A (not so) brief history of Johny Vegas:
It all
started many years ago, around 1990, when three guys Jeff Gibbons,
Keith Calveric and Mike Shimshack got together to form an acoustic
group to perform at fraternity/sorority parties at Oswego State
University. They racked their brains to come up with a great name
for this group and finally settled on the ultra-creative "Jeff,
Keith and Mike" Nicely done!
 |
After
a about a year of performing acoustically and seriously bringing
down the house, our friends in another Oswego band 'Frostbit
Blue' Suggested we get ourselves a whole band. You know, drums,
bass...stuff like that. Sweet idea we thought, but who? Well
that question was answered quickly as Frostbit Blue members
Nick Gravelding and John "Valcher" Bletch offered
their services. The original plan was for 'V' to play drum and
for Nick to take up the bass. We rehearsed a bit like that but
before we ever played our first gig, we stumbled upon another
bird flipping bass player. Indeed it was the infamous Mike Miller.
|
|
| Miller
quickly took over the bass player spot but we didn't want to
leave Nick out so we decided that he should also be playing
guitar (his main instrument) So there we were...6 guys ready
to go! We converted most of our acoustic tunes to work with
a full band, we added some of our early originals like "Me
and Sonny" and "Be the One to Say" stacked some
new cover tunes in the set like Pearl Jam, Spin Doctors and
Gin Blossoms and we were off... with our newly formed band JOHNY
VEGAS. |
 |
 |
It
didn't take long for the gigs to start pouring in. And before
long there were too many gigs for the guys from Frostbit to
handle. They had their own band to worry about.. you know? So
when we had to pass on gigs because there was a Frostbit show,
we decided that we needed to be more self sufficient. It was
at this point that we recruited seasoned french fry Kevin Cotrupe
to play drums. Kevin had been playing in a band called 'Ten
High" It was a cool band...They played songs by The Outfield
for God's sake. Plus Kev was a good friend of all of us so it
was a great fit. |
| Kev
was with the band for quite some time and we played a stankload
of gigs. 5 nights a week in Oswego, trips to Ithaca and NYC
started and Vegas was on their way. It was at this point that
the massive amount of shows started to be a bit too much for
Kev and we needed to find a replacement. And let me tell you,
trying out drummers is no pleasant task. One crappy skin hitter
after the next... and it takes about three seconds of performance
to realize that the guy stinks but he went though all the trouble
of setting up his drums and stuff that you had to be polite
and jam for a little while. UGH...so painful. We had nearly
given up hope when we found Alex and that's where chapter 2
of JV begins. |
 |
-chapter
2-
the shacki patch - Oswego, NY
|
|
