About Me
Did we rip off Deadguy? Yep. Did we borrow heavily from Turmoil and Eyehategod? You bet. Did we steal from Coalesce? We sure tried. What came out was a weird sound all it's own: the hard streets of Depew mixed in with the Galleria Mall, a dash of middle America West Seneca, seasoned with lots of beer, soda, snacks from Turbo's mom, and Roseanne and Saved by the Bell re-runs.
Sipo first started out as Self Infliction in 1997. We were all WAY into like Eyehategod and southern rock, and it definitely showed in the songs. They were about 5 minutes long apiece, and full of overblown sludgey parts that just went on forever. ("Epics", Doug Watchmen called them.) Our first demo sucked and forever remains a part of 90s Buffalo kitsch.A year or so later we ditched the SI songs and decided it was time for a change: new songs, new name. Because, well, everyone knew we sucked. I was a huge fan of NYPD Blue and Sipowicz was my favorite TV character of all time (aside from Dan Conner). I threw the name around for awhile, and it finally stuck one night when I got pulled over for doing 55 in a 25 before we were about to go on at Kendzie's, and the cop let me go scott free because I told him our band's name was "Sipowicz" and he was a huge NYPD Blue fan. Fate intervened; the name stuck.We played all over town whenever we could, it was our fuckin life. For the first Sipowicz demo, it was the definitive lineup: Turbo (Todd) on the mic; Luke (me) on drums, Noj (Jon) on guitar, Rusty (Chris) on "bass", and Joe on guitar/backups. We'd play any show, no matter how awful. Most shows ended up with lots of beer and other objects being thrown, smashing of copious amounts of our own equipment, people on each other's back, bodies being thrown, fists flying, you get the idea. A fucking beautiful disaster. Most shows, by the last song, all you'd hear is the drums because all the guitar chords would be ripped out of the amps and everyone would be on the floor. It was more fun than you could possibly fathom, just absolute anomie.After awhile, friends of ours joined another band (Now She's Gone) and Joe quit the Sip to go play with them. We picked up Ryan "Drunken Orgy of Destruction" Pernatt and he filled in on guitar. Noj left for the army, the thing started to fall apart like the lyrics from "Summer of 69" by Bryan Adams. We did a second demo in 99 with Ryan, some all new songs and some songs we'd written with the original lineup. (Vol. 2 demo) After a while, the olllll magic just wasn't there anymore without Joe and Noj and it just kind of got old, so it went kablooey. We played our last show in late 99 in Joe Kronik's living room, which we summarily smashed the shit out of.I'm sure I speak for everyone when I say some of the best times of our lives were had in this band, we just didn't give a fuck, didn't need to impress anyone. It was all about having fun and then destroying wherever we were playing and taking down everyone with us. Thanks to all our friends and all the bands who came to see us or played with us, got hurt, got down, drank beer and helped us out over those few years. It was a fuckin blast, and I for one wouldn't count out a reunion show at some point, ya never know. Feel free to download these songs, share some stories or make fun of what a fat fuck I was in those days. Good times. (1997-99)-Luke
