Why would two (three) reasonably sane (don’t believe it for a minute) adults living across the country from each other want to start a band in this day and age? Let’s face it, travel and live performance are limited, and there are thousands of people trying to break into the music industry in hundreds of genres. 

Well, it’s really very simple. It is who we are. It is who we have been since we were old enough to recognize our own faces in the mirror. In other words, we were born this way.  

We grew up in the Ann Arbor, MI music scene when local legends like Bob Seger, Iggy Pop, the MC5, Deon Jackson, SRC, and the Rationals were inspiring every neighborhood kid with a guitar to start a band. And like every other neighborhood kid, we did… (mostly because our older brothers did and little brothers are very good at “monkey see – monkey do…”) Eventually most of the aspiring rockers gave up or moved on, either for school, sports or girls…but those who stayed the course found something they never expected. 

The dues you paid back in those days wasn’t only about shitty gigs, long hours on the road, roadside diners and the occasional strip club, (more on that later…) it was about the rich tapestry of memories and friendships, bound together so strongly, that have lasted to this day.  

In those days we’d drive 300 miles one way for a one-nite $150 gig, coasting back home in a rented truck at 5:00AM with a gas tank filled with nothing but fumes and a few bucks in our pockets. But, hey, we were playing music! 

We stuck to it (against our parent’s wishes, of course) and eventually built up to better, higher profile gigs, but quite often the arrangements and the accommodations were, let’s say, not on par…LOL. 

During an eight week summer tour in Europe, we were in the Burgundy region of France, (romantic sounding, we know…) We were put up for a week in a very rural farm house built just this side of the 15th century (and by our estimation probably hadn’t been cleaned since then) where the flies were just the beginning of our love affair with our surroundings. There was electricity, but that was about it. You had to boil water to shower, (not so easy with 8 guys and the host’s family…) There was barely a kitchen, a fridge that was about the size of a small filing cabinet, a WC (a toilet …) for necessary personal use, and plenty of beds and rooms to sleep in…if you could – the temperature was in the high 80s for our stay. AC? Showers? Hah! 

The first or second night in, we searched out ingredients from the local market to make a huge pot of spaghetti hoping it would be dinner for most of the week. Based on fading high school French we ended up making our famous “BoBo Getty” sauce exclusively from from tomato paste. It was like eating tart red glue with noodles in it. But all was not lost! 

Thank the Universe! Our host had laid in a 1/2 barrel of red wine for us (exquisite…we think…) and we proceeded to invent things to do until our next show (which was the end of the week…) One game was how many pebbles can you throw into another’s pocket, without them noticing, while sitting in the courtyard staring into space watching the heat waves shimmering off of the paved street running through the village.  

Another one of our favorite things to do was to walk about a quarter mile into the pasture nearby to a canal so we could cool off in the water. We played some frisbee among the cow pies, and drank a lot of wine. We culminated these activities by baptizing each other in the water, with the wine, of course!…(we had plenty of wine!!!) 

The most rewarding game came from our desire to combine the activities we enjoyed the most; drinking wine and playing frisbee, (sans canal and cow pies…) We started by setting up two cement blocks about about 30ft apart with a large bottle of Evian spring water on each block. You then proceeded to try and knock your opponent’s bottle off the their block by throwing the frisbee at it. If you did knock your opponent’s bottle over they had to – you guessed it – drink a cup of wine. Literally. (500ml cup LOL) If they knocked your bottle over, you drank and then continued to play on like this until one of you couldn’t knock the other’s bottle over. When that happened it was someone else’s turn to challenge the winner (or “he who still stands…”) Our road manager, The Flying Wedge, was usually the winner (HWSS) having defeated all comers. That’s a lot of wine…Needless to say the game was a huge success and we played it nightly… 

Over the years, we’ve met and performed with a lot of cool people, had a lot of fun, shared disappointments and adventures, and lived to tell the tale. We don’t talk with them every day, but we still are in touch with nearly all the people we’ve worked with since high school.  

In 2018, we organized a dinner party that brought together some of those friends and it was like nothing had changed. Old tour scrapbooks were shared as well as band t-shirts and so many stories and memories.  Some are no longer in the music business, but some are and they shared their current projects. Some are no longer with us, but they continue to inspire us in spirit. This reunion had quite an effect on us and we got to thinking about “Unfinished Business.” 

FTS began then, although we didn’t know it at the time, because those bonds of music, friendship and fun were still as strong as the day they were formed. We are living proof they can never be taken away. 

  …And we were born this way.