autobiographylong story short:
inspired by ben folds/andrew wk/prince/queen/saves the day, one boy made some songs in his bedroom in 2005. from there he slowly started adding and swapping members until he had built his ideal six piece rock machine. the band reached the ears of tons of listeners of all shapes and sizes around the world, including Mike Green (Paramore, The Matches, Good Charlotte), who recorded three songs for them in LA in the summer of 2007. the band continues to party hard on a daily basis.
short story long:
i (joe) was born in a trailer park in south carolina. the park was next to this lake with alligators in it. real, live alligators!! luckily, i was moved up north to ohio as a baby before i got eaten by a gator. i decided to play the guitar in eighth grade right after my house burnt down. my best friend (matt) decided to play bass so we could start up our partnership in rock. we played punk music, mostly at a venue run out of a columbus comic book store, for the next five years. the comic book store was run by this dude named keith who claimed the comic book store was going to close down on a bi-weekly basis, although it kept on truckin. more times than not, we ended up playing with another local punk band in particular; this band had a building of a bassist (nick manos), a bassist who appreciated the white stripes on the same level i did (joe fitzgerald), and a drummer who never stopped headbanging (jeremy). often times, you could find a girl with an everclear tattoo and hippie-length hair (andi) hanging out at this comic book store at the shows the two aforementioned bands would play. one day, this venue did really shut down because some bad apple kids vandalized nearby buildings and keith couldn't afford to pay all the fines. not too long after this, both of the punk bands reached their final days as well. i still had some song ideas lurking around and decided to record them by my lonesome with a cheap computer mic. i had no intention of making a real band out of this until a friend of a friend came up with the band name "This Is My Suitcase", and i instantly fell in love with the name. i loved the name so much that i made the name into my band. at the time, i had been "jamming" (for lack of a better word) with my friend, geronimo. it was generally assumed that 'the band' would, by default, be comprised of myself, geronimo, and matt (since he was my partner in rock for so long). matt put down his bass for piano, but i still felt something was missing; percussion! around this time, my friends and i were holding weekly kickball tournaments at a park, so i did the logical thing and recruited andi, one of my kickball teammates at the time, to play tambourine and sing. soon after, geronimo completely disappeared for a few months and was nowhere to be found by anyone (dont worry; hes back now!). since our little indian was missing in action, we replaced him with nick manos as our new lead guitarist. simultaneously, i was finishing up the This Is My Suitcase full length, Missent to Thailand. at this point in time, our two biggest advocates/fans/cheerleaders were a tiny girl who loved cats named mary lynn and justin pierre (of Motion City Soundtrack fame). justin was forcing us on people left and right, which helped us get tons of recognition at the perfect time; ipso facto, hes a sweetheart. over the next year, our little suitcase kept getting bigger as we added two members of nick manos's ex-band to our lineup, jeremy and joe. i also kept recording new songs at a gross pace, which turned into two free online EPs, The C ep and The CREep. in early 2007, we played a show with ultra-rock band, The Matches. justin pierre had whispered to them about us, and so they made sure to watch our set. to our delight, they loved it! horray! several weeks later, The Matches went to Los Angeles to record with their friend, producer, and engineer, Mike Green. they told him that they enjoyed our set a heck-of-a-lot and he should check us out; it turned out that Mike enjoyed our tunes as well! in fact, he invited us to come to his studio in the summer and record three demos with him for free. what a gentleman! we were flattered and took the next skybus flights out to california. mike rerecorded three songs that were originally found on Missent to Thailand. little did i know, our sessions at the greenroom would be the last time i would be in a band with my longtime sidekick, matt. he left for arizona to expand his knowledge of pharmacy, leaving us a vacant spot behind the keys. as lady luck would have it, our biggest fan, mary lynn, is somewhat of a piano prodigy. she practically accepted the position in the band before i even finished asking her the question, thus completing the TIMS legacy (for now)! and there you have it! ill add to this if anything especially wild happens.
Nick from The Palestra did a video piece on us! it includes our video for the stray, as well as some sick lightning graphics and an interview with me. the interview portion is totally awkward because i am socially inept; example: 2:50 into the video where i start nervously yanking at my curly non-existant sideburns...i digress..
music! we have released several free online eps.
you can find various songs from them posted on this myspace and
purevolume.com. .
our full length,
Missent to Thailand, was our first release (2006).
the remaining copies are available at shows for $5.
it sounds different than we do now.
it sounds more like The Basement 2 Demos than Figure 8.
the album has thirteen songs and enhanced content. nice one!
merch! we have some totes cute shirts! more to come!
get to a show and get one!!
spread the word!if you want to help us spread the word about TIMS, just post the banners below on your myspace pages/bulletins/whatever. thanks!
for LOTS more This Is My Suitcase banners, visit the myspace page of our official street team here:
the caselings elite! while you are there, you should JOIN the caselings!! we'd love to have ya! when you are on the street team, you get exclusive songs and videos and extra love from us, meanwhile all you have to do is spread the word 'bout our rock!
Banners: (to put these banners on your page, copy and paste the code in the white box into your 'about me' section):
contact if you have to get ahold of us for questions, concerns, or just to say hi,
my screenname is :
i am the partae and my email address is
[email protected] bye! thanks for stopping by!
joe, this is my suitcase
