Matt Fontaine calls Park Ridge, IL home and led the Secret Police to incredible obscurity. Now he is singing and guitaring in Blower, so you know he really wants to lay it down, right now, and how.
	Dan Worland is from Lafayette, IN, which some people give him a lot of shit for. Dan plays guitar, sings, is tone deaf and has poor sense of rhythm, making him Blowers most valuable player.
	Paul Wisnewski has long been involved in the punk-dub weirdness of Violently Ill. He joined Blower in 2005 on keys and strange noises.

1/14/06. Back at the Slipperclub, this time with good buddies Mr. Rudy Day and also Wonderful Smith featuring everybody's favorite Bob Bihlman on drums. A night of Chicago rock in Madison, WI. Tonight we were helped out by Walter Pazera (naughty candy) on drums & Rodney Inciong on bass. Great guys who are going to do some light recording with soon us as well. We got the 8 song set together in 4 practices and it sounded pretty good for a rush job. Rudy managed to get some dancing going, including some folks decked out in garish attire from the weekly burlesque shows at Slipperclub. Wonderful Smith were pretty wonderful, great batch of tunes and the frontwoman Holly, really brings it on stage. Check 'em!

9/15/05. Gunther Murphy's. Actually writing this a few weeks after the gig. The performance was not too bad, but we were way unorganized with our gear etc, leading to skipped sound check & other unpleasantness. We now find ourselves in the market for a new keyboard amp. Also, immediately after stepping off stage & going for a beer, some jackass started hurling obscenities at me for blocking his view of the Cubs game on TV. Following a heated exchange, the dude was tossed. This is my show, bitch. This turned out to be the last show with Ben Schultz & Dan Franke. Good chaps those.

7/2/05. Just a little set up in Madison WI's Slipperclub. The other band, This Is The End didnt show up. What gives? Oh well, we drew pretty well for out-of-towners anyway. The real fun is hanging with our buddies up there.

6/17/05. Beat Kitchen. A most triumphant unveiling of Blower mk. 2. Great energy from everyone, including the crowd. This new band is going to work out pretty well.. Gotta thank The Interiors for asking us onto this bill and to The Audacity & Mt. Calm for being so good and pitching in on the gorgeous Mile 44 gig poster depicted to the left. Team work is dream work!

6/3/05. Played a little warm-up show at Sylvie's for the new line-up of the band. The 1st half of the set went pretty well, but Ben broke his bass-drum head and despite an incredibly quick borrow & switch, the rest of the set was pretty chaotic but response was good.

4/18/05. Gunther Murphy's. Well tonight marks the close of Blower Mk I. If you didn't hear, Greg & Nathan are leaving to pursue other projects, both musical and non. This parting is totally amicable and Dan & 'Taine are excited about putting together a new line-up of Blower and seeing what happens. These guys have slogged it through some pretty crappy gigs, but the past year has been great and they're going out on a particularly high note. It's going to be tough to proceed without Nathan & Greg. Those guys are so solid, they work very well together and they do things that we probably didn't even realize they were doing. But we will soon. You couldn't ask for a better couple of guys to take your half-formed, half-assed song ideas and whip them into something interesting and exciting. Whatever future successes come Blowers way, will be due in part to the work Nathan & Greg put in over the past few years. Here are some pictures of phase 1 of BLOWER.

As for the show, it was awesome. Great turn-out, great performance, great vibe! Lots of well wishers and folks wanting to try-out etc. The lads couldnt have gone out with a better bang. Plus the bartender had breast implants. Neat! Thanks to Favorite Saints & escpecially The Interiors for asking us.

2/4/05. WHPK Pure Hype. Hey, another radio show! This time on University Of Chicago's station. Good times. Haven't played back the recording yet, but it felt good. Thanks to John Dunleavy & the gang. Apologies to anyone who heard our ridiculous interview segment.

