Gorilla Moon

In Charlie's words

The Gorilla Moon project was a labor of love. While creative endeavors are often imbued with a love/hate nature… we were not that co-dependent. We respectfully screamed our opinions and endured endless experimentation and implementation of every possible solution to every possible difference of creative vision. A healthy gestaltorama ensued, born from a joy of free experimentation and a determination to create the best product possible. Co-operative creativity and consensual democracy is a formidable process when five highly opinionated writers set out to write together… But somehow, and I must give credit to the enduring good intentions of the individuals involved, it worked.

It was a time consuming process but we seemed to ultimately enjoy it, however difficult the going could be. We probably spent more time on writing and orchestration than any band around at the time. Combined with rehearsals, studio time, and often gigging up to three times a week we put in a lot of hours. That we never resorted to homicide as a problem solver, looking back, is to me a great wonder. But whenever the process moved one of us to explosion, the rest of us enjoyed the diversion so greatly that we were able to account for the individual’s cause of frustration and experiment on, with that new data in mind. I guess there’s something amusing about a musician in a snit… I think it allowed us to cleanse our own frustrations vicariously so that we could embrace new ideas, less encumbered by the importance of our own.

Ultimately what evolved was a sum of its parts. No one individual could dominate completely. Of course passive aggressive bottlenecks occurred, but were usually confronted and resolved. I know most of the songs I brought in were either thrown out or rendered unrecognizable and I’m pleased to report I never let anyone one else’s material go by without opinionated scrutiny. Our ego’s toughened and we learned to let go of our ‘little darlings’ in favor of what ultimately we all could approve of. And I don’t think I’d be alone in suggesting that we created something special.

When we played, the other bands featured during the night’s festivities tended to stand in front of the stage with their mouths open. We presented songs of substance with effectively orchestrated dynamics. We were something different from the speed metal bands and Hot Chili Pepper clones that surrounded us. We were compared with The Cars, Roxy Music and I don’t remember whom else… we were far and away beyond or disabled from understanding such comparisons. And we were schmoozed by several labels, both indies and majors. But it was a buyers market in the San Francisco bay area at that time. There were so many bands in the market place that the clubs didn’t have to pay for their entertainments. And in fact, several bars had policies that no matter how many people came to see you, if they weren’t serious beer consumers, you weren’t invited back. I’ve witnessed the pitiful sight of the front man for bands that qualified as up and coming to plead with the audience to drink more beer. We were all relegated to the position of musical beer salesmen… and we of Gorilla Moon indifferently bucked this trend. We kicked the forty-foot sponge. And in the conditions of the buyers market, the labels felt that their providing the required legitimacy of airplay was sufficient to a record deal. They would not spend a nickel on promotion. Essentially, if you signed, you got airplay… if, you promoted it out of your own pocket. If you were promising, you might get free studio time, which we managed without signing. But we never saw the point of cutting them in for a piece of our own efforts when they provided nothing but an industry okey dokey. I think we were headed for creating our own label, but really just didn’t have enough time to do it all.

And finally we either burned out, or achieved what we intended, or something… but we went our separate ways. Frown Strong once said that it was not the man who created, but what was out of balance in the man… maybe we got well.

Harvard Longshanks

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