Alan Olson broke his neck in a car wreck in 1999 or so, and was stuck in the hospital for six months braced to a table in Spectrum Butterworth, while the male nurses had their way with him. That was followed up by another six months in one of those halo thingies. Rumor started about that time that Alan was learning to play the bass guitar, mostly because he was “tired of television”….So he and Jimmy from Comcast decided to attempt a few tunes, as Jimmy was a Niles “Mel-Bay, Chuck Day” gradiate on the guitar, which, translated, means he played the thing for over 20 years and still hasn’t figgered the whole instrument out to this day, especially the whole tuning thing. This led to one of the first times playing together, in a broken down tenement house in the part of town Steven Perry dubbed “South Detroit” (Actually, it was at Alan’s house on Eastern, NE side of Grand Rapids). Also present, if memory serves, were one Tim Walton on electronic drums, and Brandon, who we refer to affectionately as “B”. B’s buddy Steve was also there on guitar….all of which were acoustic. We were in some walk- in closet of some sort. First song out of the chute: “Take the Skinheads Bowling”, by the band that was later Camper Von Beethoven…. After playing it with Jimmy singing, they all sat there impressed with themselves. So…..Richard Proffer set them up in a more acceptable environment (his basement), with upgraded equipment (an actual drum set for Tim!), and from this configuration, the always lovely Megan Grimm was enlisted to put the shine on that band of Alan (bass), Jimmy (guitar), Brandon(guitar) and Tim(drums), which neglected to really have a name, although it might have been decided by less than a majority of the band at some point that it would be called “The Drummer’s Hung”, which almost certainly was proposed by Tim the drummer. Other names were also bandied about, such as “Stiffy” and a few others. We even had a “name this band” party (“Log Jam”, Jan ’02), where a new name wasn’t picked, but there was a stripper there. Several fun people floated in and out of the tapestry during these early days including Slowpoke, Megan 2, Wes the angry drummer, and the very classy Miss Jen Nordby. 

 

As with many bands, tumult reared it’s head and there were some personnel changeups. Eventually, the whole thing was in pieces. Not to be deterred, Alan and Jimmy put the new lineup together which officially debuted (after only one rehearsal in Jimmy’s garage three doors down from the gig) as “Coulda Woulda Shoulda” on July 10th, 2003, at Michelle Harris’ pool party, on Foster Street in Grand Rapids (right next to Danny Parm’s old house). And what a stellar lineup and performance it was! Jimmy, Alan, and Jimmy’s older bother Dean were on board, and Jimmy’s brother- in- law Stanley (who is a much more talented guitarist) was slightly coerced to play “just this one gig”. And the lead singer was times THREE. Megan Grimm from the beginning, Jen Nordby from the early days, and naughty newcomer Sarah DeShaw (Wait….this is starting to sound like the trailer for an adult film). Several events followed this highly successful (and “free”) gig, including moving from Jimmy’s garage to a decent practice studio, Danny Parm’s lawyer party, two trips to Whiskey Creek in Scottville (one was successful, the second one, a girl came up during a break and said “my dad gave me twenty bucks to tell you that you suck”), Lowellpalooza, and a Grandville Schools teacher party.