In

The words of, Gabe Roman Cortez: "Solemn Black was created. The four of us meshed so well together musically, we soon had enough material for an album (Xenophobia)".

 
 

Oh yeah and:"Luis is an amazing bassist!"

 

It was a SolemnBlackAttack!

Naming the band    
Jerry says he named the band years before we met. Gabe says we named it together, all of us, one night after practicing in his X Girlfriend's garage. Billy, stubbornly, to this day has no comment and I have to agree with Gabe: we all, slowly, after many suggestions and original ideas, after "Sodom's" & "Swollen Crack" and even a few good possibilities for band names, together came up with the winner. I have a recording of the discussion that night. It is a pristine recording of all of us agreeing on the name, "Jerry, Luis & the Gabe-Billy Band"  
    Then some how it changed again.

 		    
Jamming with these guys really was, over all, a lot of fun. We spent a lot of time drinking, spent another large portion of the time (even in the Recording Studio) living with drama. For the most part it was amusing and I still listen to the songs every so often but obviously not as much as I did while producing the thing.

"Xenophobia" it was called. I was in that studio and messing with the levels, throwing too much effect on almost every track and tweekin' out the EQ for way too long and way the wrong way...and somehow ended up with the sound you hear on the website (or on the CD if you can find one). I think it should've been way better than the end product. It was by far the most irritable pain in the ass I have ever endured. It was like getting jacked up by a bull at one of those bull runs in Pamplona.

I think the songs are good. Jerry is an excellent lyricist and tells me that he's been practicing his guitar playing and has 50 new tunes that he's been trying to get out there, into the public ear. So he's looking for the right combination of folks to jam out with. Jerry is somewhat of a musical mystic when it comes to finding the right musicians to be in his bands. He's extremely persistent, which, in some ways can be be a good thing and in some other ways...

Jerry had a dream! His dream was/is to follow his visions of grandeur to the ends of the Earth and maybe on the way find himself some stardom and enjoy a little fame or at least get himself in a band that does all his tunes, where he's the front man and calls all the shots and has a bigger following than the Beatles. I wish him the best of luck! He's right now living somewhere 'round Seattle way, looking for a way in. He wants to write a #1 Song and ride it skyward in an absolutely incredible spiral upward to the very tippy-top of rock-n-roll hipness...and then make a 180̊ , mid-air U-ey, jetting down, riding the sonic blast straight down white-knuckle grip on that mic, crashing hard into rock-n-roll history. Someday the hall o'fame will reverberate with the name Jerry Mathew Borgersen.

    It'll end with the smell of burning roses as it fades to Solemn Black...
Gabe Cortez was actually a very good drummer for this band and we did mesh together well! He did everything in one take during the recording of the, "Xenophobia" CD which was a real plus in my book! Gabe wants to get another band going so that we can start gigin' for the TECH Students again! NM Tech, I had a lot of that fun, that I mentioned, playing this thing the city of Socorro(the birth place of Solemn Black) here has annually called 49ers. Talk about beer drinking! My god, people drink more on any day during the 49ers weekend than people here do on Easter and we all know, E,B,G,D,A,E Everybody gets drunk at Easter!  

Remember the Basement House?

fuckin' a

 
I, on the other hand, have now retired and am just gonna sit here with the TV on, my gun, the bitch, the kids, the dog and a nice cold glass of lemonade. I have my own studio and I hear I'm pretty good now so, I think I'll set up an amp in my living room and write a few tunes. We'll see where that road leads!? 'Just might lead me to somewhere! You never know vatos locos!
   

Forever,
Luis W. Graham l:-(0
 

 

 

PS I'll be putting up a new website pretty soon! It'll have a bunch of great new Luis Originals and some 2 Grahams ~David & I, Maybe some "the Bunglers" with David Graham, Ed Reasner and myself (the old Lummox crew) I hope you enjoy it!