Chapter 1:The Garage Band from Hell

It all started on one day in May of 2000 when I recieved a phone call from this guy named Matt. He heard that I played bass and wanted to know if I would like to join a band with him and some mutual friends. I said why not because I really didn't have anything better to do. We all set a date and we decided to practice at my house. It wasn't pretty. The band was made up of Matt on lead guitar, Hicks on rhythm, Wes on drums, Bates singing, and myself on bass. It was incredibly dissonant. We all had different interest for the direction of the band. Some of us wanted to write original stuff. Others wanted to only cover. Some thought only Justin should sing, others thought that he should have back up vocals. It wasn't pretty. I think we rehearsed like twice. Dave came down and watched us and told me if I ever got bored we should get togther and jam. Well I got bored pretty quick. Dave and I played a couple times together and decided to start a band. He asked me if I knew any guitar players and I said I knew this kid I met at the pool.

Chapter 2: Josh Blackstock and the Noonday Friends

The kid I am referring to of course the infamous Josh Blackstock. After only one rehearsal, we started cranking out the hits. Powered by Dave's powerful drums, Josh's fantastic guitar work, and my sub par basslines we were unstopable. I think we wrote four songs in this band and man were they average. This was ok though because beneath these average songs was a lot of hidden talent that was just itching to get out. It now came about that time to pick a band name. We had a lot of suggestions such as Ron Jeremy's Uncle, Alabama Blacksnake, Splendora, The Trouble with Thirteen, and some others. We were having trouble deciding and we had our first show coming up. The Noonday Friends name kinda feel out of the sky. Literally. If I recall right (which i probably don't), I think a book with that title fell off a book shelf in our rehearsal space. So with the extra emo name in hand we prepared for our first show....

Chapter 3: Hestand Stadium: DOOMS DAY

The day of the show arrived with anticipation and ambiguity. The bands slated to play were 2deanCREW, the BODY, This N' That, Faulkner, Matt Zorzin, and us. If I remember correctly we were the third band to play. Wait I take that back, I think we were second. That's right, we were second the Body played first and scared everyone then we played. So anyway, we played our entire set. It took roughly about twenty minutes. We played pretty good considering the following things:

1. I was singing, which is never good thing.
2. Dave couldn't here the bass or the guitar
3. I was singing.

So anyway all that aside it was a good show...from what I hear. For you see, I actually left the show when Faulkner began to play because a friend of my in Little Rock conned me into going to this awful metal show. I know it was my fault. I feel bad that I convinced Hicks and Bates to go though. Not only did we miss a bunch of good bands to see a bunch of crappy bands but we somehow managed to get lost and end up in Conway. I still don't know how we accomplished this feat. I blame a lot of it on inept gas station attendants who instead of telling us they couldn't help they just gave us bad directions. Well live and learn.

Coming Soon....Chapter 4: The Westing Game, ripping off another childrens book.