What we really were --- Happy Campers, the full picture!

Controlled Chaos

For the longest time, Happy Campers was me, myself, and I. I began to play music when I was 13, after deciding that I wanted to play Green Day songs on a guitar. For my 13th birthday, my mom and dad bought me a cheap Fender Stratocaster knock-off which I aptly named “Krusty,” because of the red Krusty the Clown sticker that I stuck to the pick guard. That first summer was hard because my uncle died of Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma cancer at 36 and we were really tight-knit. To cope with the loss, I began to write some rudimentary songs focusing on a couple of chords. The following year, I received a four-track tape recorder for my birthday because I was sick of the shitty Fisher-Price tape deck that I was using, and I wanted to multi track.

A lot can happen in a year, and by that point I mastered most of the major guitar chords and wrote a few recordable tunes. It was an organic process. Whenever I had an hour here or there, I would record my little tunes and teach myself how to mix after recording. This was the beginning of an eight-year run of recording. I used the name Happy Campers because my own sounded a bit dull, and I thought of the first nonsensical thing that popped in my head.

For the better part of this decade, Happy Campers remained as my brainchild that I turned to in times of stress or boredom. When I was 15, I upgraded to digital recording equipment with more mixing capabilities. I don’t know where I find the time to do this. From 2000-2007, I recorded, produced, and mixed over 70 of my own songs and released 6 albums. Though, the hard part is always finding people to play with.

In September 2006, I decided to give demos to a couple of my good college friends, Brian and Charlie, and we decided to jam a couple of times in the music building. After all, where else could we find a drum kit on campus that was already set up? The first practice was not too shabby, and we even did an impromptu cover of Joy Division’s chaotic track, “Shadowplay.” We decided to return to the space the following Friday after putting our noses to the daily grind ––– we ended up coming back every Friday for the rest of the year.

It was the culmination of each work week. Brian and I were living together at the time, so we would oftentimes test out guitar and bass parts in our apartment throughout the week. Fridays were always nice. I would wake up, go to my job (writing press releases), eat, go to Charlie’s radio show and hang out, and then play. His car was our chariot–––an ancient Chrysler LeBaron, probably from the late 80s. It was white with a red interior and smelled of the elderly because it was once his grandfather’s. We would load for about 15 minutes after shooting the shit in our apartment about music, Pee Wee Herman, Kids in the Hall, Wes Anderson movies, or any number of topics that came to mind. We are a pretty random bunch of lads.

Our practice space was a small, damp box that always reeked of B.O. and nickel. It would make sense to have foam insulation in the drum practice room, but no. Instead, wall-to-wall metal. Strike one against us. Strike two is the thermostat. It was never less than 90 degrees in the room and our guitars were always sharp as a result, not to mention all of the string breakage! Despite technical issues, we always managed to play as hard as our bodies would allow until we could go no further. Proof of that was our epic 10+ minute closing number in rehearsals and gigs, “Be Seeing You…”

It emerged as many of our greatest moments---in a random moment of improvisation. It gradually built from a feedback-drenched improvisation into a controlled monolith of unified sound. That was the essence of the band---controlled chaos. Even in the hardest times we were unrelenting in our execution. I remember a gig that we played at Denison University in late March 2007 when everything that could have possibly gone wrong went wrong. My guitar stopped working during soundcheck, so I borrowed Charlie’s elegant Gibson SG. Midway through the third or fourth song, I broke a string and continued playing the song! Miraculously, it did not go out-of-tune for the rest of the song and I borrowed Brian’s guitar for the rest of our set. He decided to play the SG with the broken string! I mean, if it stayed in tune, why not?

Song-after-song, we were in complete synthesis. Everything meshed so well that it was like we were sharing moments of ESP on stage. Then we went into “Be Seeing You…” and gave our friends a completely unexpected ride. We kept the song a secret for so long and then unleashed the sonic fury. Perhaps it was the frustration that we felt in the equipment disasters, but the final crescendo into a blur of pink guitar noise and militant snare drum thwarts made all of the trouble worth it. Then the storm calmed, I said my standard closing line, “Thanks, be seeing you,” and we gracefully walked off the stage as if nothing had happened. No matter how tired we were by the end of the week or how cold it was outside, it was always worth the trouble.

We kept playing because it was something we had to do, something that we had to get out of our systems to be alright. It was lonely being one of two campus bands and the only one playing our own blend of punk rock. But people always seemed to respond well even if they did not like the music. We shook things up in a place where people drift through the days idly. Some complained bitterly of being trapped on a small campus in rural Ohio. Most think that they are too cool to care, and some are upset but do nothing to change it. This was our act of protest, our battle cries. I think that Charlie, Brian, and I are three easy-going chaps who are obsessed with music and unsettled with the status quo. We are lucky to have crossed paths and become such good friends.

Our last gig was April 4, 2007 to a crowd of about 40 at our home-away-from-home, The Bandersnatch. It is a cozy spot on the eastern side of campus, a great student-run coffeehouse. We wore ties just because we felt like it. It was always a running gag to begin the shows with the lights dimmed, blasting some terrible song over the P.A. while we were not in sight. This time we chose the Night Rider theme. After a good two minutes, we nonchalantly walked onto the stage, tuned up, and began. It was not as strong of a set as the equipment malfunctions show, but we still retained our ferocious punch. My glasses didn’t fall off of my face this time during “Recurring Dream Scenario,” our most punishing number. After an excessively loud rendition of “Be Seeing You…,” we walked off stage, came back to do two encores, and called it a night. We thought that we would be playing again the following week, as well as several weeks after.

Things never go as planned though, and three gigs were cancelled at the last minute. Talks of expanding our E.P. from four-to-six songs was in the works, as well as early May dates in Columbus and early June dates across the eastern half of the United States. Sadly, nothing materialized. I graduated from Denison University with a B.A. in English Writing in mid May and now we are scattered.

Time was never on our side. But as the clock ticked, the songs got better. They became harder, faster, and more urgent. We played every one of our songs as if it was the last time. So really, there was no last time and Happy Campers never officially broke up. The project is in a state of hibernation. Even if we never had the chance to do the full-blown tours, we made our mark, if not geographically, then for our own piece of mind. We recorded several of our rehearsals that sound more like live albums than a group of friends making noise in a tin can.

Whether we resurface is irrelevant. What matters is the brief moment in time when we created a word-of-mouth buzz in our community, recorded a studio E.P., and played as hard as we could for ourselves. Success was never measured in album sales or myspace hits, but in the few people who saw us play and were unsettled, hungry for something different in a world where apathy was the standard. That made it worthwhile, and I don’t think that any of us will ever be the same.

*Alex K. Fencl, 8 July 2007
Cleveland, OH