Eternal Void - 1975-1977. E.V. was formed with my Rockford West High School friends, Jeff and Joe Fasula. Eternal Void was pretty much an experimental musical improvisation group. With Jeff on bass guitar, Joe on drums, and me on whatever was available to make noise with, (The Fasula family console organ was popular until I got my own keyboards) We would record live to Jeff and Joe's older brother’s 8-track cartridge recorder*. Under the name "E.V. Records", We were an ultra independent record label, designing and making our own albums and making copies for our friends.
We released our first album Death Of A Roman Tale on 10/26/75. I "played" keyboards, bass, brass bar, aerosol and alcohol bottle. Jeff played bass, lead and organ. Joe played percussion, milk cans and aerosol. (Spraying an aerosol can near a microphone made a cool white noisey kind of percussive sound)
Image Of The Night Crow was recorded 11/22/75, with me on my newly acquired PAiA modular synthesizer*, (I had to build it myself) and an hour later on that same day Sunspot was released.
We were on a roll, and recorded Coma on 12/21/75. I think I "sang" for the first time on this record.
Jeff’s Fender bass run through a Univox Super-Fuzz* pedal was an awesome and devastating weapon of musical mayhem. And Joe’s energy behind the gold glitter Slingerland skins could rival a young Keith Moon, and his creative rhythm patterns reminiscent of Bill Bruford. I was in over my head musically, but it sure was a lot of fun. None of us had any formal music training, so we had no rules when it came to creating music. Usually this was to our advantage. Sometimes not.
Then came the "Great E.V. Depression". We didn't record our next album until 03/13/77, when we released Moon Sliver. But it was well worth the wait. With the addition of my new Mellotron*, better recording techniques using Reel-to-Reel and Cassette overdubbing, and musicianship that far exceed all previous recordings, Moon Sliver was an avant-garde classic. The music is moody, soft, heavy, spacey, strange and beautifully melodic. It also includes some of E.V.'s best jams. It would be the last E.V. album and was the first E.V. album to be released on Compact Disc.
One day, while going through an old box of tapes, I was lucky to find and old reel-to-reel tape of a "Live" recording we made in 1976 with some previously unreleased material along with some classic E.V. standards. I did some editing, added crowd noise and applause with the intent to release it as the "lost live E.V. bootleg album". It's on DCC (digital tape) now, So maybe I'll design an album cover and release it on CD. I think Joe has some old group photos from the 70's, I'll see if I can get some from him.
I had tried to transfer the first 4 albums to CD in '02 or '03, but I had trouble finding an 8-track player that worked properly. And after the machine ate one of the tapes, (I was able to put it back together with minimal damage to the tape however the cartridge case had to be destroyed.) I gave up on the project. I sent the 4 original 8-tracks back to Joe in Florida.
I recently heard from Joe in August of 2008, He is once again trying to convert the fragile 8-track tapes to CD. However he informed me that his 8-track player again ate one of the tapes. With a little luck, he will succeed in saving these valuable historic recordings, even though they're really not that good.
Eternal Void was an incredible experience. It was so much fun, yet slightly stressful for me and my limited musical abilities trying to keep up with the amazingly talented Fasula brothers, but I would improve, and Eternal Void would evolve.
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