Charlie McClain - Bass/Vocals
John Kluff - Guitar on #1-#9
David Krueger - Violin/Vocals
Max ??? - Guitar on #10-#19
Adam Glogauer - Drums #3-#19
Now William was around from '89 to '92 or so, my memory is a little fuzzy. Can't remember anyone else ever sounding like these guys and the first time I met Charlie and David I think they were wearing overalls which helped sell it even more. Below is a collection of unreleased 4-track and live demos, I believe it's everything they recorded prior to their cd. If anyone knows a detailed history of the band, please write it in the comments below. Enjoy!
Now William - Demos (Unreleased)
1. Soaring (1st Demo)
2. Blue (1st Demo)
3. Home (4-track recording)
4. Hold On (4-track recording)
5. Flying By (4-track recording)
6. Blue (4-track recording)
7. Soaring (4-track recording)
8. Auction Song (4-track recording)
9. Brian's Song (4-track recording)
10. Unknown Title (WOW Hall board demo)
11. Mother (WOW Hall board demo)
12. Irish Song (WOW Hall board demo)
13. Untitled (WOW Hall board demo)
14. Gypsy Song (WOW Hall board demo)
15. Can't Say That (WOW Hall board demo)
16. Flying By (WOW Hall board demo)
17. Auction Song (WOW Hall board demo)
18. Metal Song (WOW Hall board demo)
19. E (WOW Hall board demo)
The first incarnation of Now William formed in Joseph, Oregon, likely around 1984-85, when I was away for a year as an exchange student. It seems that the name in part came from a song the Benji Heiney sang super imposed over Wang Chung's "Fun Tonight".... Hey Now, Hey Now William. I'm guessing at the time that Now William was Benji Heiney, Tyler Hays, Brian Coughlan and Charlie McClain (and possibly Andrew Crenshaw). I'll have to ask all of them for their recollections. They'll likely correct me all over the place, but me putting this up here forces them to set the record straight on anything I may have incorrect. In any case, in it's early inception, I think Now William was more of a concept of a band then a band and I don't know that they played any shows. All aforementioned people, myself and a couple other "Joseph boys" ended up in Eugene, either at UofO or Lane Community college. Tyler and Brian's version of the band played some house parties circa-1986/1988, during freshman/sophmore years at UofO. One of those parties I attended included them playing at least one Joy Division cover and also featured well know street character Zeus (RIP) as one of the acts on the bill. During that time Charlie McClain had moved to Medford to live with his dad, started playing bass a lot and taking lessons and that's where he hooked up with Dave Krueger (violin). When they moved to Eugene after they finished high school in 1988, the incarnation of Now William that became so popular started to gel. Both Charlie and Dave treated the band really seriously and they cycled through a few members early on, including John Kluff (sp?) on guitar, as they kept trying to find a line-up they could be happy with. Early versions of the band mixed in a lot of covers with their own songs including, the Door's "LA Woman", Bauhus "Bela Lugosi's Dead", Donavan "Season of the Witch", Ozzy Osbourn "Crazy Train", and Sir Mix-A-Lot "Hip Hop Solider". They finally recruited Max as their guitarist and Adam as their drummer. Infighting in the band eventually broke them up, and Charlie and Max grabbed a drummer they liked to form Elgin which put out a single on Grinning Idiot Records. I ended up grabbing the other pieces of the band, Dave and Adam as they formed Jasper and put out their CD on my new label Ruckus Records, in 1994. The Cherry Poppin' Daddies grabbed Adam for a bit for some of their touring needs and Jasper broke up a couple months after I put the CD out. David went on to work a lot with Mike Johnson of Snakepit and later Mark Lanegan, solo and Dinosaur Jr. fame, recording on quite a few albums. Max and the Elgin drummer split off from Charlie to form Porchfire for a brief stint then he moved to New York for a while and some of Max's work ended up on Tyler Hay's specialty CDs that he sold out of his new furniture design store BDDW (now quite successful). Charlie set his bass down to become a journeyman and didn't pick it back up until he had accomplished his objective. He still lives in Eugene and continues to be involved in various music projects. His soundcloud is here - https://soundcloud.com/charlie-mcclain
ReplyDeleteCharlie's bass playing and singing styles remain amongst my favorites.