1. The Precambrian
Let's see—Blind Ray started it, that's why the band came to be called BlindRay&theMice, usually rendered as one word, with an ampersand. Dennis Raymond Eby played piano with a loose assortment of friends, back in the Bad Boom days of the early 80s. "BlindRay" actually was coined circa summer of 1981 by Jimmy Blade Berles at the Natchez House Lounge around 3:30 a.m. one late evening/early morning during a typical drunken, forgettable night while emceeing for the Hunter Freese Blues Band, which consisted of Hunter Freese, BlindRay Eby and Bobby Bad Check Carter. (Dennis was imitating Ray Charles, kicking his leg and wearing shades—he had just seen The Man in NOLA a couple weeks prior). After that band dissolved, he was looking for a new gig when Caldwell Flash Fletcher appeared, and they started playing at Eby's garage apt working up songs like All of Me and Satin Doll.
It doesn't take long for an inebriated combo like that to plateau, and a low plateau indeed. It became like the same group of guys who play cards every Thursday night for 40 years—the gathering is an end in itself, with no possibility of rising higher, learning a new game, or getting better.
A break came in 1984 when Caldwell met a drummer named Paul. Paul was a strange case—a wealthy real estate broker who drove a black Mercedes, lived alone in a large house. He could drum, after a fashion, and wanted to get better, and for the Mice to get better. Henry gave away the bass and switched to guitar full time, Dennis bought a Fender Rhodes stage piano, and the rehearsals became more determined, and were upped to twice a week. They began to develop the first of what would be their early repertoire. Henry wrote some songs during that time that stuck—"Plastic Shoes", "Safe Sex", and Caldwell contributed "Montessori" and "Geraldo". BlindRay Eby worked up an old song he had written with Hunter Freese called "No Hookers Tonight," which became the band's showcase tune for years to come. Inexplicably (and blessedly), they never recorded it. A bunch of other songs are deservedly forgotten. Paul kept pushing them to play live at a party or bar, but then the real estate bust of 1985 sent him packing to Arizona.
2. Guitar heroes
Soon after, the three of them played their first gig at a Halloween party in a large back yard. They called themselves "The Chorizo Brothers" and wore guayrabara shirts and black pants. It was fun and successful, and the sound was a little more professional, though there was no bass and no percussion.
Caldwell's wife had a friend who was in a band that was breaking up. He played sax, but for the Mice he insisted on playing bass—so they got Ted Ossenfort, the first "real" musician in the crowd. It wasn't long before he brought along his childhood friends Bruce Jamison, a talented guitarist, and Andy Mears, a drummer who could play circles around Paul. So essentially the Mice woke up one day and had a real band, electric and loud.
They began to do things they had never before considered—like hammer away at a song or a tricky passage until they nailed it, for example. The rehearsals gradually stopped being parties. Beer consumption was kept reasonable. (Some band members have never quite gotten over this.) They played a party in late 1986, then started working in bars in early 1987. They loved the bar gigs in those days—being younger, having no children, they loved the lifestyle, even loved dreary things like sound check. They weren't very good, but got a lot of gigs anyway. It is often the great surprise of a musician's life that you don't have to be very good.
After a Christmas gig in late 87 that was particularly lame—they were the last of 6 bands and never found the groove—Ted quit, and the band essentially dissolved.
3. Wives and drummers
The next attempt at putting together a workable combo came in the fall of 1991. They committed to a gig at a sports bar, but had no regular bassist. A classified ad produced Danny Schieves, a decently talented bass player with a heavy-metal demeanor. Danny stayed with the band the next year or so. Everybody admitted that Danny was not a great fit—he was more of a hair metal cat—but they developed some new material for the first time in ages. But some band members, now married, were having serious Yoko problems, and began having to get permission from their better halves for each rehearsal, and a papal dispensation to gig.
It was a learning process, and things got better as time went by. Bruce played bass, since Danny had left, and Hunter was persuaded to develop guitar tracks, which he did with youthful enthusiasm. In the fall of 93, Henry mixed the 6 songs himself, as best he could, and put out a mid-fi EP tape for friends called "arrhythmia and blues" (still to this day the best title he has ever come up with for anything.)
So the slow, tedious process of recording what came to be "Combo Level" began. They experienced what could have been an omen early on. They had completed two songs when the DA-88 crapped out, taking the masters with it—the first versions of "Walking on Air" and "Twist" were gone forever. They re-recorded them, and were glad they did, then moved forward, getting better and faster. Also, the creative juices were flowing. The fairweather friends began showing up at the studio, not wanting to be left out of the glory. They over-dubbed the songs from 1993 to try and patch the worst mistakes, ending up with 15 finished originals, then hired a friend from another band to mix it on a trade-out basis. Henry did the graphics, an old friend of Caldwell's mastered it for a bargain-basement rate, and "Combo Level" was released.
4. As if that weren't quite enough
That marked the beginning of their most intense period of gigging. First the CD-release party, which then spawned a semi-regular show at the same bar. A very fun and multitalented young woman named Lisa McCaffety joined them for many of these gigs, playing electric violin and adding considerable energy to the old material. That carried them through the winter of 97-98, the highlight of which was a Christmas show at Rockefellers, just before that famous establishment closed permanently, opening for a group called Harbor Lights.
The live gigs accelerated into the spring and summer. The festering idea of a tight, energetic combo playing material you don't have to be in your cups to appreciate, began to jell in the summer of 98 into a new project. While still undeniably a garage band, there was a new urgency surrounding the Mice. A lot of very nice songs had been written, some even before Combo Level, and it was time to do them right. The band gave up any pretense of being a cohesive performance band, and dived into the studio full time. As the songs were recorded, it gradually occurred to the participants that they had something special going.
It was decided that this time the Mice would get the sound as absolutely right as possible, and the professionals were called in. Four long nights were spent at SugarHill (in the very studio where the Big Bopper recorded "Chantilly Lace," if you can believe legend) while the record was mixed, track by track, by Steve Christensen (just returned from running sound for Destiny's Child on their European tour.) Another butt-buster of a day was spent by Dennis and Bruce at Essential Sound overseeing the mastering process with Allen Corneau. The result was exciting but humbling for this beer-drinking garage band.
5. Epilog.
BlindRay played the occasional small gig or private function into the new millennium. They played a crackerjack CD release party for “Separate Checks” in a small cub downtown. The band managed to nail just about every song, and paid for their own burgers and beer. The small crowd of family and friends was supportive and happy. But it was clear to all but the most self-delusional that the party was winding down, the ashtrays being emptied.
A couple of tepid gigs and private parties followed, but a last opportunity for Final Rock and Roll redemption came in the spring of 2002. BlindRay was booked into what sounded like a very questionable deal: Third band of three at an impossibly dark and smoky club on Washington. No hope of going on before 11:30 or midnight at the earliest. They set up and did sound check and then waited it out.
As the other bands played, there was a lot of reminiscing, and some of the members began to accept that this was probably it, their swan song. The first two bands were loud, dreary and grungy, and the songs dragged uncertainly, at ear-splitting volume. An opening was emerging—as a famous French general once declared at the battle of the Marne—“They offer us the flank!” The two other bands were slow and indistinct and muddy. BlindRay would be clear as rainwater, the songs bright and fast.
They still had to buy their own beer. But, hey.