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the walrus — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 19:58:58 +0000

Happy New Year everyone!

And ‘appy anny sqrlz fans! It ’s been a year since the re-u, one of apparent hibernation on our part (it’s been a year since we updated this page!). As the holidays arrived we saw an explosion of re-u’s on Facebook, and some pointing back to this site. We wish these two events had coincided, but heck, we’ll take what we can get. Our new years reso is to actually monitor the site. Clean out the spiders (and bots!) - and hopefully enable some more re-u activity in 2009.

Peter D wants you to know that he’s working on a collaborative covers project - code name:Smilax - and hopes to have the first fruit sometime soon.

Slow news summer

the walrus — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 19:28:09 +0000

But fall has arrived, and the Sq2’s are, well, getting their nuts in a row.

Back in May, Peter injured a finger while loading a truck, which put the brakes on playing while convalescing. He was able to work on tour with Barbara Streisand the next month, which did provide some relaxation. Now healed, he is back tuning the harps for Loreena McKennitt, having traversed Canada and currently in the central and eastern U.S. Come November the plan is to come to Wilmington and begin rehearsing for an as yet unscheduled reunion show in the fall. Our collective head has deemed this a preview, a warm-up to something more expanded.

We are delighted to announce the addition of Jay Manley to the re-group. He will pick up the guitar where Paul Daniels left off. Jay was elemental to the creative music scene in downtown Wilmington. Founder of the mid-eighties Interpreters, his musical DNA later mingled with post-Squirrels band Magically Delicious. Consequently he formed Velvet with wife Jane Francis, re-located to the Triangle, cut actual records (one Mitch Easter recorded!), and took up teaching guitar and studying Hindustani music. The Sq’s are ecstatic over the creative partnership.

We’re not hibernatin’!

sqrlz at the Soapbox - prelude to a new year

the walrus — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 19:27:52 +0000

It has finally come, and gone. The sqrlz (former members of the Squirrels) played live for the first time in twenty years, 25 years after they first performed. If this website were a tree, that would be the flower.

There was, firstly, the overwhelming presence of so many old friends - who are also each other’s old friends - just the community we hoped would show. Many comments were made in regard to the uniqueness of this gathering. We wish we could have been hanging out with you instead of busy onstage. It was not only our reunion.

And through the precipitous journey through near train wrecks - the Squirrels voice rang true. Most were pleasantly surprised at the band’s cohesiveness, considering the limited practice.

Many. many thanks to our partners - Jay Manley, Russ Benson, Jane Francis, Steve Coley, and Keith Delancey. You guys really enhanced the evening. Jay especially performed remarkably under pressure, and Russ was tireless in his support despite jet lag. Also a shout out to Carol Scudder for her opening monologue. And thank you Patrick and Shawn for your video documentation.

So we congratulate ourselves and and our friends on such a great occasion. We’ll undoubtedly be back later with more, but for now we’ll be basking a little bit - gathering photo and video documentation, and also retooling and considering next moves. We hope this was the beginning of a series of events over time - maybe sooner than we think.

Our very best to you in the new year!
Peter D

Timestream: January-February 1983

Russ B — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 06:38:08 +0000

January and February 1983 were busy months for the Squirrels. Hot on the heels of the New Year’s gigs, we were playing McPatrick’s again, playing a couple of Tuesday night shows, one that did quite well, perhaps because I had plastered Cape Fear Tech with posters and got a bunch of my classmates to go, but the other was not well attended. A Saturday McPatrick’s gig did well and featured Peter D’s reggae version of “Happy Birthday”, sung to Theresa Fowler. A few extra cover tunes were added to pad the set list out a bit but most were only played once or twice before being dropped. New venues included the Patio and the No Name Saloon (behind Annabelle’s). Unfortunately, shortly after the end of February, McPatrick’s closed their doors.

During this time, a few more originals were added to the set, including “Come Dancing”, “A Different Kind of Sleep” and an instrumental I wrote (pre-Squirrels) called “Straits”. Peter took a very different approach to the song than I did-where I was thinking Pink Floyd, he was hearing African rhythms. In any event, it was my first (and only) song performed on-stage by the Squirrels.

Gig Dates w/links to posters:

Jan 12 McPatrick’s
Jan 15 McPatrick’s
Feb 1 McPatrick’s
Feb 11-12 The No Name Saloon
Feb 19 The Patio
Feb 26 McPatrick’s

Newsflash: sqrlz return to Front St.

the walrus — Sat, 06 Oct 2007 20:38:38 +0000

20 years after disbanding, former members of the Squirrels re-unite for a commemorative live show

In early 1980’s Wilmington, one could count the number of original bands, as well the number of performance outlets, on one hand. The Squirrels appeared in 1982, rising to the forefront of the town’s nascent indie scene, with their dance-able filtering of post-punk and power-pop sounds. Taking their cues from bands such as the Police, REM, U2, XTC, Midnight Oil, and Let’s Active, they arose out of the last gasps of the Wrightsville Beach clubs, and became vanguards in what was then a rather quiet downtown. If you recall establishments such as the Wit’s End, The Patio, Front Street News, or the Mad Monk, you no doubt knew them well.

