Christmas had passed, we all went back to our respective colleges to start a new semester. As it happened my roommate, freshman year, was a friend who I attended high school with as well as acted with in the theater program. He's also a close friend of Brad's as well. Brad and myself always had a standoffish relationship when it came to communication. It always seemed that I made more of an effort to keep lines open than he did. In the very beginning of our relationship, we'd spend a lot of time together but during our junior year in high school we lost touch. Brad devoted his time to other things and other people but I was pushed aside in the process.

After spring break of 2000, my roommate and I got to talking about what we had done. I can't recall what I did but he mentioned that he, Brad, and some other chaps had formed an improvisational music group and performed in places in Johnson City, TN. Needless to say I was hurt. It made me wonder why he hadn't asked me if I wanted to participate (though he has no obligation to do so), but forming a Derelllictsesque group seemed like a stab in the back. So in anger and frustration, I announced that The Derelllicts were defunct. I stopped updating this website and it's sister website on http://thederelllicts.iuma.com. I just felt betrayed and fed up with Brad. He and I didn't record together until a year later. When I told Jamey about the whole situation he basically just went with the flow. I don't think he was very much aware of my frustrations with Brad. But there it was, a selfish way of ending things on my part.

As the end of our freshman years in college approached, Jamey was vocalizing his frustrations with school and his desire to do something more inspiring. I believe at the time he'd been working the late shift at a grocery store in Mansfield, TX, and eventually left the college scene altogether. Summer was approaching and Jamey wanted me to come visit him and make some music. I decided, well why not form a new band of just Jamey and myself since we had no more obligations to The Derelllicts. So it was settled that I'd fly down for a week, stay with Jamey, write and record music, and have a good time in July of 2000. Packing all my gear for the flight proved to be hellacious. I had a new Tascam 488 8-track recorder to do things professionally, my 6-string electric Danelectro guitar, my 4-string Danelectro bass, an assortment of Danelectro pedals (getting an idea of brand-fancy?), my guitar amp...lord it was a mess. It was fantastic to see Jamey again. Due to Jamey's work schedule, he'd sleep for the remainder of the day, we'd write and record music up until he had to go to work...maybe around 9pm? The trip, the music, and the experience was absolutely magical. When coming up for a name for the band, I happened upon one right before I left Tennessee. While driving in Kingsport with my mom, I saw the name of a road, Idle Hour Road, and thought that would be an awesome name for this new band of mine and Jamey's. Idle Hour. Instead of improvising the lyrics, we decided to write them out. Jamey left the music up to me as he said he'd not picked up the guitar since Christmas, so I wrote all the music and left Jamey to focus on lyrics. As I said earlier, we recorded on an 8-track recorder so every song is complete with drums, bass, rhythm guitar, lead guitar, keyboards, and one or two vocals. The effect was how I wanted The Derelllicts to sound.

Soon my week with Jamey was up and I packed and flew back to Tennessee. I started another website on IUMA (the Internet Underground Music Archive) like The Derelllicts. It currently has none of the original Idle Hour songs because I mastered them poorly, but it now contains new solo works from Jamey and myself. Eventually I'll put up the old Idle Hour songs.http://idlehour.iuma.com.

As for Brad, attending college in Memphis, TN, had taken its' toll and he longed to go to a film school in Boston. Brad's heart has always been in film since I've known him. He's a fantastic actor as well and he eventually got his wish. He moved up to Boston to study film at Emerson College. The distance resulted in him rarely coming home to Tennessee, save for the holidays. But near the end of 2000, I'm not sure of the circumstances, Brad and his friend came up to visit my old roommate at college in Banner Elk, NC. While there Brad came and knocked on my door which surprised me greatly. I had my 8-track recorder in my dorm room so I let him hear some of the songs Jamey and I did over the summer. Then for nostalgia's sake, I handed him a microphone, plugged it and my guitar into the recorder, and we proceeded to improvise a song which I think captures how Brad was feeling at the moment. It's a very introspective spoken word piece which I later entitled "Uncertainty". However the sentiment was interrupted by Brad's friend walking into my room during recording so things had to be cut short. Brad and I didn't get together again until the summer of 2001.

