gthistory

   The Gloom Twins were started as a side project for my old friend Derek Fetler and I. We had both moved from Connceticut to Boston, Mass. to find like-minded musicians to create a great prog-rock band. We were both fans of King Crimson, early Genesis, Jethro Tull, Yes, and we even shared an interest in the more obscure bands like Van der Graaf Generator, and Gentle Giant. This was the direction we were headed for musically. We had a tiny apartment situated above some sort of office building, which I think may have been connected with the New England Conservatory, which was across the street. Since Derek had gone to Boston ahead of me, and secured the apartment himself, he got the bedroom, and when I arrived, I slept in the living room/dining room/kitchen area.
     Derek put an ad in the Boston Phoenix, a local cultural events rag, and we proceeded to audition literally hundreds of musicians. We met a lot of neat people along the way, but never really formed that group. In the interim, we had a little folk duo, which we christened the Gloom Twins, since (along with our originals)we used to play a lot of old Celtic death ballads and such. The "Twins" bit was a bit of a joke, since we looked nothing at all alike. I am barely 5'2" and sort of stocky in my body shape. I have dark features, and facial hair, and, at the time, my dark hair was very long. Derek is well over 6 feet, lanky, clean shaven, and has very fair skin and had his auburn hair cut relatively short, in comparison to mine.
     We used to play at open mike nights in the local clubs and coffee houses. We were generally well received, although the sound men at the clubs used to rag on me a lot because of my diminutive stature. They used to joke with their buddies that maybe they should raise the volume high on the mikes so I could be heard okay. I'd just smile and let them dig their own graves ;) For when I opened my mouth, and let my booming big voice rip through their systems, it was always fun to watch them stumble over themselves, knocking down drinks to get to their mixing board before I blew it out!
     We never recorded our major works, but did a lot of 4-track experiments and crazy uncategorixable ditties. A couple of my tunes were brought into the early Dark Young repertoire, but Mac changed some of the guitar parts to suit his style a little better. Most of those tunes were eventually relegated to coffee house shows as we played more rock venues, and our sound got heavier.
     The Gloom Twins eventually went their seperate ways, and continued to pursue their divergent visions with different people. To my knowledge Derek is still trying to form that ultimate prog rock band. Last I saw him, in Seattle, he was trying to fuse rock and mediaeval music, sort of like Gentle Giant's experiments with renaissance styles, but more folky (Gryphon?). And I went on to form The Dark Young with Mac Randall, who'd been introduced to us by the wickedly humorous and enigmatic Tim Mungenast, a superb songwriter/guitarist we met through one of our auditions.