j a n . 99: In The Beginning... Bob calls Justin and things get started. Justin restablishes contact with Alex Newport [FUDGE TUNNEL] and inquires on a good direction for the band, a good band name, and any other ideas. By the end of the month we are moved into a small trailer in Berrien Springs, MI where we begin intense, all day long rehearsals with 1st bassist, Jerry McCaslin. An instrumental known as "Sliverswitch" is born as well as a later abandoned 2nd tune. f e b . 99 Things not going so well: Heather, Bob's girlfriend, accidently backs into Jerry's truck and he explodes in a massive display of temper. For the rest of the month he hides from rehearsals playing "sick". On the 5th [juz10's birthday] we attend the first ever show we booked [under the name Pure Cain] even though we didn't play. Since no one knew PC was really us, the management of Club Hoi Polloi booked "Bob's new band" for a gig in June. By the end of the month we're kicked out of the trailer park for being too loud during a 1am rehearsal. At this time we also decide on a new band name, LARVAMIND, and our first website, http://larvamind.8m.com goes online. m a r c h . 99 (Our big move from Berrien Springs to Dowagiac, MI.) We end up rehearsing in a vacant home where we then have our first rehearsal with our original vocalist, Ryan Vylonis. A week later we move to a basement adjacent from a race car garage in Twin Lakes. This same basement is also the work room for a band that later becomes JOHNNI BLACK [named after the porn star]. By the end of the month we move one more time to Bob's first home and, before he even moves in his own personal belongings, we run back and forth loading in our gear. After an unimpressive meeting with David Nixon we soon we aquire JB's guitar player, Joe Wislowski and he takes over as our new bass player. Meanwhile, tensions mount on Justin's homefront as his roommate, Rob Slabaugh [BITCH MONKEY, guitar player] decides to move out. Also, a new challenge is presented: his job at the Cook Nuclear Power Plant has laid all of its radiation workers off with the option of moving to North Carolina to take care of another outtage. Justin declines in order to persue LARVAMIND. a p r i l 99: Dawning of the Age of Daval The Lm website is now moved to Tripod. By this time several worktapes have been accumulated and most of what LARVAMIND will achieve in this first year has already been written without the help of Joe (who ops to leave Lm in favor of other endeavors). On a wim Bob contacts former TONIC SOLFA frontman, David Alm and asks him to come jam. (Ryan is eventually ousted from the band for infringing on our strict no drugs policy.) In just a few more weeks other songs begin to take shape and Nixon enters the fold. Being a very quick learner, not only is Nixon able to pick up most of the previously written Lm tunes but he also helps pen 2 new songs. "Baily", which he was convinced at the time he ripped off from us, and "Me (Thinly Disguised)". Bob's dad decides to make several unannounced visits to Bob's home and later decides to book our first gig for us at a wedding at the infamous Newton's Hall. Marred with the insecurity and doubt that all bands are plaqued with before taking that big step onto stage, little time is given to prepare as Bob is asked to escort his dad's semitruck across the country. Encouraged to take some time off by his girlfriend, Justin accompanies Bob on the road. When they return, all hell had broken loose and Bob had found his house in shambles and Justin's car wrecked. m a y . 99 Our first gig! Setlist includes only 3 songs and Bob sits in with his dad for an impromptu version of Metallica's "For Whome The Bells Toll". At this same show Justin's girlfriend goes ballistic and makes a big scene; drives off with his car and everyone is witnessed to his struggle to keep her and his sanity. In the end, another decision had to be made, play this show or run away. The rest would be history. j u n e . 99 Our first gig at the Hoi Polloi. David Alm plays the show with a giant piece of foam ducttaped to his head and then wonders why no one took him seriously. On the 27th (after consulting with Alex Newport again), we record one of our best sounding demos to date; a collection of 4 songs for the then-booking agent of Cheers. While the recording was not without its flaws, dozens of copies were made and given away. Hand pasted covers were all night labors of love. This is also the first appearance of stage names "juz10", "Daval", "Nixon", & "Bob 33". Still, we couldn't get anyone to listen to it and, in the end, our ties with Bill Finn and Liquid Magazine were severed. Later, "Useless Star" was coming to light lyrically on the eve of Justin throwing his girlfriend (and their 3 year relationship) out. j u l y . 