SDCC History
SDCC has its roots in the techno-soul band Evan Kays and the Cougars, which featured: Evan Kays, lead guitar and vocals, Josh Ott, bass, Nick Warren, backup guitar, Brandon Spalding, keyboard, Brad O'Neil, drums, Jason Spalding, brass, and Chris Teerlink, flugelhorn. After releasing on song, "Blood Makes The Grass Grow" in October of 2000, the band split up. Teerlink, O'Neil, and Spalding later set out to form a new band, called SDCC.
In August 2001, they brought in Shawn Wheeler on guitar and Jon Lichtenstein on bass, later adding Ricky Wilkinson on brass, Jarrod Thomas on spoons, and Tim Willis on triangle. Strife with their record label (and especially their manager) caused dissent in the band, causing Wilkinson and Thomas to leave. (Willis also quit for approximately eight hours before rejoining.) The remaining members went on permanent break.
Then in late June of 2002, the band decided to make music again. Though Teerlink had moved on to other things, the other five remained. On August 7, Chris Carper joined the band on piccolo. Wanting more new members, O'Neil and Willis held an audition at Freshman Orientation, Texas. Of the hundreds that tried out, three were selected: Jonathan Rexrode, brass, Levi Brown, marimba, and "Hurricane" Bob Lent, train whistle. As the audition closed, former bandmate Jarrod Thomas rejoined the group on his new instrument, the didgeridoo. The band was now complete, and recording began immediately.
In mid-to-late August they recorded "Bicycle Race" and "Blood Makes The Grass Grow Hyper Remix." On August 28 they played a free concert at Blue Ridge Community College in support of Multindra. The next day, the band signed a contract with XC Music. They also signed an agreement with Malaysian pop star Homer Simpson, allowing the band to perform three of his songs. On September 2 and 3, the first two of those songs, "The Food Critic" and "It Was A Very Good Beer" were recorded. On September 4, the band released both singles together. Also on that ate they played a concert at Harrisonburg High School. This was followed up by a concert at EMU on September 7.
Reports from the industry came in, and their first single release was not doing so well. (In fact, the B-Side "The Food Critic" was actually more popular than the A-Side.) In response to this, the band created the extended version of "It Was A Very Good Beer" in conjunction with Jamaican ska band T.A. Knights, which was first played at the 9/11 concert at Broadway, VA. In the down time after that concert (which didn't go over well) they began work on "The Baseketball Song" and "Smooth and Creamy." On September 18, the band was scheduled to play at their home town in Stuarts Draft, again as the support band for Multindra. Neither of the two new songs were ready, so the band played "The Food Critic." The concert was the band's first major success, silencing the critics from Harrisonburg who had been decrying the band the whole time. On September 25, the band finally released "Smooth And Creamy" and played it at a concert at Spotswood, which was essentially a failure.
Determined to return to the success they enjoyed at home, they signed up for the ten-band Augusta County Invitational Concert on September 28, playing and also releasing "The Baseketball Song." Their performance at the concert was a smash hit, and they were placed fourth out of ten bands. At the backstage party, bassist Lichtenstein wrote "Fort Defiance," a ballad directed towards their rival band Multindra. At the backstage party that night, O'Neil and Thomas arranged "Knights Of The Round Table," which would include backup vocals by the SDCC Girls.
Then came Wednesday, October 2, which would be a defining day for the band. Deciding that the extended version of "It Was A Very Good Beer" needed a B-Side for its release, O'Neil and Lent wrote the extended version of "The Food Critic" at about 12:00 noon. The two songs were released together that afternoon, and the band performed the new version of "The Food Critic" at a concert at Rockbridge that evening. The concert went about as well as could be expected. (Though O'Neil severely annoyed some really fast Rockbridge chicks with his pre-concert antics.) But as the band was packing up its equipment to return home, O'Neil, Thomas, and Carper starting creating "Pornography Aisle." On the bus ride home, the song was recorded and it was released the following morning. The song was an instant hit, going platinum in three days, making number one on the Metopian Music Charts, and scoring ten points on Little Lichy's Funny List.
On Friday, October 4, Zac Lee, trumpet player for Draft Express (of which drummer O'Neil is also a member) arranged the Homer Simpson song "The Sound Of Beer" and gave it to SDCC. This song was released as the B-Side to "Knights Of The Table" on October 14. That week, the band played two concerts at their home in Stuarts Draft. The first, on October 14, feature Vaught and the Gladiators as the support band, and saw the first live performance of "The Sound Of Beer." The next day, the band was arrested for "inappropriate lyrics." On October 17, they played Stuarts Draft again, this time using the Alleghenys for support band and playing "Knights Of The Round Table." Then on October 23, they finally released "Blood Makes The Grass Grow Hyper Remix." That same day the played at the Valley District Band Competition, placing 5th out of 9 bands.
Since then there has been a lull in activity for the band, in preperation for the release of their debut album, "Blood Makes The Grass Grow." The release date is set for December 31. On January 4, the band released its second CD, "Blood Makes The Grass Grow Volume 7" which they had secretly been working on since early September. Now the band is compiling songs for their next CD.