11/26 & 27/04. MADISON, WI. Friday we did Dave Zero's Hootenanny program on WORT community radio. What an incredible facility. I always assumed that WORT was some underfunded shack, but it's a modern station as nice and organized as any comercial station. Haven't listened back to our set yet, but it felt pretty cool. It'll be nice to have some recordings of the newer material, even if there are a few mistakes in there. Got dinner at Greg's old job, Supreme Pizza, then spent the rest of the night at this bar called Mickey's hanging with friends. Began Sat hungover at Dave Y's crib & watched obscure videos on VH1 Classic (I want this channel!) Had dinner at The Glass Nickel then played our gig at The Slipperclub. The set began with the rather bizarre fun of Digibot. Kind of a Pere Ubu/Dead Kennedys crossover. Lots of songs about George Bush, apparently the guy is a jerk. Hmmm... something to think about. Next was Rick-Rack Attack. This was their 1st show, but obviously these folks have been part of the scene in some other forms. Nice geeky Indie-pop remincient of Guv'ner (whatever happened to them? they were cool.) Our set was last & we did our best to not fall off the rather high, yet narrow stage. We kicked some ass, plus we got a blurb & picture as a "best bet" in the local free arts & entertainment rag Core Weekly. Madison consistently rules.

9/20/04. EMPTY BOTTLE. After a crummy Bottom Lounge gig in July, we bounce back strong here. There's been a few procalamations of the "best show ever" this year, here's another strong candidate for that honor. Naughty Candy were lovely in every way, and The Altair Four came on with a very strong set of Gang Of Four/Wire/Mission Of Burma inspired stuff that, of course, we love. I had not heard of them before this booking. If you havent either, change that!

7/14/04. BOTTOM LOUNGE. Ouch! Kind of a mediocre set, but only in light of the pure rock supremacy we've been handing out lately. We'll get back to that soon.

7/4/04. And the hits just keep on comin'! This has been the most productive period the band has ever had. Just one kick-ass show after another. The High Noon Saloon is a great cub in Madison, WI. Very big and brand new. The crowd was great, rowdy and a bit of dancing. Big thanks to the 3 Daves (Yazbec, Carr & Zero) for putting us up at their fine lakefront chalet. Hope to get back up here before long.

5/29/04. from emptybottle.com: A show featuring the experimental pop stylings of HEALTH & BEAUTY, the delicate, sophisticated pop of FAVORTIE SAINTS and then the spaced out indie rock of BLOWER. Pretty great show for such short notice. Big thanks to Portland's Swords Project for canceling and providing a void for us to fill, which we did in mighty fashion. Pure chewing satisfaction.

4/4/04. Bottom Lounge. This show was great in that all the bands were really good and fun people to play with. Australia's Sekiden did a pop-punk mesh with analog-synth thing that was quite exciting. They are as adept with beautiful melodies as they are with terrifying noise. Our next-door neighbors The Dirty Things were great as well. Recommended if you like Gang Of Four & The Rapture, which we totally do. We only got 30 minutes, so we didn't really get to stretch out too much (the "Casio Set" was shelved this time). Special thanks to Monica Kendrick, Andy Hopkins, Al Sears, August Forte & Natalie Smith.

2/24/04. Beat Kitchen. Another quality performance, though a bit sloppier. Cool to play with Clipperton Brigade & our new freinds from Madison, WI, The Arge. If you missed this gig, then you missed our Tom Petty cover.

1/14/04. Bottom Lounge. Absolutely fantastic crowd! It was a sloppy set, but they loved it anyway. Plus, Gary the soundman used to do sound for Uriah Heep, so you know he "gets us". People who are demanding longer sets, we hear you. Demons & Wizards...

1/4/04. Hangnail got a play on WXRT's Local Anesthetic tonight. "Post-punk, Gang Of Four meets Stones/New York Dolls" Thanks Richard Milne!

11/05/03. Fireside Bowl. It's unanimous. BEST SHOW EVER. Even replacing a string on stage was fine. Great energy, great crowd, we sold a few CDs. What more could you want?

11/1/03. Deleted Media Fest in Lafayette, IN. Showed up at the site around 4PM to a sparse crowd and drizzle. By 6:45 the rain was coming down a bit harder and things were looking pretty bleak. A local angst/power/metal group with too much gear had limped through it's set in the music tent to a group onlooking kids. Miraculously, the rain let up and a decent crowd gathered, so ABCBlower decided to take the stage. Thanks to a great sound set-up, we could hear great and gave a pretty good show. A worthy return to playing after a 9 month absence, as well as our 1st ever show outside Chicago. The crowd was still a bit stiff, but we managed to loosen them up a bit. Once we finished it was time to set fire to the massive, vaguely tugboat shaped wooden structure in the middle of the field. As Grimble Grumble's sheets of sound spilled out of the tent and across the meadow, the boat was slowly engulfed with flames, climbing high into the sky. Fireworks shot out in all directions. The combination of this sight, the great musical accompaniment and the universal sense that someone could get shot by a roman candle made this the high point of the night. Next up was Mr. Rudy Day, who really started warming the crowd up, especially a guy who became known as Gallagher. "Smash those Motherfuckin' melons dude!" Shoot To Thrill was a fun AC/DC cover band who were from Lafayette and drew a lot of people who went nuts. There was also some other stuff...Check out pictures here. Big thanks to Jeff & Paul of Violently Ill for driving us down there.