99 Internal conflicts arise in the band. Justin & his trusty roadie DJ Dwarf Junkie spend the 4th in Chicago with Daval and his then-fiance Dawn. Emphasis was made on us to sound like everyone else and because we chose not to, we were ostracized. After playing a small graduation party for Daval's brother, the crowd was torn 50/50. Some liked the idea of progressive music, some did not. Some like guitar leads and alternate melodies, others did not. Pressure was on us at a time where we were still trying to define our sound to either stay true to ourselves or aspire to what everyone else was doing at the time. As a result, juz10 quits LARVAMIND to work on the XIL project with fellow South Bend, Indiana technophiles. The adventure is short lived, however, as juz10 is called back to Lm to move the band into a more solid direction. a u g . 99 While tensions are still in the air, the Slow Divide demo is recorded on the 22nd. Daval soon goes to jail while juz10 spends a large amount of time trying to keep the peace between Daval, his woman, and the band. Soon a cd burner enters the picture and the first collection of demos [dubbed the "Larvography"] is recorded. Cassettes are abandoned and work begins on the Charger EP. A few shows were scattered around this time including a Hoi Polloi gig and another fruitless wedding. The latter was our first lesson in bad shows and how even the people you least expect are out to rip you off. s e p t . 99 Straying from Alex Newport's guide in recording produced a much weaker sound and in the end the Charger disc flops. Culled from previous demos and unreleased audio bits, the Charger disc seemed like a good idea at the time, but featured none of the songs originally recorded for it. Meanwhile we judged a "battle of the bands" @ the Hoi and are forced to endure some of the most unoriginal acts Michiana had to offer. Though it seemed suspicious that a ska band won a talent show judged by an all out progressive metal band, it was important for us to stress that we were open minded and appreciated good music in any form. Later, we took our first serious (and only) band trip to Grand Rapids, MI to meet with club owners and book more shows. As always, we ended up broke and ripped off. o c t . 99 We finally pushed ourselves to the edge with a series of songs we became very proud of. "Useless Star" was finally completed! Co-headlining 2 shows in one weekend with Nocturnum was a great success and really gave us an opportunity to show everyone what were all about. Justin also made 3 large posters (above) which hung in the entrance way of the venue. At the end of our first show we were also greeted by 2 guys from the well known Three Rivers, MI band, LOVE MUFFIN. Exchanging phone numbers, no one knew that our relationship with them would grow into a tighter bond. Later that month we played an outdoor Halloween gig and discovered that our songs were no match for our weakening equipment. And while we secretly hoped the rest of the year would subside so we could repair our gear, it only got worse. At this time we also met with our first prospective agent who was working with Liquid Magazine bands. Several promises later he invites us to meet his family and have a few drinks. When he finally invites us back out to meet with him at a club he was booking for, it's with his mistress and some obviously strung out hooker-type chick. Following our instincts, we bailed. n o v . 99 This was probably our busiest month yet as a band. Too much friction had built up between Bob's girlfriend and the band so we decided to move into Daval's basement. Though we had hoped that it would have kept us away from the multitude of people who kept dropping by unannounced in the middle of our extended jam sessions, our new home quickly became much worse! In that small 2 bedroom house [with no lock on the bathroom door] were: Daval, his brother's girlfriend, his fiance (Dawn), her sister Cindy, her other sister Cheryl, their one year old baby, Angie, her son Jordon, everyone's respective boyfriends or love interests, several family members, and anyone else who wandered in or was looking to get high. Very quickly Bob and Justin watched their "no drug policy" go out the window. Somehow managing to establish enough material for an all acoustic set, we then played an all acoustic Media Play show in South Bend, IN on equipment loned to us by the folks at the Hoi Polloi. The next day we began the infamous Frankie Sessions in Elkhart, Indiana. After one day of recording, they then play [on a wim] an all ages show @ a skating rink in Sister Lakes, MI. d e c . 99: So Much For A Hiatus! Thanks to bad timing and a car accident, mastering of our 3 day recording session was delayed by weeks. The Christmas CD was actually released after the 25th! Meanwhile, Daval and his girlfriend were having more problems and, after another stint that lands him in jail, everyone begins to reevaluate his position in the band. j a n . 00 A very encouraging month for us in the new year! A week before Daval is court ordered to stay away from his own house, we are given the opportunity to move into an abandoned factory in the center of town. At this time, Bob, Juz10, and Nixon return to the Hoi in hopes to find a new frontman. The journey becomes fruitless and they returned home back to the melodramas. Meanwhile, after several months of being unemployed, juz10, Daval, & Nixon find themselves working just a few blocks away from their new rehearsal space at another factory, Ameriwood. Soon new songs began to emerge (including Time And Again and Hymn For Her.) f e b . 