WE SURVIVED ANDREW!!! (Text of Not Silent Newsletter #2)

I’ve put off getting this second of newsletters out due to financial difficulties. Even as is, you’re probably someone who made contact with me earlier this year and are getting this as a result of me mailing this out personally. I’d like to just get this out to all “en masse”, but I need cash bad! This is the best I can do now.

The big news is that my city was decimated by Hurricane Andrew. I’m writing this just three days after the fact, and this whole place is pretty shell-shocked. I’m more blessed in that I have electricity when so many others have no food, homes, or even water. There’s reports of food riots in areas actually not far from where I live, and I haven’t heard from all my friends yet. I’m still praying aplenty about all this, and my fiancee, Kristina, and I are hoping to volunteer our energies to aiding some of those stricken people. I pray that by the time you read this, the situation around here isn’t quite as desperate as it is now.

In more joyous news, as you may have noticed, my girlfriend, Kristina Flor, and I got engaged, on July 25. Big day should happen circa March ’93.

Okay, now to our regularly scheduled newsletter.

First of all I’d like to thank all of you for your support and especially your prayers. I hope that all of you who ordered stuff from the last newsletter, especially the non-Lead stuff, were satisfied with your purchase. There’s a whole lot of new stuff for you to check out in this newsletter.

Nothing new going on in terms of the Lead. All I can say is keep praying for us to do the right thing. For all I know, we may be doing it already.

Lord willing, I’ll be keeping busy with not only the demo production, but two bands. FRANK’S ENEMY started out as my solo project, but now it’s a full fledged band. Look to the right for more info. GLOBAL WARNING is the band I mentioned I was starting last newsletter. Our set largely consists of material recorded by Al Valdes and I as KING JAMES AND THE CONCORDANCES and LAS OVEJAS ELECTRICAS. The merry bunch, as pictured below, left to right, consists of Titus Hanham (vocals), Marc Golob (bass), me (guitar), and Al (drums). GLOBAL WARNING has been rehearsing on and off since December ’91. Marc was the last member to join. FRANK’S ENEMY happened when I asked Marc if he knew any thrash drummers. Being able to play the FRANK’S ENEMY material live was a fantasy I’d been having since I recorded the stuff. But I needed a drummer, and Alex A (stands for Arguelles, this is the only time you’ll see it!), Marc’s friend, was interested and filled the bill. Marc, with his long hair and slapping abilities, was persuaded to crank it up and join. The two bands each have their own sounds/identities. GLOBAL WARNING is loose fun and 3-chord bashfests. FRANK’S ENEMY is more rehearsed, heavier, faster, but with a funk edge to some of the tunes. The definite thing I can say about FRANK’S ENEMY is that if you’re familiar with the Lead there’s plenty for you to like here…but also plenty to get used to, too.

While all these bands continue to progress toward recording fruition, there’s new stuff available from NOT SILENT: The NOT SILENT ROUGH MIX SAMPLER VOL. 1, a massive C-100 cassette, which contains stuff from all my projects, many of which are in progress, plus some things you won’t find elsewhere; the C’EST POSIBLE demo, featuring some romantic songs written through the years-it’s definitely not thrash! A couple of old 7″ singles I put out in 1982-83; a couple of KING JAMES & THE CONCORDANCES tapes from V.T.O.; and the 3=1 version of the Lead’s PAST BEHIND on 12″ vinyl. There’s also a report on what other Lead stuff is still available, and of course the NOT SILENT products advertised in the last newsletter are still available.

Frank’s Enemy is now a real band, after 2 demos featuring just me and (mostly) a drum machine. Marc Golob is 20, likes jazz and slapping. Alex A is also 20, likes all kinds of metal and double-kick drumming.Both share my desire to use our gifts for God’s glory in as unique and creative a way as possible. We’ll be doing some songs from FINAL ABSOLUTION (including “Destroy”), some old Lead songs I’d written ( including “No Religion”), and some completely new stuff (titles include “Link Line’,”Reasons To Say No”, and “Man, You Made A Lonely World” which is a Golob/Rey composition). We’re currently at work on getting a full set together and recording a five song demo, entitled QOHELETH, featuring four new tunes plus as a bonus track, a new full-band recording of ‘Destroy”. The recording of ‘Destroy’ will also be available on an upcoming compilation being put out by Jef Dereszynski (P.O. Box 37616 Milwaukee, WI. 53237) entitled ENCROACHING THE DARKNESS and on the NOT SILENT ROUGH MIX SAMPLER VOL. 1. We played a short set at First Baptist Church of Goulds, south of Miami, on July 3. We were ready to play at Miami Youth for Christ on August 24, but something got in the way of plans (Hurricane Andrew). Our next scheduled shows are an October 31 three band thrash show at Music Studio 777, and a December 12 full-set at the same place, Lord willing. Feel free to write to Alex and/or Marc at NOT SILENT. They could use “2,000 new friends”. THANKS!

