the boys back up and going was a goal. It seemed that recording was out, but with the holiday season - and the annual party to rock it - a re-emergence of The Band Formerly Known As The Diabetic, The Jew, and The Long-Haired Spoo was bound to occur. With a new season and a new event came a new band name: Kittenhead, James's nickname from school, based on a poem he'd written. The band began practicing again, and though their sound was a little empty without a bass player they wrote around the problem, adding more parts for James to play on piano. Since Mark's search for a free drum set and and a place to bang away were still being stifled, he had more energy to concentrate on the lyrical and harmonious aspects of their music, writing songs on piano and zither. Patrick, after a hiatus from guitar, began regaining his skills, remembering his songs, and writing some damn good riffs. And James wrote some wacky, yet conceptually awesome stuff. Armed with these abilities and a love for covering Beatles songs the dynamic trio - with the aid of Chris "Chuck" Murphy on bass - rocked the house at Hands Across Ben's Grandfather's Basement 3 - The Cat Did It.
It was right about this times when the band realized they could only attain the full sound they were looking for by adding a bass player and a one hundred-piece orchestra. So they said screw it all, we'll just do it ourselves.
The events of the following year are much to speak about, which is assuming we are speaking, you and I. And, they were somewhat exciting. The band that had only recently redubbed themselves The Circumcisions even more recently re-redubbed themselves Kittenhead and still more recently re-re-redubbed themselves The Beatless purchased a four track and began recording many of their soon-to-be hits to compile a demo along the lines of twenty songs, and had hoped to get into a studio to professionally record their material in August. But as so often happens in this business, a connection fell through and The Beatless found it necessary to rely more heavily on the fourtrack as a method of recording and distribution of their unique sound.
To showcase their songs, and remind friends and fans of their live show, The Beatless, with beat entact, performed at Tony's late in July, 1998.
All in all, the performance was a tremendous hit, proving once again that the Beatless will keep getting better and better until one day, they reach Nirvana. This will probrably happen next Saturday.
All this being said and done, The Beatless thought it was time to get something concrete out to their growing following. Near the end of August, they decided to do a CD, so they began work immediately. Once they began recording, Mark had a site suggested to him by a friend - MP3.com. It was an excellent new way to market their songs, and that's just what they did.
On November 1, the band released its first CD, an album paying homage to The Beatles's "Revolover":"Watr gun." The CD had an immediate impact in the direction of its purpose - exposure. Within weeks of its release, the band was getting calls and emails from as far away as Staten Island trying to book the band!
After the release of Watr gun, The Beatless took a hiatus from recording (and after listening to the production value, it was probably for the best). Due to the fact that there were a lot of written songs that didn't make it onto "Watr gun," and the fact the band kept writing, a second CD started to take shape by mid-November of 1998. This CD, soon entitled "Munch," was destined to have more of a studio-quality sound overall, as The Beatless's home recording skills had expanded greatly since the first CD was being created. The CD began with about 25 songs available, but when the final versions were done around late March, The Beatless had 14 awesome songs and a new name: Forty-Two.
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If you'd like to get your hands on the first CD, "Watr gun", or you'd like to be on The Beatless mailing list (with such helpful information as the latest gigs and such), or you just want to say, "Hi, you're good", please e-mail Forty-Two.
Okay, bye.