Chronicles I
The Early Years 1986-1987
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"For there shall arise false Christs,
and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders;
insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive
the very elect." ST. Matthew 24:24
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Somehow
this came together as some sort of dare, or joke, I don't know
which. Formed in the ashes of various Chicago and Carbondale
bands in the fall of 1986 in the crawl of the Lost Cross House,
located in quaint Southern Illinois. Mark Groble from Chicago,
in his first semester as a freshman in Radio and TV, showed
up at the doorstep of the Lost Cross, bass in hand, enthusiastic
and ready to play in a Punk Rock band. At this time the house
band Lost Cross, which was a merger of two previous startup
bands, Disfigured for Life, and the Jesus Guys, was the only
punk rock band at the time playing around town at the time,
mind you, this was 1986, not much was going on in town, mostly
top 40 cover bands and light alloy rock bands. Trying to get
local acts on any stage in town was tough then, especially for
new original acts, forget it if you were punk rock... Good luck
with that one,
"You're not viable"... a local promoter once told Steve Sickness and the local crue.
Fuck you to, asshole. 
Lost Cross was Steve Sickness on vocals and Levi Loy on bass
from the Jesus Guys. Levi's tenure was short lived because he
found God and was replaced on bass guitar by James B. Ricks
III. Chris Cross, a LC resident and founding father was on guitar.
Joe Zake was on drums, he was originally in Disfigured for Life.
Joe would also change gears and was replaced with Ian Lintault
after the infamous September 86 Hangar gig. "Get Up and Slam
with GOD" would be recorded at that show by the Sound Core guys
doing sound. This was the beginning of the end of Lost Cross.
With Ian taking over on drums they changed the groups name from
Lost Cross to Blood Stained Tool. They were now know as BST
for short.... So there I was, left without a band as, Joe and
Chris who were totally sick of my drunken debauchery, jumped
ship and went with the Jesus dudes to form Lost Cross. So Mark
who was eager to make something happen and I hooked up, now
all we needed was a name, some songs and well umm a guitar player
and oh shit, a drummer... Well we were a two piece for a while
until I remembered RJ was always looking to play, as he was
also band less after his stint in Coffee Achievers expired,
so he joined on lead ax with his Les Paul in hand. Now we were
becoming a farce, I mean force to reckon with. So it was somewhere
in the vicinity of Oct, 86 and we had about six or so songs,
with Ian filling in on drums during some practices while we
looked for a drummer who wouldn't materialize until mid spring
semester 1987. Over the next few months we wrote songs, such
classic's as He
Who Shoved First, Drugs Ruined My Life, I Hate You, Blood
Splattered Dream, Liver, Spoonfed Society, Money Hungry Spuds,
Evil
Disease and Camping in Beirut, were penned in the first
months of existence. We also had an old staple from DFL/BST
cemetary shopping to help fill out the set.
That spring of 1987 we found our drummer! Shelli was a roommate of my future girlfriend/wife. She had a drum set and just needed a little goading into playing in a punk rock hardcore band. Since she listened to heavy metal and 70's classic rock like Rush and Led Zep, but she still decided to give it a go. After several practices we played our first real show at the Hangar 9 for a benefit show for the local outreach group Synergy. We played with 138 and Blood Stained Tool and another band that eludes me at this time. I have the advertisement cutout somewhere for this show. When I find it I will scan it in for the archives...
Our actual first show was an impromptu set at the Lost Cross
House the week before, opening up for Blood Stained Tool. It
will go down in history as a MUST miss performance by DC. I
think we had practiced with Shelli maybe three times, the look
on her face when we told her, was classic. Shelli was shy, straight
"A" engineering student, when we first met her. Being in DC,
warmed her up to playing in front of people, she would later
join another local band 138, later that year. Our last show
of that school year was opening up with Chicago legends, Hasenloch
Totengraber and Life Sentence at the Lost Cross in April of
87. Pictures from that show can be found in the black and white
photo section of the MSIG Galleries.
The end of the school semester was coming to an end so that
meant finals and season end. Since we were all students at SIU,
we used our free time to record an 8 song demo in the basement
of the LC. It was to be our last practice as a band that year
until October 1987. So, I went off to go work at the Brookfield
Zoo, Mark went to do construction and RJ stayed a student at
SIU for the summer. A short hiatus ensued and we were not to
regroup until RJ found Taz to replace Shelli on drums. Shelli
earlier that year hooked up with the 138 dudes, Scott and Dave
in the summer of 1987.
So be it. The formation of the Carbondale band Diet Christ.
Our highlights of our short inception at this point were; we
played with Life Sentence, Blood Stained Tool, the formation
of the Lost Cross house and playing at the local big stage Hangar
9 after being a full band for 4 weeks. At this point in my life,
I was just getting to know my new girlfriend Kelly who would
later become my partner and wife of 22 years, her roommate Shelli
was the drummer for Diet Christ and we had about 8-10 original
songs and a few covers like "Big Women" from GBH. Life was good...
From this point, we only got better, well not me but everybody
else....
Chronicles II Naming the Band, Fall 1986
Chronicles III Enter the Taz, Fall 1987
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