It all started when Bryan and I bumped into each other again in Champaign. We'd been buddies in highschool over in Springfield, Illinois, and played in some attempts at bands. And then years went by and we didn't keep in touch at all. But it happened that he'd been in a band that broke up at about the same time a band I was in broke up, and I'd decided I wanted to try this metal thing just for grins. So we agreed to form something and went looking for a drummer and a singer.
We'd auditioned a very young girl Bryan worked with at C.V. Lloyde's named Ginger, and while she was good, she didn't really know the songs we knew and things just didn't click.
Meanwhile, I'd seen Rose in her band Headlines and, sorry Sean, thought she was quite a bit better than the rest of the band. I don't think Bryan was too impressed on first impression, but then I finally convinced him to audition her. We also happened to have lined up a new drummer to try out that same night, Dave Clawson. And it came to pass that everything really did click that night. We were immediately able to play probably at least a set of songs together. And the rest is history.
Bryan had plenty of contacts from his previous bands and we probably had our first gigs booked within a few weeks of starting to practice together.
We were together for probably about two years from say 1988 to Jan of 1991, went through three drummers (Dave, Doug Gherna who is shown in the old poster here, and finally Jeff Markland), stayed out way too late and had tons of fun. It all ended a bit early when Rose decided to hang up her rock'n'roll spurs and get married and have kids. Central Illinois sure lost a great performer.
Getting back together for a reunion in June of 2007 though she sounded just as good as when she retired in 1991. You can see pics and videos from that elsewhere on this site.