With the close of last school year, I completed my 30th campaign in education. Each of those years has been filled with joy and sorrow, challenges and successes, ups and downs and a ton of stories worth sharing. My (True) Life in Education Thus Far will detail 30 or so of those stories. I hope you enjoy them as much as I enjoyed living (most) of them!
THE FACULTONES
NOVEMBER 30, 2022
The Facultones are a defining chapter in my 30 years journey in education.
One of the facts I enjoy sharing about myself with new people is that I was in a cover band for almost 20 years, off and on. When I share this, I am very, very quick to accurately point out that I had a talent of blending into the background of a group of more talented people than I. My skill on guitar is nominal. At best. My vocal talents are similarly limited. But I find myself more than skilled at being a part of making a group sound good.
I have played and sung in various liturgical music groups since I was in my early teens. I started singing and playing bass guitar (an instrument my first girlfriend taught me how to play). When I went to college, I decided I did not want to lug my amplifier with me and taught myself to play a six string. Later in life, I bought a 12-string and found it made me sound like I knew how to play better than I did.
Along the way, I fell in with various groups and collections of people who liked making music, too. This all started in my early years at Regis Jesuit when a couple would host teachers at their home for dinner and poetry circles. Hey, it was the mid-90s. Don’t judge. These poetry circles would, inevitably, turn into music circles and people would bring guitars and sing together.
After a few years of these events, someone suggested that a group of us should form a band and play dances and weddings and the like.
I was excited by the idea having been in a cover band in high school, the two names of which were Noise on Tap and The Side Effects. I was eager to join.
About five of us, a keyboardist, two guitarists, a bass guitarist and a vocalist came together. We did not have a drummer (we would forever have issues keeping a drummer in the band), but we had an energy and we started to play together at people’s summer parties. For my part, I would plan my entire 10th anniversary party with my first wife around getting the band a gig.
We called ourselves “The Facultones.” I did not come up with the name, one of our guitarists – perhaps the nicest person in the world – did and he lasted in the band approximately one gig, it was just not his cup of tea.
In the years that followed, more than 20 people would migrate in and out of The Facultones, but a handful of us were fairly constant. We had incredibly talented people in the band, We had marginally talented people (like me) in that band. We all had a wonderful time in The Facultones.
We played dances, proms, Christmas parties, graduation parties, a wedding or two, summer parties, auctions and fund raisers – we played wherever anyone asked us to or where we invited ourselves to. We made a demo tape (that I cannot find; I wish I still had it!). We practiced in classrooms and homes and garages and at all times of the day and night.
At one point, I wrote a highly fictionalized account of the group called The Facultones. Too on the nose?
I still have paper copies of set lists and electronic copies of music and chord sheets. I have notes and photos. And memories.
I have a ton of memories. Love and Memories, one might say…
The Facultones was one of the most fun parts of my educational journey, perhaps the most fun. I miss that band to this day.