Much has changed, to say the least, since they drew their last breath in 1987. They have independently, and in collaboration, carried on musically through the years. Chief songwriter Peter Danilowicz left for New York in 1988, eventually tech-ing on tours as diverse as David Bowie and Barbara Streisand. The others have continued locally, with the freewheeling trip-hop collective Magically Delicious.

It’s 20 years on, and the time has come for a look back at what made them special. SQ2 – the Squirrels Re-constructed - AKA sqrlz.com - chronicles the band, and the fertile arts community from which they grew. The (re-christened) sqrlz, featuring original members Peter D (guitar), Danny Samppala (bass), and Matt Fann (drums), plus Jay Manley ( of Velvet) on guitar, have developed a live retrospective show. They will perform a set of their vintage original dance-rock, as well as some powerful post-breakup material never performed before. Plans are also afoot to capture the results, live and studio, for CD and download.

SQ2 is a re-union of old comrades - a celebration of a vital link in Wilmington’s artistic heritage. The Sqrlz re-constructed live event will be a rare occasion to experience a seminal part of that.

SQ2 presents:

the sqrlz

original members of the Squirrels
plus special guests
Friday Dec. 28, 10PM
Soapbox Laundro-Lounge, 255 N. Front St.

And the beat goes on…

the walrus — Wed, 11 Apr 2007 14:50:52 +0000

With our principal partners on a roll of non/Sq2 activity for the last six weeks, content creation has “petered” out. But rest assured there is more to come.

We’ve welcomed a few old freinds to the club - the ever-interesting Walter Five, and one of our biggest supporters, Jim Snow. More are coming - believe us when we say we’re about “community”.

Danny has some nice words for you here. Russ posted “Timestream: December 1982“, a bit of sicence-non-fiction. Peter made a pit stop home from the Loreena McKennitt tour, giving his harp-tuning-warped hand a taste of former muscle memories. In the next few weeks on the road in North America he hopes to resume work on editing the December recordings for further use in the quest of a CD re-visitation later this year.

And keep crossing your fingers with us for that re-union show. It’s the point of all this, y’know.

A message from D.L.

Danny Love — Tue, 13 Mar 2007 03:43:05 +0000

I would like to first thank everyone for visiting our website, registering and contributing, whoever you are. YOU ROCK. Consider this a combined thank-you from Peter, Matt and myself - the participating members of this Sq2 reconstruction.

Secondly - I would like to thank Peter for taking my suggestion of a 25 year Squirrel reunion seriously 2 years ago… We all owe him a huge round of applause for, at the very least, creating this website. I try to help out here when I can and have been the “keeper of the rehearsal tapes / chief archivist”, but for the most part, mainly the content, architecture and engineering of the site, Peter is responsible. The same can be said for nearly all of the the songs of The Squirrels.

Thirdly - I’d like to thank Russ, who has appeared to have retained brain cells full of detailed memories of some gray areas during our early years as a band. Without Russ we would not have our wonderful 4 song EP from 1982 to listen to now. It is the best we ever captured. He has proven to be a great beta tester of the functions of the website for a few months and will forever be a Squirrel, even if squirrels aren’t a indigenous species in Hawaii.

Fourthly - I’d like to thank Paul for his guitar playing skills, his wonderful voice, musical brotherhood and his lifelong friendship. Paul, I hope you show up here at least to shoot the shit - but I completely understand why you can’t do the gig. It’s all good and you are great.

Okay - enough thanking… I was getting sick of it myself.

I hope that this place can become a place that might bring back familiar faces and introduce new people to the mix. This is a website devoted to a band called The Squirrels, just a band, but minstrels in tune with an extended family of friends that grew through the years of our union. Years later it is so clear to me that even though we failed to “make it big” - we made it through and are here now, in some form. At least we aren’t battling some huge record company for rights to the songs.

The diversity of people who frequented the downtown wilmington music scene was unique - from the town “Blue Velvet” was filmed in, you might have a mixture of - lawyers, architects, public officials, punks, potheads, absolute drunken wretches or snake wielding photographers attend your shows. Usually the unsual happened - Wilmington was not the “big city”, but what that afforded you was the fact that you could indeed be “big time”, if at least for a weekend.

The end result of this period for The Squirrels was - we never left town. We played nearly every bar/club in Wilmington.
Yet we weren’t the average bar band - quite the exception - we wanted people to think and dance, not just drink and dance, although drinking and dancing was what usually happened now that i think about it.

