MOBY DICK

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I need to exorcise some demons after a massive bout of nostalgia… This time I'm going to go off the rails and tell you a little about myself, or rather, about Moby Dick, my first band, and I think it's the one with which I went the furthest and had the most potential. From time to time, I slip in a reference or comment about this group, and many ask me for more details or if I can upload recordings.

 

 

 

Moby Dick was formed around '94 or '95 by Juan José Zabalgoitia, Juan Francisco Sánchez, and me. We were three teenage kids (13, 14 years old) who shared a deep admiration for the Beatles and '60s Classic Rock. We'd known each other since kindergarten, lived a few blocks away, and all three of us played guitar. We didn't really deepen our friendship until we started the group, but they would both become my two best friends.

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The ramshackle trio was still far from professional. Three self-taught adolescents with old acoustic guitars. Afternoons spent at someone's house, trying out songs, copying chords, learning, learning. That's how I managed to roughly master the guitar, and that's how I learned to sing. Soon after, instead of the three of us repeating the same thing, we divided up tasks. One played the deep vocals, another the lead, another tried backing vocals, we tried choruses... we discovered this thing called harmony.

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Juan Francisco was light years ahead of us on the guitar. I remember in third grade, he always carried a guitar almost bigger than him hanging from his back. "Strange kid," I thought. In high school, while Juan José and I were just mastering the fretboard, Juan Francisco already knew the entire Beatles discography. When we got together, he was in charge of the solos.

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Those afternoons of rehearsal at 13 or 14 were learning experiences in every sense. Not only did we become great friends, but through guitars and the Beatles, we also discovered the entire basic repertoire of 60s rock: The Rolling Stones, Creedence, the Doors, The Animals… Each song was a universe, and we had to break it down as best we could, reviewing it in detail to be able to reinterpret it in our “Unplugged” style. That's when I developed an ear, in case you're wondering how I pick up so many details about the songs in the reviews. Then came Zeppelin, Hendrix, Pink Floyd…

 

 

Of course, back then we weren't called Moby Dick. We changed the band name almost every week, and none of them suited us. The three of us sang, with the lead role being taken by whoever's voice best suited us. I generally sang the lower tones of Morrison or Jagger, Juan Francisco sang the higher tones for the songs sung by McCartney, and Juan José sang the mid-tones. The others sang backing vocals. We paid to play, but little by little, we started playing at fairs, parties, school events, and wherever else we could. People were amazed: a bunch of hippie kids in the midst of grunge effervescence!!!

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Around that time, I started keeping a kind of event log, which eventually became a band diary. That was incredibly important now that I think about it, since it was the first extensive descriptions of the gigs that gave me the confidence to later try my hand at fiction, long stories, and my own lyrics. That love and flair for writing would later lead me to create La Caverna, but it all stemmed from those band diaries, which unfortunately have been lost forever.

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Shortly before entering high school, we had a golden opportunity to acquire instruments to become a real band. A little common sense led us to realize that buying three electric guitars wouldn't get us anywhere, and that Juan Francisco should definitely stick with the guitar for his talent, so Juan José and I took a chance, drawing lots for the drum and bass positions. As fate would have it, I ended up with the four strings and he with the sticks. The fact is that this chance led me to teach myself the bass, too, with the basics I had on guitar. That's how I acquired Eleanor, my inseparable Gibson SG bass.

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We also found a place to rehearse. Once, an angry neighbor threatened us with a gun while we were playing "Twist & Shout," and with that teenage recklessness, we simply ducked and continued playing even louder. The next day, we found a bullet hole and moved. With the first electric rehearsals came Cream, attempts at Deep Purple... but there was still a gap. So several support guitarists came along, but they never really fit in with us. It wasn't until I happened to hear a guy masterfully playing the intro to "Light My Fire" on the keyboard. I was deeply impressed, and almost without knowing him, I invited him to the group. That's how Jorge Hernández, keyboardist and sometimes second guitarist, came in, and with him we found our final lineup. A long time later, George would tell me that he was just bluffing that day and that he didn't really know how to play the keyboard; he learned from then on just to stay in the band. He was actually very good, very intuitive, and with him on the keyboard, we were able to greatly expand our Doors catalog; he played a masterful version of the Animals' "The House of the Rising Sun," the baroque beauty of "A Whiter Shade of Pale," and the harpsichord solo in the Beatles' "In My Life." He was adept at other instruments and would occasionally replace me on bass so I could focus on singing songs, like on "I Will Survive," with Cake's difficult bass riff. He also played flute, which we eventually used for "Nights In White Satin." For that song, Juan Francisco, also a multi-instrumentalist, put down his guitar and switched to the keyboard. We ended up with a really cool cover. We played "Build Me Up Buttercup," "Love Me Two Times," "Come Together," "Light My Fire," "Hey Joe," "Love Her Madly," "Satisfaction," "Let It Be," and "Stairway To Heaven," on which Juan José sang and Juan Francisco switched to drums, among others.

