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Drywater hits some paydirt
By GUY D’ASTOLFO
Back in 1973, four young men from the Hermitage, Pa., area formed a band called Drywater and recorded some of their songs at a local studio.
They sent copies of the album to record labels but received nothing but rejection letters. So, without ever playing a single gig, the band evaporated.
Drywater would soon become just a pleasant memory for the band members, who ranged in age from 15 to 24. The album, “Backbone of the Nation,” would become an obscurity on the musical scrap heap.
Life went on, decades went by, and the four men rarely thought of their short-lived band.
Then something amazing happened: Collectors discovered it.
And now, in an amazing twist of fate, “Backbone” has been given a second life. It has been remastered and re-released by Time-Lag Records and is available on the label’s website (time-lagrecords.com).
The members of Drywater are stunned at the turn of events.
“We had forgotten all about it,” said Jack Sarvis, one of the band members. “At first, we thought they were playing a joke on us.”
Time-Lag is a small company in Maine that specializes in finding obscure albums and re-releasing them on vinyl for collectors. It has pressed 500 copies of “Backbone” and is selling them for $33 apiece. Twenty percent of the sales revenue will go to the band.
The company’s owner, Nemo Bidstrup, is a music lover and a vinyl fanatic who is devoted to his cause.
“The music I’m most interested in is the stuff that’s a very pure and direct expression from the artist, and I really felt like that music deserved to be preserved with the same sort of care and love that these musicians were putting into their records,” he said in an article in Signal to Noise, a magazine devoted to improvised, experimental and unusual music.
“Backbone of the Nation” fits perfectly into Bidstrup’s philosophy.
“After hearing the album for the first time — it took a few listens before it really hit me — but then suddenly, I couldn’t get it out of my head,” Bidstrup told The Vindicator. “Before long, I loved the whole album. There’s a certain subtle charm, that in combination with the great songs, crude production and enthusiasm make for a really special album that doesn’t sound like much else. It seems to really perfectly capture its exact time and place.”
Bidstrup said that album collectors are showing interest in the reissue because it is extremely rare, it is new to them and the loud fuzz guitars and garage-rock sound has appeal.
He is receiving orders from all over the world, he said, and expects the 500 copies to sell out soon.
In addition to Sarvis, of Clark, Pa., Drywater consisted of Dennis Cheplick of Hadley, Pa.; Greg Cheplick of New Jersey; and Ken Turcic of Greenville, Pa.
Musically, the songs on “Backbone” are of the folky, midtempo rock variety, a blend of acoustic and electric guitars that was in vogue in the early ’70s.
The recording quality of the original pressing was very poor; sound levels rise and fall in midsong. The whole thing was recorded in one take, so the musical muffs and the low-fidelity sound are part of the finished product.
“It cost us $100 to record it and another $100 to press it,” Sarvis told The Vindicator. “So we put $200 into it.”
The whole recording session took 31/2 hours and was done at Marjon Studios in Hermitage.
Time-Lag has cleaned up some of the audio flaws for its re-release, which also includes 10 bonus tracks recorded by Dennis Cheplick in 1974 and two more on a 7-inch single that is included in the package.
The original cover art has been retained: A cloudy blue sky over water on the front and a black and white photo of the band posing on a hay wagon on the back. Additional vintage photos of the band and liner notes have been added to the sleeve.
The first clue of the album’s appeal to collectors came in 2003 when a record collector from Texas found a copy of “Backbone” at a yard sale and bought it for about a dollar. He contacted the band, who sold him three more copies for $100 each.
The band’s initial investment finally was recouped.
Other collectors caught wind of the album. In 2010, a man from Switzerland tracked down the band and bought a copy for $1,000. Then Time-Lag contacted the band last January, and the dream of a record contract was realized — albeit nearly four decades later.
“There is a serious market for unreleased obscure albums,” said Sarvis. The band members now have only four original copies between them.
With the exception of the title cut, which is an ode to farmers, the songs on “Backbone” are mostly love songs.
“These are not manufactured songs,” said Sarvis, a retiree from Delphi who now does some DJ work on the side. He goes by JJ the DJ and works about four or five nights a month at places such as the Hickory VFW and the Sharon Elks, as well as at weddings. He was 24 and a student at Youngstown State University (he had just gotten back from a stint in Vietnam) when “Backbone” was released. He and fellow guitarist Dennis Cheplick wrote all the songs on the album.
Dennis Cheplick, who was 19 when the album was released, has continued his music career. He is part of a duo called Young- Cheplick (Ray Young is the other half) that self-released an album in 2010.
Dennis’ younger brother, Gregg, was the drummer. Just 15 at the time of the album’s release, he is now a biology professor at the College of Staten Island in New York.
The fourth member was bassist Turcic, who was 22 at the time. He is now a financial consultant with FNB Corp.
With all the attention — and appreciation — the band has been receiving of late, it has to be asked: Is a reunion show being planned?“I don’t think we’ll get back together,” said Sarvis, although once the hubbub over the re-release of “Backbone” dies down, he said he will resume writing new music.