Geoff and I heard about this guitar player named Pat Kenedy -- an amazing guitarist -- and we somehow decided we should form a band. Pat and I were both totally into the progressive rock scene at the time (Yes, Genesis, ELP, King Crimson, etc.), and Geoff continued to write tunes and lyrics. Geoff was especially influenced by his growing involvement in Christianity (we all were), and this is reflected both in the words on the album and the name we ultimately chose for our band: Vindication.
Pat's mom and dad were kind enough to let us set up and rehearse in a spare bedroom at Pat's house. Later we migrated down to the basement when Pat got a large amp for his double-neck Danelectro guitar/bass. What an instrument that was! Pat and I also built a PAIA synthesizer together from a kit I got as a gift. Geoff already had a snazzy drum kit. In addition, Pat had a gorgeous white Fender Stratocaster guitar -- yeah, we were into the whole gear-thing. It was definitely part of the prog-rock scene. The great aspect about using Pat's house as our base is that it was within walking distance of CNHS. We rehearsed for hours almost every afternoon.
And of course we all became best friends. The whole "coming of age" part of life, we did it. I have a wonderful sister (Brenda, who was one of our biggest fans, yay!), but Geoff and Pat became my brothers.
We performed all original material, and I think we were pretty good for the time and our age. We decided we were destined to become GREAT and FAMOUS rock stars, so we managed to convince our parents to fund a week of sessions recording at a very good studio in Bloomington, IN: Gilfoy Sound Studios. The owner of the studio was Jack Gilfoy, Henry Mancini's drummer for years, so he knew what he was doing. Kirk Butler was our recording engineer, he was very sympathetic to the music we were trying to do. Personally I learned a tremendous amount from Kirk; he is one of the people I credit with leading me to my current work at Columbia.
The sessions took place in the summer of 1974, between our Junior and Senior years in High School. The results of the recordings we pressed onto a record called Vindication, and we were on top of the world! Life didn't quite lead us into rock-stardom, which I think is pretty much a Really Good Thing, but the music still stands. The Vindication album has been bootlegged several times, and apparently it is a hot item with record collectors because of its rarity and relative quality. Listening to it now, I think we actually were pretty good.
Just recently Geoff, Pat and I all managed to reconnect
on Facebook, and at some
point several of Geoff's friends had written on his 'wall' about
the old record. I had not put this music on-line like my other
musical work because I didn't feel I could claim release-rights for the
music all by myself. With the reconnecting. I wrote to Pat and
Geoff to ask if they would mind if I put this site up with mp3
files of the pieces for free downloading. Both said "YES!",
so here it is.
Brad Garton
October, 2011
