My first band was called Sledge. Sledge had stickers from Kinko's and a couple one color shirts made up before they had even found a drummer. We played together from 1989 until sometime in 1991. It's hard to remember exactly. It's hard to convey what a different time it was. Our first show was at the Rendezvous - The Jewel Box Theatre. It seemed like there were only a dozen or so bands playing around at the time. 

On February 23, 1989, Scott Wade, guitar player, having it on authority from a former bandmate Mike Mongrain - who, having dropped out of Woodway High School was currently securing his as yet un-established family's future in the navy was stationed in Japan and not playing drums - that a drummer of some unspecified talent was holed up at this residence, took it upon himself to make contact by driving to my parents house and knocking on the door. 

Mike and I grew up on the same street. He moved into the neighborhood at the age of 9 or so, and my brother Paul and I were at his house the next morning to find out if there were any kids that lived there that could "come out and play." A few years later Mike got a drum set. Every day, as I was coming home from my paper route, I would hear him playing. I don't remember him ever not being great.

After a few more years go by, in the summer between 7th and 8th grade when I bought my first drum set for 15 dollars, Mike was kind enough to stop by and impart on me some very valuable knowledge about which side of the snare drum the hi-hat goes on. I played all through jr. high and high school in band class, and then more when I got home. It never occurred to me to find a band to play in. I don't know why.

So, on my 21st birthday there was a knock at the door. I answered to find Scott Wade wanting to know if there was a drummer that lives here.

There were no emails involved. There were no cell phones. There were no iPods. There wasn't the term grunge.

No one had yet to utter the two words "Seattle scene" together. Andy Wood was still alive but Steve Ray Vaughn was dead. Jerry was still alive, but Nikki had "died" and so had the best parts of the Crue. Steven was still in GnR, Chad Channing was still the drummer in Nirvana, Monte, the first tranny I ever met, was still tending bar at the Vogue (which was still on First Ave) and that big, scary as fuck lesbian chic was still making drinks so strong at the Frontier Room that even though she would laugh at you, you had to go back and ask for more mixer in your drink.

There was no Crocodile, Rock CNDY, Sit n' Spin or Moe. There was no Showbox, either one, but there was the Offramp and the Squid Row. There was no Green Apple Quick Step or Sweetwater or Candlebox but there was Inspector Luv and Shot Gun Momma and First Thought.

And I had made my first connection.

We played for almost a year together before we booked our first show. In that time we did two recordings - one at Electric Eel in Georgetown and one at Reciprocal in Fremont. The latter of which had walls adorned with shelves and shelves holding boxed recording tapes with names like TAD, NIRVANA, SOUNDGARDEN, and MUDHONEY written in sharpie along the spines.  TAD, in particular, was of interest to me. I had met the drummer for Tad, Steve Weid (short for something like Weidermyer) at Sledge's "practice space" - which was another term that didn't exist. We called it Al's mom's basement, where Al Tompkins (bass player in Sledge) and Steve both lived.  When the long distance call from Steve during Tad's first tour of Europe came in, we stopped practicing and all gathered around the phone and listened as Steve gave us a play-by-play of how Tad had just done a stage-dive in Germany while their tour and label mates, Nirvana, were on stage. Tad weighs about 400 pounds. We all laughed and thought it was great. He MUST have killed some kids, thought.

We didn't know it was the beginning of the legends. It was just some guys we knew...

Drummer Geoff Reading — who writes a bi-weekly online column (Fridays) for the Weekly Volcano called “Holding Down the 253” in addition to his weekly Wednesday music column — has played music in tons of Northwest bands — Green Apple Quick Step, New American Shame, Top Heavy Crush and most recently Duff McKagan's LOADED — to name but a few. He's toured the world several times over, sharing stages with the likes of Slipknot, The Cult, Buckcherry, Korn, Journey, The Sex Pistols, Nine Inch Nails and on and on. He has called Tacoma home since 2005, and lives in the North End with his wife and son.