I finally have a bunch of web hosting space that I can upload the complete Pettycoat archive to. Plus, mp3.com has started charging for hosting, so...

Re-listening to these mp3's now three years after the band broke up, I'm still impressed by the music we made. It was honest, passionate, unique, special... Our ability to express emotions from elation to loneliness and everything in between is what really blows me away. We were very musical and I think if we stuck with it and actually worked hard, we could've done something important in the musical landscape.

You can download the music on Pettycoat.com. Be sure to check out Christina Rubino's latest.

Here's a brief history of the band as I remember it. Please note all the various Christine's, Christina's, and Mike's. It's hard to keep track.

In December of 1993 or January of 1994, my friend Christine White told me about her friend's band that was looking for a bass player. I said I'd try out. My friend Mike Mazucci (now Mike Mambala) had borrowed my main bass to play High School Sing with, so I went down with my acoustic/electric bass guitar and tried out.

aside: I'm happy to say I saw Sing the next day and they were excellent. For the first time in the history of Sheepshead Bay High School (which I had just graduated from) the Junior/Sophomore Sing won. I think Mike was a junior at the time. My lifelong friend Claude Hunt played drums.

I showed up at Ace London studios & met Christina Rubino for the first time. I knew Dawn Bernard (drums) already. I was feeling pretty confident and we went through the two songs they knew... A song called Grace that Christina (guitar, vocals) wrote & Fade Into You by Mazzy Star. I kept having to hide behind the PA system because my acoustic bass would feed back. Both songs were 3 chords.

Later on I found out that they were "shitting their pants" because Christine White told them that I was a really good bass player. I don't know how good I was, I had been playing for 3 or so years at the time, and couldn't even tune my bass, but I guess I was a fairly solid player.

Soon after, I bought a Kramer 8-string bass (like a 12 string guitar it has 4 strings doubled), and I played it exclusively with the band. Our songs fit the 8 string bass, they were raw, with lots of room to breathe. The bass took up a lot of sonic space, and it fit the music great. Our main influences were PJ Harvey and Mazzy Star, though I never really listened to either of them.

After a while, Dawn left the band and we started looking for a drummer. A lot of people came down the studio to hang out & watch us play, and one of them introduced us to Christine Iovine. She tried out. I still remember driving her home & telling her she got the part. I didn't have to ask Christina Rubino, I knew it in my bones.

Our playing took on a new dimension with Christine, and I acquired a new bass, my Music Man Sabre, that I again started to play exclusively. Where before our music was very dark, our music now began to take on a different tone, more passionate and self aware.

We played our first shows with Christine. I think we would've been content to play for our friends in the rehearsal studio for the rest of our lives... playing was such a joy. But our friends in Dead Air (John Lamacchia & Michael MacIvor have gone on to play in Canderia, and Doctor Wayne Banner is in Master of None now) asked us to play a show with them. Since they were able to make up the band list for the night, they put us on it.

Through shameless self promotion & telling everyone they know, Christine and Christina managed to pack "The Batcave" at Downtime to capacity. I remember seeing a sea of heads that extended even to the balcony. Neville Wells (the promoter) said it was the largest crowd he'd ever seen at 8:00 on a Friday night. Needless to say, we were very welcome at The Batcave from then on.

It was around this time that I discovered melody. One day I was playing my bass and "discovered" the beauty of the major 11th (aka the major 3rd). It wasn't much later that Christina took came to the studio with an idea she wanted to turn into a song, just an A major chord at first.

Sort of embarrased, I wrote a riff around that chord. I asked them what they thought of it & they said they liked it and it stuck. That song became Remember and my playing took a new turn. I was all about melody now. Soon after that we wrote Rocket, D Song, Indians, and others. Songs that were a joy to play, and I think really expressed a bittersweet happiness you rarely find in music. People would come up to me after shows and say things like "how do you get those sounds to come out of your bass?" I didn't play like a normal bass player. I don't think we did anything "right" in the conventional sense, but everyone said we were talented, even if we weren't skilled. Listening to this music now, it reminds me of the Smashing Pumpkins, another band I don't really listen to.

Christine quit the band to go off to college, which devestated us. I remember showing up for rehearsal one day after she'd quit & seeing Christine behind the drums. I was so elated thinking she was back to stay, but she was just here to play one last show.

So, looking around for a drummer, this time it was a friend of a friend of mine. Mike Neider. I'd hung out with him when we were in high school. He was a solid drummer with an over-the-top feel that fit our music perfectly. We recorded our first EP with Mike in 1997 and even had photos taken. Mike showed up for rehearsals a couple of times in his terrycloth bathrobe because he was running late and just came in whatever he was wearing. Christina and Mike would get drunk to alleviate the tension of recording, and Christina and I got into a terrible fight. If you listen closely to the 1997 recordings, I think all of that comes through.