00 While this was all going on, juz10 had moved from his home in Sodus, MI to Dowagiac. Eventually his finances became stable and he moved back home. In an attempt to reclaim his sanity he began to focus on music and abandoned the drama that had surrounded LARVAMIND. This, however, didn't work as planned as most of February was spent running Daval around Michiana in a attempt to keep him out of jail. Between the dramas with Daval and then Nixon being offered a slot in another band, juz10 was glad to establish contact with his new friends in the band LOVE MUFFIN. Soon, a gig was set for both bands to play and Lm would return out of its long awaited hiatus. m a r c h . 00: Lm/LM A lot of preparation was put into our fist show of 2000 only to find it become [as Nick from LOVE MUFFIN would come to call it] an "elaborate rehearsal". An unexected snow storm had kept the venue virtually empty. This, on top of too much time being lost in the previous 3 months, made Bob and juz10 realize that something had to be done about Daval. No sooner had they planned to confront Daval about their recent unmentionable situations, he quits the band. NOTE: The date on the pic to the right is actually wrong. a p r i l . 00 Despite the absence of a frontman, gigs somehow manage to keep getting booked. Now, as a 3 piece, LARVAMIND plays a few instrumental shows. It was the vehicle for a strong boost of confidence we had been needing for a long time. It became glaringly apparent that we could move on without Daval (and it would later prove that he was the dead weight we could never pinpoint.) Around this time, Gabe (LOVE MUFFIN) introduces us to an old friend of his who hang previously sang in a now defunct English sounding rock band MERRY POPPIN' JAY. Dubbed as Eric Eben "The King of Rock" we still played mostly instrumental shows with him stepping in only twice to sing Pass If I. m a y - j u n e . 00 Though the split was amicable, we didn't really want to lose another frontman in the same year. And with yet even more shows booked (this time with LOVE MUFFIN and another new band, MOODRING) we knew we wouldn't have enough time to settle down and audition new vocalists. Slow but surely, we became more self-reliant as juz10 and Nixon occasionally worked their way towards the microphone. Eventually the song Inner Strength was culled from Bob's personal collection of demos and he too took to vocal duties. Around this time juz10 meets the woman who would eventually become his wife and the band would go on to play a couple of underground shows in Gabe's basement [AKA "Muffin Manor"]. Our shows become much more violent as we develop a larger fanbase while at the same time our website goes offline. j u l y - s e p t . 00: The Machine Winds Down We all knew that if LARVAMIND ever took some time off we'd still manage to remain quite busy. Playing fewer and fewer shows, we were able to record LOVE MUFFIN and TRIPLE F's demo in our home we had lovingly referred to as the Frass Factory. While we had originally started sessions to record a split EP together, the whole idea basically flopped and everyone was left with 15 tracks of unreleased material. LARVAMIND's almost industrial edged sessions were dubbed Confusing Beauty? and were sold for $3 at a few shows. Of all the recordings we made, it is both the most timid and the most proud. If juz10 had been more secured in his voice, there wouldn't have been so much distortion on the vocal tracks and the disc as a whole would have sounded much different. Instead, our experiment was laden in rich, ultra-bright static and was almost inaudible. Meanwhile, juz10 makes contact with a band from Ann Arbor, MI to come down and play a show with us in Indiana. A fiasco arises and they were unable to perform, leaving everyone to wonder if maybe Michiana just wasn't the right place for us. Around this time, our new website goes online.

o c t . 00 - m a r c h 01: Back on our feet again, we manage to play a show at the newly relocated Hoi Polloi (which we hadn't even seen in a year's time) and really proved ourselves as band of great change and maturity. Perhaps one of our best shows to date, the makeshift room/skate park was quite cold and heated with huge propane cannon heaters. By the end of our set, we managed to warm the place with our collective energies and gathered more names for our newly restored mailing list. We seemed to be on a roll until a dry spell of shows filled us with angst and left us at each other's throats. Bob cut a good portion of his thumb off at work [which threatened his ability to ever play drums again] and after a few weeks of therapy, he quits LARVAMIND for the popular bar band SPRAY PAIN. Meanwhile, juz10 begins work on his neo-Industrial/Synthetic Metal band, PROTOGAIA. Nixon was the driving force in pulling the band back together and by January, he was ready to quit. Then, cabin fevered led us to a Liquid Magazine sponsored festival show that went wrong in every sense of the word. Enough was enough and we all knew we had to pull together. Going from our worst show to one of our best in only a month's time had shown us just how passionate and caring we were about our music and that the future can only be brighter..