I have always felt that the times I experienced during the Squirrel days were exceptional beyond comparison to what I might have experienced in a “normal life”. This SQ2 Re-Construction project has been fun for me, re-uniting in a project with Peter and re-visiting the golden years through our rose colored glasses. I’m dreaming here… I hope this all goes down good and people have fun.

Love,
Danny Love

Timestream: December 1982

Russ B — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 06:35:45 +0000

Exactly how this part came about, I really don’t remember, but at some point, I became the keyboard player for the Squirrels. During the time of the demo recording, Lisa was the band’s keyboard player, but she wasn’t on hand during the recording and had missed at least one gig opening for Stormz at Hobie’s. If the change was a conscious decision or a kind of osmosis, I’m not sure. Hopefully, Lisa will fill in the blanks in the future.

Now to be honest, my musical tastes were often quite different from the rest of the Squirrels. I had only recently gotten into new wave music through Wally’s friend, Steve-in-Black, and was still quite a prog-head. I was also quite a fashion nerd, partially due to the 14 foot scarf I often wore. Ok, I did have a perm at this time, which made me look like my brother (who had naturally curly hair), but otherwise I was a rather boring jeans and flannel shirt guy.

Band activities in December mainly revolved around rehearsals for another opening slot for Stormz, scheduled for Christmas Day at Hobie’s but eventually canceled, and the band’s Holiday Bash/Nut Mixer in the barn at the Poplar Grove Plantation on December 29th. This was my first gig as the Squirrels’ keyboard player.

Notes about the gig (minutia you really don’t need to know):

I knew how to play about 5 or 6 of the songs at this point.
I was extremely nervous.
I was to the left of Matt toward the rear of the stage.
Keys used were the Mighty Casiotone and my Pro-One synth.
The Pro-One was too wide to fit the stand, so it was on my right.
“Wanna Do You,” the song with my prominent synth solo, was about the 3rd song played.
The poster said “Dress Warm or Bring Date”. I dressed warm.
In 1999, I got married in the same barn.

The following Friday was New Years’ Eve. Sometime during that afternoon, we somehow got word that the band that was supposed to play at McPatrick’s, a bar across the street from Hobie’s, had canceled. We sprang into action, called the guy and got the gig! Not only for Friday night, but Saturday too! The afternoon/early evening was spent calling as many of our friends as possible. We had about 20-30 people in the audience each night.

Notes:

I would take out my full keyboard rig (Yamaha CP-20, Moog Opus 3 and SCI Pro-One) for all subsequent gigs.
Learned about 2 more songs for each of these gigs.
If I didn’t know a song, I played cowbell and/or tambourine.
As we were finishing “Telegraph” at the end of the second set, Peter D shouted out “Happy New Year!!!” to those in attendance. We did not play “Auld Lang Syne”.
About the only picture of me with the band was taken under the marquee for McPatrick’s for the New Year’s Eve show.

Happy belated Chinese New Year!

the walrus — Sat, 10 Mar 2007 23:44:40 +0000

And beware the Ides of March.

We’ve been in a bit of transition here recently. Peter D is now in Europe, working for Loreena McKennitt (whereabouts), and his time to devote to updating the site has plummetted. So it goes.

But he did manage to complete (almost) his curation of archived Squirrels tapes, the yawning gap in the site. Look to the “Want Music?” link to the right for that (it’s a shortcut through the exhibition). It will awe you.

And with that, perhaps we should invite some more folks to the partay..

What’s next? Our bi-weekly updates will likely go monthly! And Peter D will exhibit a much slower response time.

Enjoy yourselves!

The last word

the walrus — Sat, 10 Mar 2007 23:21:51 +0000

Peter D’s 1988 post mortem

And so…they all went back to their respective corners. Peter borrowed equipment - 4 track, keyboard, drum machine, bass guitar, etc. - from various associates, and spit out the following from his apartment on rather bleak N. 7th St. These went pretty much unheard.

Been Here Before

Not deja vu, but an interpersonal cycle of violence.

Hang On

The most direct of the lot. Later performed with Danny and Matt at FSN, and recorded with same in the early ’90’s at Danny’s Deep River studio.

Backlash of Your Own Whip

Provoked by a friend’s ex, a sadistic streak.

Balls of Wet Dust

Memory of hallucinated truth.

Little Wave

Sweet over sour.

The Jaws of Life

Actually a life-saving tool that pried people out of smashed autos, but here turned metaphorically to savage use. Featuring Matt on real drums.

Right All The Time

Sublime sublimation.

Red Toyota (inst)

A remake of a Squirrels standard. Unspoken crush.

Peter was pretty enthralled by Mitch Easter’s Let’s Active, and these share a gestalt. Apart from letting off steam, this also speaks to what the Squirrels might have become, had they managed reconciliation. Or perhaps this was another band entirely, with another name. Alas, it laid in obscurity, the great neverwas, until now. It speaks from its’ tomb.

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