I’m Chris Rael, my friends call me Raelsy. Came from Maryland, big brain, big heart, wasn’t born with a lot of musical talent, but loved it so much I did nothing else and got good. Couple musicians from Long Island, Eric Miranda and Rob Johnson, came to live in Maryland(?!) for a while in the mid-80s, heard my weird naïve songs & decided I was a genius. Carried my stuff back to New York, where they played with drummer Brian Geltner in a group called Plugbunnies Inc. Young Kenny Siegal, incredibly talented guitar player, heard me through Plugbunnies. I was an alien voice in the soundtrack of his teen years. Kenny and Brian had a band called The Dogs, which recorded probably 500 songs. In late 80s I came to New York & started making music. Also lived in India, learned sitar & wrote Indo-pop songs for my band Church of Betty. Worked with a lot of great Indian musicians on rock n roll projects. In 95, got a call. “Hi, I’m Kenny Siegal. I’ve got a lot going on in the music business right now, I’ve been listening to you since I was 14, and I want to help you. Want to come to Long island and do some recording?†Well, sure. His studio, the Kennel, was set up in his parents’ basement. They’d put a microphone in the dryer to get weird effects & played amps so loud the house would ring like a tuning fork. It was very low-fi but sounded great, like nothing else. First thing we did was Neil Young cover ‘Barstool Blues’ on ‘Meet the Hand’ CD, still one of the best things we ever did. That was it, we started recording like obsessive freaks, not just ourselves, but also our friends & in each others’ other projects too. I found an empty room in an underground parking garage in an industrial building in Dumbo, Brooklyn, & we made it into the first recording studio in a building that now has 50 studios in it. The Hand and the Kennel was the beginning of the music scene in Dumbo. At the time Dumbo was a beautiful wasteland like a Hopper painting, how I miss that! The Hand made 4 ½ albums in less than 2 years. We were insane & it was great. Didn’t play a lot live, I blew my throat out trying to sing over the volume & Kenny & I both wrote so many songs that there wasn’t enough room in one band for all of them. So he made Johnny Society (which I also played in) & I kept doing Church of Betty. But we all know there was nothing quite like the Hand. The great Ed Pastorini of 101 Crustaceans and Jan Kotik of the original Mommyheads also played in the Hand. They were original members of Church of Betty too. I met Gwen ‘Blueberry’ Snyder and brought her into the Kennel; she became the bassist in Johnny Society. Gideon Kendall of the band Fake Brain did the first two great cartoon album covers, and the second pair was done by the beautifully hilarious Jessica Kane. Many of the great indie NYC bands in New York came to work in the Kennel, everyone wanted to be part of it. Great producer engineers Bryce Goggin and Danny Kadar both worked out of it. The Hand was never promoted & few people ever heard us, but we were the real thing & our music still sounds newer than what’s come out since. Brian Geltner does fantastic orchestrated solo instrumental work as Dr. Snitch, & plays in Nervous Cabaret & a lot of other groups. Kenny has a studio in Catskill NY called Old Soul & produces lots of good artists. Johnny Society & Church of Betty still exist, & I write for film & theatre too. We’re getting older, but can still go toe to toe with any punk out there. This site happened because of Mike Moses.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ah9I1n70w9E real editor best profile tools real editor best profile tools
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