As evidenced by this page, I’ve acquired a Macintosh II, which should help me in a myriad of ways. The most important of which is in terms of problem solving and efficiency to serve you better. I thank all of you who wrote with words of prayer and encouragement. I encourage you to not stop!

God Bless,

Julio

WELCOME! Our LEAD Story (Text of Not Silent Newsletter #1)

Okay, I guess a few explanations are in order. It’s been a long, long time, folks! Anyway, this is Julio, late of the Lead, and you are members of said group’s mailing list. You may have heard some things somewhere about the Lead and it’s possible demise. We have certainly gone through some horrible times since we got back from the tour last year (summer 1990). The culmination of those difficult times being that Andy Coyle and the rest of us parted ways, and then, two weeks later, we scrapped plans to record the album we had been working on. We also felt so burnt, so stressed, so . . . joyless, that we indeed did break up, at least in my eyes. This is about as detailed as I’d like to get, because there had been a lot of different things going on in each person’s mind at the time, and I don’t want to speak for anyone else. I know I didn’t want to break up, but maybe I didn’t speak up as much as I should have. I could have suggested that the band take a good, long, overdue break and just not do the record. But I guess we just jumped off the cliff, and I went on to other things (which you’ll see later).

This happened in May, and in the months since, even as I worked on all my projects, I maintained some contact with Nina. Again here I don’t want to get into too many details, so I’ll just say I eventually became open to working again, as the original trio, sometime next year. I have talked to Robbie and it would be safe to say that none of the three of us is closed to starting up again. There’s still a lot to be talked out, but it looks like officially the Lead is “taking a break” as opposed to “broken up”.

I hope you’ll join Nina, Robbie, and myself in seeking God’s will for us, whether together or separate. It’s still a long way from anything being definite, and I know I definitely would love to work again in the Lead. But only if all agree and, most of all, is within God’s plan for each of us. In the meantime, don’t be strangers!

The old Lead P.O. Box is still open for mail concerning Nina’s solo stuff, that P.O. Box always having belonged to her. Write to Nina and Robbie (who is playing drums for her) at that P.O. Box. Nina forgot to put the P.O. Box on her tape, and she’d like to hear from you all. DO NOT WRITE TO THAT P.O. BOX FOR LEAD MERCHANDISE. Write to me at NOT SILENT for that. See somewhere else in this newsletter for the remaining Lead merchandise.

MAKE A NEW ENEMY TODAY!

Some of you may have heard that the title of the Lead’s abortive album was the same name as my new company, NOT SILENT. And in the Lead’s last newsletter, I discussed plans to start a t-shirt company called. . . Frank’s Enemy, the name of one of my new projects. I guess I can’t let a good name go to waste (they don’t come to me too often!).

Anyway, NOT SILENT is the company I have formed to a)provide an outlet for my musical endeavors consisting mostly of homemade demos sold as cheaply as possible b)provide an outlet for my artistic endeavors, probably mostly t-shirts like the pro-life one on sale here, and c)provide a means to clear out the inventory of Lead stuff remaining.

The homemade demos won’t win awards for sound quality, I can only hope that the songs, performances, price, and messages make up for this. They are demos in every sense of the word. Meaning that I hope they get picked up by a label and properly re-recorded sometime in the future. In fact, Final Absolution was recorded for Doug Mann at R.E.X., and I was under the impression that we were going to do it in the fall, but I heard next to nothing after I sent Doug the tape. So I’m making the tape available to you in all its rough glory. Atrocities consists of songs written that were too personal for the Lead to consider. Some of the riffs in these projects were made up on the spot, and some of the songs were structured as they were recorded. It makes for sloppiness in some places, but I think they make up for it in feel. But hey, they’re cheap demos.

NOT SILENT will also be the outlet for some of my non-thrash endeavors. They consist of, so far: King James and the Concordances, which have two tapes out on V.T.O., Las Ovejas Electricas (The Electric Sheep), which is a Spanish language Christian rock project, and another act, tentatively called C’est Posible, which is NOT a French project, but an outlet for some romantic songs with a Christian outlook that have been written through the years. I’m also in the process of starting a new band with some of my musically gifted friends.

These demos allow you to also decide to reduce the price if you send me the tape. I’ve listed both prices. If you send a good chrome tape you will get a much better recording than if I send you the demo on one of my tapes. You may end paying more but it will be completely up to you.

It’s my hope that you’ll still think of us as at least three new friends (we’ve lost touch with Andy), and I’d like all of you to go ahead and write to me with any comments, questions, etc. . . about anything you might want to talk about. One thing I missed as the Lead got “bigger” was the loss of personal contact with so many of you. I know it might be harder now, me being one man, you now being about 2,000 people, but I think it’s nothing a little organization and discipline can’t solve. I never stopped thinking that the greatest blessing God gave us in the Lead was “2,000 new friends”, even though we did do you all wrong the last year or so.

I would love to hear from you all.

God Bless.

Julio