Orlando, Florida. The mid 80s. Not the place or time where I would expect to hear some fine guitar pop music. One that reminds me a lot of the Canadian band The Pleasures Pale.
There’s a Soundcloud page by The Field Trips. one of its members, Jack Beals. Has uploaded a trove of demos dating from that decade.
We can see them grouped. The first group of songs I find is called “Now It’s 1985!”. These are demos recorded in that year. They include “Afraid of Lightning”, “Back to the Pleasures”, “Jimmy”, “Kaleidoscope”, “Love Cliche” and “Place Without a Puzzle”.
The second group is a bit older, 1984. This group of songs were part of a tape called “Gem of the Hills”. I wonder if the 1985 were also released as a demo tape…
On “Gem of the Hills” we find “Communication”, “Love Cliche”, “Back in Town”, “New Face”, “Beware”, “Father’s Footsteps”, “Gem of the Hills”, “Found a Love”, “Safari Fun” and “Things Will Change”.
The good thing is that I find a scan of this tape. Thanks to that I learn the band members names. So Jack Beals was on guitar and bass, Tommie Minor was the vocalist, Gerry Wilson was on drums and Shannon Zimmerman on bass and guitar. These 10 songs were recorded at Storm Studios in March of 1984 in Orlando. They were produced and engineered by Scott Roberts.
There is an address too, in Clermont, Florida. That’s a suburb on the west side of Orlando, next to Lake Minneola and Lake Minnehaha.
I can’t find any other info about the band or the members, only that Jack continues to live in the Orlando area and was in other bands in the Orlando area like DayGlo Zombie, Thud, The Subterraneans and Transistor.
Anyone remembers them?
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
