in a galaxy far far away, there lived three bad roommates in a house in atwater california.

the year was 1994. the beastie boys were recording their last great record a quarter mile away. my roommates were greg vaine, the finest lead guitar player in hollywood at the time, and jeff whalen who liked to wear david hasslehoff capes.

not everything was perfect in our lovely home. jeff and greg were working out songs for a band they were forming, i was lonely and dateless, and when the northridge earthquake hit we could all sense the pressure of being young bachelors in close quaters.

so instead of fighting i suggested that we go down into our tiny basement practice room and deliver angry rock covers to the gods as the afterquakes continually rollicked our abode.

after weeks of playing all the party hits we knew, we realized we had something. it wasnt great, but it was decent, and there was no pressure and no expectations. it was fun, it was dumb, and it was funny.

we called ourselves Chopper One after the news helicopters that reported on the madness that hit our fine city that year: floods, fires, and quakes.

we decided to play our debut to our friends in our home.

greg videotaped it.

dan kern and marc brown, among others were in attendence.

if you click the picture above of miss mexico, miss lebanon, and miss albania you will see us rip through lenny kravitz’s classic hit of the day.

the video is bad and the audio is worse, but perhaps you can witness some of what was, until now, the unearthed glory that was Chopper One.

or you could just click here

jeff whalen’s new band tsar comes out with their second cd on june 7

and yes, tsar is the band that youve seen recently in the new nestle crunch/napster commersh.

greg vaine‘s anniversary with molli is today. happy anniversary kids!