I mentioned that one of the things that I will likely be doing with the PiercingKen blog is reflecting from time to time upon the “old days” of my musician adventures. Yes there was a time that I reached for the brass ring as a drummer (and occasional vocalist from behind said kit) in some pretty cool bands. The two bands of note were Machine (who have some blog posts already in this site) and the band I was in before that which was Eclipse. It’s the latter band who gets the reference for these photographs which were taken a couple of years ago as I was out wandering and happened upon what was at one time a very regularly visited space. Take a look.

Do you recognize this at all my friends? Well, those of you who are or were musicians in Bay Ridge or Bensonhurst Brooklyn might. This is the entrance to Master Blend Studios and it was upstairs from this store. You trekked up a precarious set of stairs and there you were. The studio had two rooms, a larger and a smaller room. I know we always opted for the larger room because the cabinets were a little better and there was a double kick drum which was necessary for me. No double pedals yet. The studio was up on Bay 19th and Bath Avenue and while it was a trek to go to, we no longer had the luxury of Slunky Studios or Bay Ridge Studios to use to work up our chops. Sadly I don’t even think I have photos from any of those other two places. This was a pre-digital everything time in society and I guess a somewhat simpler time as well. Now in addition to rehearsing here with Eclipse, we recorded a three song demo here and after leaving their ranks I do recall that Machine booked time here every once in awhile. There were a couple of smaller side projects that played here that I had some involvement in but they were very short tenured groups.

I realize that I only posted a couple of photos from the outside of the place but even two years ago when they were shot the rehearsal space had been long gone. I do think that I have some actual band practice images somewhere in my photo boxes in the closet but since this is all physical stuff it would need to be scanned first in order to share with you. Perhaps when time allows I will add to this line of narratives with that stuff. Until that time. Cheers.