Brad was home for the summer and phoned me up to get together at his homestead. He wanted me to bring my 8-track to do some recording which I did along with my acoustic guitar and electric bass. As with every Colinger/Smith meeting, we always start with an instrumental since we don't know what we're really going to do. Brad did some fantastic keyboard work and his improvised words have more substance to them than I think he'll admit. He'd been playing some guitar up at college and composed an instrumental which we dueted on and on additional songs Brad did some cool solo guitar work. After awhile, he got nostalgic and wanted to revisit some old Derelllicts' numbers so we printed out some lyrics and did new remixes for them. The results were nothing less than hiliarious. Unfortunately I ran out of tape towards the end and had to stop recording, but those songs and remixes we did are very dear to me. Brad and myself have since gotten together for a couple days in August of 2002 at my house. We didn't do any recording but Brad messed around with my looping software. He tried to combine Indian percussion with blues guitar. It did NOT work.

As for me, once I got back from Texas doing the Idle Hour thing, there was little for me to do musically. I had no one to play or write with. Then by the grace of God, I discovered my friend's, Chris Street, brother had a contemporary Christian band. I decided to attend some of their practices. The music was pretty solid, but it could be improved so I gave some suggestions to which they kept. They mentioned their bass player couldn't always commit himself to gigs so I said that I'd fill in if they wanted me. So I became a temporary bass player. As we got further along I mentioned I played accordion and suggested we add it to a couple songs which we did. Time came for my first gig with this band called Patchwork. Originally the bass player wasn't going to be there, but he showed up, so there we were playing dual basses. I have no idea how it sounded but when I switched to the accordion for the two numbers, the audience was definitely impressed. This was the first time I'd ever played in a "real" band and it was nothing but a positive experience. The more I played with Patchwork, the more I became a member, I brought in an electric guitar and a 12-string acoustic to play and became the group's lead guitarist (of which I'd never been) and I eventually showed them that I could sing as well. During my time with Patchwork, I started writing songs to be used by the group, but with the lead singers, selling them proved to be more frustrating than uplifting. I did write the music and collaborated on one song with the female lead singer that we did perform. Early on there was a stifling politik in Patchwork when it came to music. It increased up until I left college in NC and got a full-time job in Johnson City. By that time, I couldn't devote any time to the band, but I saw it as a way out. Towards the end of Patchwork, the music ideals were changing from acoustic rock to jazzy lounge to acoustic bluegrass and I didn't like the direction the lead singers wanted to take things musically. So at the final gig I played with Patchwork, I requested I have a 6 song solo set inbetween the band's breaks. I performed 3 cover songs and 3 of my own songs that I'd intended for Patchwork. This was the start of my solo career. So once I received a full-time job, I was able to leave Patchwork and focus on my music.

Where are the Derelllicts now? Even though we unofficially stopped in 2000, I've continued to showcase the band's music on http://thederelllicts.iuma.com because I believe in it. There are so many memories in every recording. This is part of my life. This is part of my high school experience. The music and words speak volumes and we recorded a ton of it during the time we were together. I always wanted The Derelllicts to be a real band that played places and toured. I'd come up with show formats, almost slightly theatrical in places, but the more I thought about it and tossed it off Brad and Jamey, Brad has no desire to do so. The Derelllicts occasionally get an email every six months or longer saying "Wow this stuff is great! Can I get a CD?" or "Hmm, very interesting. Defunct?? NOOOO!!".

The Derelllicts never had a fan base. They never played concerts. They never had a record label or contract. They were just three guys improvising music and having fun while doing it. I am not sure what will become of the band's music. Our music has been played on WQKE, a college radio station in Plattsburgh, NY, and people still go to our IUMA website. The Derelllicts recorded over 30 hours of material, around 140 MINIs, 5 musical stories, and a few films. Nothing may ever come of what we recorded, but you can't put a price on memories. I've done my best to give a history of The Derelllicts as I saw things. I'm sure there are inconsistencies concerning dates and personal opinions from Brad Smith and Jamey Coffman but the whole purpose of this website is to archive the many things we did for there are things we should never forget.

I'd like to close with something Jamey said to me awhile back. "I'm sure The Derelllicts will play music again."

Written October 10, 2002