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| Sunday, October 10, 1999 Calallen punk band brings working class message to New York City and beyond.  Listen
to the bandBY ELLEN BERNSTEIN Caller-Times
They're the sons of welders, machinists and roughnecks: Local punk rock musicians who sing of hard work and self-pride. The Booked is Calallen's ode to Oi! - a street-oriented brand of punk with an underground following that's youthful, rebellious and worldwide. The music of The Booked hugs the working class landscape of the city's northwest, where farms, refineries and suburbs collide, exposing gaps in income and class. "We're regular working class guys. We sing about life, beer, friends, girls, jobs," said Trey Garcia, the band's 27-year-old lead singer. "It's what we relate to. Like what else is there in life?" The band's five musicians came out of Calallen High School. Garcia, lead singer and songwriter, grew up in 4-H clubs. He can judge dairy cattle as well as he can sing, he said. His 23-year-old brother Bryan, guitarist and songwriter, and other band members, played varsity soccer at Calallen, a sport that gave them inspiration for the name of their 2-year-old punk band. Getting in the game
The Garcia brothers are joined by Danny Chapa, 21, on drums, Randy Gaines, 20, on bass, and Ray Solis, 22, on guitar. Their ties to Calallen solidified the direction of their music, Bryan Garcia said. "We're all from the same scene," he said. "It's a bond that can't be broken." Now The Booked is as busy as its name. Culminating a seven-city tour, The Booked recorded their first CD with Radical Records in New York last month. The album, the band's first, is due out in February. Also last month, the boys from Calallen brought their attention-getting, high energy music to CBGB's in New York, where early punk bands Patti Smith and The Ramones got their start. Blanks77, Inspecter 7, Sturgeon General and The Agents, have all signed with Radical, a well-distributed punk/ska label. Labels as small as Radical can take a chance on unproven bands like The Booked, said Radical publicist Johnny Chiba. Small labels with low overhead can make money moving 10,000 to 20,000 CDs, instead of the millions required by bigger labels to turn a profit, he said.
"That's how they started. They were in this pile," said Rosen, pointing to stacks of unopened packages he tossed to the side of his cubicle. Rosen recalled his surprise at receiving a punk demo from Corpus Christi. "I remember saying what a weird place to get a demo from in this genre. You don't hear about punk south of Austin and Houston." Rosen heard something honest and marketable in the simple 8-track recording made by The Booked. "They sounded like they were from New Jersey, a very East Coast style," he said. "By the first song I was jumping around." Road Warrior
Garcia grabs the mike, and punches the air with mock vengeance. The hyperkinetic crowd fights back. The band accelerates to warp-speed and throttles back into a song called "Hero." "This is an anthem for the working man," Garcia sings in a voice unusually melodic for street punk. Shouts and chants deliver the lyrics, while the ear-splitting sound leans heavily on guitar, bass and drums. The Booked and other bands signed by Radical tour nationally on a club circuit that draws a 13- to 25-year-old crowd. The music stays underground, getting airplay mainly on college alternative radio -KFLZ-107.9/FM in Corpus Christi. "[The music] is about the constant struggle to stay above the poverty level," drummer Danny Chapa said.
The members of The Booked banded together almost two years ago. They came from bands like Pillowhead, Stone Groove, Skalewag, Peter Torpedo, The Special Guests, The Hit n Runs and The Not Today. Last year, the band joined The Warped tour, playing gigs in Austin, San Antonio and Houston, sometimes for nothing. They worked odd jobs, construction, struggling to pay bills. The older Garcia, with a family to support, drove a newspaper delivery truck. Meanwhile, they circulated an 8-song demo to dozens of small independent labels that pick up new punk bands every year. "No one really liked us at first," Garcia said. "Everyone likes Blink 182, Green Day. We were harder." A Radical solution Once
Radical scouts heard the band's demo, they decided to add a side trip to San Antonio
to hear The Booked. They were at Austin's South by Southwest Music and Film Festival
in March.
"All we wanted was to put out a single or a song on a compilation," Garcia said. "We didn't think we'd get a chance to do a whole album. Our label has a lot of faith in us." The record deal would bring them to New York for six days of recording. They could test their chops on a Midwest and Northeast our, Rosen said. And prepare for the recording session. Most of the band members had never traveled outside of Texas. The Booked joined Radical's other bands on a tour that stopped in Oklahoma City, Kansas City, Detroit, Pittsburgh, as Cleveland, Northampton, Mass., and New York.
If they made a $100 between them at a gig, they were happy. "Just so we can put some gas in the tank and get Big Macs instead of Ramen noodles," drummer Chapa said. Sometimes a club paid no money at all. The van barely made it to New York. It literally died on Bleecker Street, just as the band rolled up to the offices of Radical Records. They spent their last few dollars repairing a fuel pump. For six days they recorded in New York, some band members without a cent in their pockets. "Even if we never go farther than this," Bryan Garcia said, "I can still say we've lived the rock and roll dream."
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