10/3/03. Jesus this thing has taken a long time! If you had told us when we started work on this CD 13 months ago it was going to take this long...well, we would have done some things differently. Anyway, it's at the pressing plant and we have it slated for release Nov. 1st. when we play the Deleted Media fest in Lafayette, IN. with many Chicago gigs to follow and maybe some other out-of town activity.

7/25/03. Fergus Daly has begun mastering the CD. Are we there yet?

4/19,20,26/03. Overdubs and mixing for 4 songs @ Donald Eugene's City Flats studio.

3/30/03. Basic tracking for 4 songs done with Donald Eugene for inclusion on upcoming full-length CD. Recorded on 8-track Analog, it's a bit rawer than the SI stuff, in a good way.

2/22/03. Final mixdowns for Sonic Iguana tracks begins. This is complicated and takes longer than expected. Also, after extensive testing, neither Blower nor Mojo endorse the White Castle Crave Case.

1/16/03. Prodigal Son. People keep saying that we played well, but I can't quite believe it. Couldn't get in a comfort zone for this gig. The good news was that Bang! Bang! drew a huge crowd and played brilliantly. They stole the show! Violently Ill were probably on a little too early for their tastes, but they kicked it old school anyway.

12/28/02. Very productive day at Sonic Iguana. Mojo, Dan & Fontaine spent the day laying down vocals, various overdubs and as the British say; "throwing shapes".

11/04/02. Finally we play a good set at Fireside Bowl. Really only drew the few usual faithful fans, who we love to the core, but it was a Monday. The joint seems to have had a facelift, I wonder if they read me calling it a dump after 8/6. It's a term of endearment. Weird that they would renovate when it's supposed to be torn down sometime soon. I wonder if we made any money, we honestly forgot to ask for any.

10/7/02. Progress continues on the new recording. Dan & Greg make a trip to Sonic Iguana for guitar, bass & keys overdubs. Also, Mojo & Dan got haircuts.

10/4/02. Prodigal Son. Due to nothing but an uncharacteristic laissez-faire attitude, we were late for this gig. The always cool Rich Szczepanski was all like "set yr stuff up and play" as soon as we got there. Which we did. We were maybe a little ho-hum about this gig at first, but once we showed up and folks were annoyed, WE COULD NOT SUCK. So we didn't. Basically we threw a grenade. Not sure how long the set was but it was short (threw out the slow song) and I think the grenade killed some people. Dan broke a string, 'Taine did not making it one for the historybooks. The other bands were pretty cool, even though we didn't really fit the bill stylistically. Gross cash influx: $0.00. Not a problem as Blower plays for the love of the game.

9/21/02. Laid down basic tracks for 6 songs @ Sonic Iguana in Lafayette. Whod've thought there was a great studio like this one in Dan's sleepy hometown? The session was engineered by one of Dan's oldest friends: Mojo, the hot new guy on the SI scene. A bit of equipment failure, but nothing we couldn't hurdle. Can't wait to go back for overdubs & vocals. Thanks to Fergus Daly for the set-ups and gettin' us started.

8/6/02. Fireside Bowl. Played here twice now and have yet to blow the roof off the dump. Set wasn't bad though. The Weigh Down, Quatre-Tete & Tekulvi were all quite good. Saw some friends, made some new ones, life's a gas.

7/15/02. Big ups to everybody who made it out to the Hideout for the Cancer Party. It was a big hit. For those of you who missed it, the story is that Greg's Farfisa blew a transformer moments before we were to take the stage. Lots of smoke & stink! Fate was not completely cruel though because Greg had brought along his Fender Rhodes to sit in with Mr. Rudy Day, so we had a backup. We didn't really get the sound we wanted, but we played well anyway. Fast Product was awesome and it was a big thrill to finally get a gig at the Hideout and to play with one of our real favorites, Mr. Rudy Day, who just killed 'em as always. Thanks to everyone who made it possible especially Monica Kendrick & Cyndi Elliot.