 

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Anyway, that's where I learned to first pick the tones, then improve my technique, discover names like Jack Bruce, John Paul Jones, and John Entwistle, and finally fall in love with the bass (no pun intended), then play the lines exactly as in the original songs, and then add my own touches without messing them up. Juan José mastered the drums; we never realized that Jorge couldn't play the keyboard (or the harmonica, mandolin, accordion, flute, whatever came his way), because he did his homework and improvised excellently. Juan Francisco became a tremendous guitarist, perhaps the best I've ever played with, capable of incendiary requintos and even playing the guitar with his teeth or with it on his back. He also perfectly imitated the gestures and postures of Clapton or Hendrix, which drove us crazy. We weren't exactly stage-jumping types, but people loved the band; we had chemistry and some charisma. Before we knew it, Saturday rehearsals were packed with people coming to hear us. We played at parties, and people were truly impressed to hear 16 or 17-year-olds playing so well. The problem was precisely that we were too young, and we couldn't play in bars. I remember once, the four of us sneaked into a bar one Saturday night, almost at dawn, asked for a chance to play, and they asked us to wait until the last set. We played because the bar was closing and almost empty of customers because they thought we'd sound horrible, but the owners of the bar and the guys from the regular band were astonished and excited to hear us. They asked us to come back the following week, but the subject of ages came up. I would later find out that the band we impressed was the legendary Meduza.

We even played in Mazamitla at Casa Luna, we were on the radio several times for a program that aired on Saturdays on Sonido 103, and we even did a tribute to the 30th anniversary of the Beatles rooftop concert on the roof of the station, with cars honking their horns when they saw us from the roundabout... We didn't achieve anything really important; we played at the cultural market, at many parties and school events, we opened for La Dosis in the middle of a forest in Mazamitla and the press praised us... By then we had already found our destination.

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I think what I'm most proud of was one of the shows we played at the now-defunct Peña Cuicacalli. We had three bands playing, and we were never able to contact one of them, so we made a deal with the other band, who unilaterally decided they were the main event and would be the headline act. Since the others never bothered to contact us, we decided they were the opening act and Moby Dick would be the ham in the sandwich. We arrived that night, and to our amazement, dozens and dozens of bikers started arriving—real bikers with leather jackets, chains, Harley Davidsons, and older guys in shorts. The other idiots talked to the band that never contacted us and told them they were the opening act, which they agreed to without question. It was none other than Toncho Pilatos, a local legend, a local LEGEND. A cult local hard rock and prog band that had been around since the early 70s. The bikers went to see them. Toncho almost brought down the club with his performance. We followed. To our amazement, not only did they not beat us with chairs, chains, or knives, as we thought, but they loved it, both the bikers and the Tonchos, and they even asked for encores. I remember we closed with "Stairway To Heaven," and we did an absolutely spectacular version, extending the requintos and with George putting on a light show with some magnesium bars he'd stolen from the university lab... We left to a huge applause, and doing it in front of Toncho's incredibly difficult audience, a cult band, I think was the pinnacle for me; it meant more than opening for La Dosis at their farewell concert. The third band was an electronic hardcore group that emptied the place with their first song. They recorded an album of that performance, but I never found out who kept it. Anyway, soon after, we started writing our own songs. Juan Francisco and I. Juan José was more inclined to stick with covers, but we weren't really into it anymore. We didn't get to do much, just a few songs with a strong Brit Rock influence, some blues, and a touch of psychedelia.

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​​Moby Dick broke up due to distance. We were also a little tired of the routine, but I think if we had continued, and especially if we had moved forward with our own songs, the band would have had a lot of potential. For better or worse, Juan José and I went on a social project for a year in the Sierra Tarahumara. When we returned, it wasn't the same, and shortly after, George went to France to pursue a master's degree, and then moved to Montreal. Juan Francisco followed him, who went to New Jersey for a two-month vacation that hasn't ended yet, passing through London, Los Angeles, Chicago, and currently (2017) back in New York.

 

Afterwards, I started other projects, a trova duo with Juan José called Trovadictos, and then another rock band called Plastic Soldiers, the last project I was in. But without in any way detracting from the great musicians and friends I was with in Plastic Soldiers, my nostalgia lies with Moby Dick. Maybe because of my age, because of the great friendship with all of them, maybe because it was with them that I learned much of what I know today about music, but I don't think I've ever had as much fun as I did during those long rehearsals that stretched into the wee hours, with beer cans piling up. Besides, Juan Francisco is still an exceptional musician, with whom I've had the greatest musical chemistry in my life. We read each other's minds, and he often reminded me of the Bruce-Clapton duo (with due distance!!!) during the long blues improvisations we would throw ourselves into. In 2009, the stars aligned for a reunion of the four of us, rusty, with a lot of forgotten material, but how much fun we had. Since then, we've gotten together several times, three of us, but the four of us haven't been together anymore.

 

 

 

Anyway, these days I've been feeling melancholy and remembering this period in particular. Nostalgia for what was, but also for what could have been, for the "What Ifs" and for the potential that band had. But things happen for a reason...

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By Corvan

Mar/30/2011

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