Blind Cats

For booking and other things contact Greg at:
[email protected]
“I met Greg Kowalczyk sometime back in the summer of ’03 through our mutual friend Trevor Wilburn( of Iron Imp). He turned out to be an experienced musician who had being playing since early childhood, specializing in guitar and piano. He’d been involved in various bands and music projects over the years (with Pink Noise continuing to this day) and was also a self-employed music teacher. Ever since I became an avid music listener in my early teens, I had always wanted to be in a band, particularly as a vocalist. However, I never went very far beyond singing along with music in my bedroom until my buddy Trevor showed me how to compose electronic music on the computer. I had great fun with this as a creative outlet and experimented with this haphazardly over the years but still longed to collaborate seriously with other musicians, in a traditional band sense. Greg and I remained friends and at one point, I remember trying out as a vocalist for an industrial project he had in mind. It didn’t feel suitable within that context and nothing came out of it, but we kept each other in mind for future collaborations.
Over the years my tastes changed and I started to realize that the instrument that satisfied me the most as a listener was bass, but I never seriously considered trying to learn an instrument, until I managed to figured out a few simple punk songs by ear. Inspired by this, I got a hold of Greg and had my first lesson on bass back in November of 2005. I enjoyed it immensely and soon acquired an electric bass of my own. I continued taking lessons over the next year and Greg had always talked about getting me involved in this rock’n’roll side project, which we started the following November. Greg was the guitarist and primary songwriter (studio engineer, drum programmer etc.) while I took on the role of vocals, writing lyrics and following along on bass. Out of this came our first two songs “one time victim” and “I ain’t growin’ a chin.”
The electronically sequenced drums sounded decent enough on our early recordings but we craved the versatility of a live drummer. I had always secretly had it in the back of my head that if I ever got involved with a band that needed a drummer, I would get a whole of my old high school friend Mark Pylypzcak. Since graduating we had fallen out of contact but I managed to get his email through another old mutual friend and invited him out for a jam in the spring of ‘07. He seemed interested enough and we were extremely impressed by his performance. He was well versed in various drumming styles, especially jazz and had a real talent for improvisation, and he picked up our songs really quick. In spite of his differing tastes in music, he seemed to enjoy playing with us and we’ve been jamming and writing ever since.
So we slowly kept incorporating new material and covering other artists whom we found inspiring but we hit a seriously hurdle when trying to come up with an original band name that we could all agree on. We went through lists and lists for a period of over six months and after much frustration, eventually settled on “Blind Cats.” (or the Blind Cats). We played our first live show in June 2008 and have been playing live ever since, wherever we can get our foot in the door. We’re an amalgamation of our influences and the sum of our three unique personalities. I personally believe that a sound rooted in the whole rock’n’roll paradigm is still worth pursuing, especially when incorporating other styles ( blues, jazz, surf, funk, latin, and of course old school punk rock in particular). We’re interested in exploring what we love from the past and recombining that into something new, rather than just blindly miming current trends. However, we’re still open to exploring any style that really gets us off and fits well within a trio format. We are currently putting the finishing touches on our first, self-produced album and playing shows sporadically, throughout the GTA.” -Jeff MacIntosh