Around this time, a band started hanging out at Fastlane Studios that had quite a bit of buzz, Absolute Bloom. Keith Caputo from Life of Agony was in the band, so this means they were signed. The record company threw around some money and they got their own rehearsal room at the studio. Keith asked me if I wanted to try out for the band and I flat out refused. I had a good thing in Pettycoat and that was all I wanted. Months later, Mike Dagastino (Absolute Bloom's drummer & Keith's songwriting partner) would tell me that I was the only person who ever "shut Keith down." Being a signed act in a rehearsal studio in Brooklyn meant nobody said no to you.

Before long, Mike Neider quit the band. He said it was becuase he felt he was holding us back. For the third time we found ourselves without a drummer, and this period lasted quite a while. Christina started dating Mike Dagastino, who was balancing medical school & Absolute Bloom rehearsals & song writing sessions. Christina recorded a few songs with Mike at the studio, and I didn't find out about it until after it was recorded. I'd heard that the owner of the studio played bass on one of the songs, but they didn't keep that track. Needless to say, I was offended.

Keith eventually fired the rest of the band, including Mike, though he kept all of the songs they wrote together. He recorded a solo album that I believe the guitarist for Lenny Kravitz played on. It's only a shadow of what Absolute Bloom was and went nowhere.

Around this time, I quit the band. I actually had a dream about it and called Christina. Then a few days later, we made it official. I joined a band called The Valentines. The drummer, Jessie Torrisi, and I got along great. We hung out all the time and formed a great rhythm section. Jessie studied drummming in Africa and had a unique way of approaching the drums. Jessie said I was the only "natural born bass player" she'd ever played with, which was odd to me becuase I approached bass in such a different way from what was normally accepted as what a bass player should do.

Krista Crommet (singer) & Declan Colllins (guitar) wrote great songs. Krista's voice was amazing, she nailed every song every time. Everyone said we'd get signed and were going places, but after a while I didn't believe in the band. Jessie & I didn't think they had enough passion on stage, and off. We quit after a few months.

After Christina broke up with Mike she was reinvigorated and we called upon long time friend, Wayne "Docter Banner" Schneiderman to play drums for us. Wayne was in Dead Air and was a phenominal drummer. We recorded four songs with him, 2 of them we had already recorded with Mike Neider.

But Wayne wasn't our permenant drummer. We recorded these songs to find a new drummer with, but that new drummer never materialized.

Several months later, Mike - a doctor now - decided he wanted to make music with us. I didn't know why, and even asked him a few times why he would play music with us. Finally, he answered "becuase I believe the two of you could inspire me."

This whole time was tense. Mike was a hard worker and very critical, and there was a lot of tension between him and Christina. They had been in a relationship, and artists such as Christina tend to be insecure so she took all of Mike's criticisms to heart. Their styles often clashed as well, so some of Mike's criticisms made sense from his point of view, but not from hers. We came from a very artsy background, and Mike had played in a band that was signed. He had a no-nonsense approach to everything that just didn't work with our approach to music.

Things were tense for me too. Christina thought I wasn't into the music and I resented being called in to play songs she had written herself without my input. For the first time I felt like I was just being called in to record some of her songs rather than working on things as a band. Mike confirmed this by saying at one show "You know the only reason we're here is because she doesn't want to be on stage alone." I didn't understand why he'd say things like this and still want to play with her.

Christina also started playing with a girl named Rachel. She insisted that Rachel was a member of the band, despite protests from me and Mike. At this point we had been playing for 8 to 10 years as individuals, and almost as long as a band, and Rachel was much less experienced.

I had asked Christina if she'd be interested in writing songs together and she said it wouldn't work, she works quickly, and I'm very methodical. So when Christina started writing songs with Rachel, I was offended. She even played a show with Rachel that I didn't know about until after it happened, though she told me that they were all Rachel's songs.

Everyone thought I hated Rachel, but nothing could be further from the truth. I had nothing against Rachel, though I didn't want her in the band, and I resented the fact that she "inspired" Christina and they spent all their time together, meanwhile I only saw Christina in the studio, and then it was only to play bass to songs she'd already written.

I remember after one session Christina drove me home. We were listening to some rough mixes on her car stereo and she was asking me if I felt the songs. I don't think I said anything, but in my heart I was thinking "How can I feel these songs, I only just learned them a few weeks ago?"

Through all this, we managed to record a few songs, but things were too tense and I quit the band. The breakup was extremely bitter... embarrisingly so. Thanks to the faceless medium of e-mail we were able to say things to each other that we'd never say face to face. A few weeks later, I dropped by Christina's house and we made up as friends, and we're still an important part of each other's lives, even if we don't speak as often as we should.

Since then, Christina's played in a few bands and I've played with a few people, but we're both currently doing our own thing, solo.

You can download the music on Pettycoat.com. Be sure to check out Christina Rubino's latest.

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