The Deckard 7″ was the first vinyl released by people who were really close to me. Up to that point, it had been demo tapes. The history of how this all happened is something that I think back to often and remember just how amazing that time in my life was.

It all culminates in the Deckard 7″, but the road getting there was a fun one that, probably more than anything in my life, made me who I am today.

I guess it all started when I was five and in Kindergarten. There was a kid there named Chris Murrary. One day, for Show-and-Tell, he brought in the record of the “Good Ol’ Boys” Theme song for the Dukes of Hazzard. This was 1980 and the Duke boys were pretty much all we thought about.

From then on, Murray and I were very close friends. Through elementary school and middle school, we’d hang out, go to Knoebles Grove (an amusement park where we’d drop a ton of quarters playing Contra) and were generally great pals.

By the time high school found us, we had drifted a bit. Murray made a new friend – a greasy kid I saw once in awhile. He was usually getting yelled at by teachers or skipping out on class. His name was Todd Fogel and he was sort of a legend at Mifflinburg High.

The summer before my 11th grade year, Murray dropped by my house and asked me if I wanted to be in a hardcore band. I had a vague idea of what hardcore was, though mostly I thought it was metal. I was into The Cure and Anthrax – some rap too. Hardcore wasn’t a huge leap in a different direction, but I still didn’t really get it.

He introduced me to Todd Fogel, our drummer. Except that he didn’t have drums. We also didn’t have a place to practice. But Todd had been in a band before. He was in the seminal Lewisburg hardcore band Bound By Reason. For some reason or another, his time with Bound was over and he was looking to move on.

In no time at all, we became Reality By Choice. A very straight-edge sounding name, which is odd since both Murray and Todd smoked. But in central PA circa 1989, that was all you needed to claim the edge. We had four or five songs with some pretty shaky lyrics (“Heading down a one way street, going nowhere – try to face reality, you can’t escape!”).

Murray sang/yelled, I played guitar and Todd drummed (he got a very used set off of Lunacy’s drummer, McKinny). We practiced in my parents’ basement and played one show for a girl’s birthday party. That was probably horrible.

The band broke up, but then we got back together under the name “Blank Space” – so named because Todd would record every session and wanted us to leave a “blank space” before starting the song. We moved to Todd Fogel’s basement and added Casey Murray (no relation to Chris Murray) on bass and became The Foreseen. Somewhere in this, Todd moved to bass (or guitar) and we got a drummer named Russ. He was a pretty scary guy who drove a Camaro or something.

Through a lot of this was a freaky kid named Mike Sullivan. His goofiness is still one of my top five favorite things ever. He wasn’t a member in the band or anything like that, he was just always there, cracking jokes and making up parody lyrics. A Bound By Reason lyric went “Always stepping in another man’s tracks, trying to make tracks of your own” and Mike changed it to “Always stepping on another man’s cats, trying to make cats of your own!” I still can’t listen to Primus’s “Too Many Puppies” without hearing “I won’t eat a wet potato!” during the verses.

During the next summer, Murray’s time with us was through and Mike joined the band. We became Lawn Dart Casualties, named after an Ed’s Redeeming Qualities song. From that point on, it came together (as much as a garage band can). We played a bunch of shows, including two at The Unisound in Reading.

While Lawn Darts was going on, a few other bands were happening too. Some were even practicing in Todd’s basement with us.

After Bound By Reason broke up, they sort of became Sunblind. Sunblind was a mass of chaotic fun with oddly tuned guitars and Zim, a hairy guy who was often grumpy. Bryan Lippincott was in Sunblind. He and I became fast friends. Through him I met Brian Broadt.

It’s around this time that things get a little fuzzy. I’m leaving out quite a bit, I know that. A lot of this is because I finished high school and went to college for a semester. That put an end to Lawn Darts. The summer before college and every weekend when I was in college, I’d be at Bryan, Murray and Todd’s house on Chestnut Street in Sunbury. Brian Broadt may have lived there too, but I can’t remember.

Somewhere during this time, Bryan and I started a zine called The Re-Activist. There was also a zine we all did called Accelerator.

They started a band called Fullerton (named after a street they saw in New York City). I think they needed a bassist or something. I filled in. We played one show in State College (or Williamsport).

Here is where things get even more fuzzy. Fullerton broke up, but Todd kept the name and became Ed Fullerton, country radio station host. I hung out with him a lot during this period. I don’t think anyone was doing anything musical now. I could be wrong though.

Around this time, I moved to Columbus, Ohio. Deckard may have formed a little before that. I remember that I had their demo and saw them a few times. Their demo was amazing. Their live show was even better. Broadt screamed into the pickups on his guitar! That pretty well thrilled me.

Deckard played Columbus and crashed on my floor. They also played Erie with Brother’s Keeper and Prema. I went to see that show too.

By the time I moved back to central PA and reconnected with them, the Deckard 7″ had already been released. Deckard may have even broken up.

So, you see, I don’t have much memory of the Deckard 7″. I can’t even remember how I got it.

Nevertheless, here you go, the Deckard 7″ – a piece of my youth that I could never place.

Deckard – Just Plain Ordinary 7″
1) Exclusionary
2) Velocity

Listen here…

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Go ahead and get it here…

Technical Information:
Media Used:
Vinyl 7″ from my personal collection.

Artwork Scanned from Original @ 72 dpi with XSane .996
Edited and Restored Using GIMP Image Editor 2.6.6

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