Funny thing about Shrinking Violet is that they are not really a Gainesville band at all, but a Tampa band that admired the Gainesville music scene (not so hard to fathom, when you realize that Tampa's scene is 1 part death metal, 2 parts cock rock, and 1 part Latvian folk-rock). I played with Matt and Anthony in a number of middle and high school jazz combos and marching bands, as well as in that beloved Tampa-Gainesville-Clearwater-Orlando-Belgium-based hardcore band, Waffle (surely you've heard of us, right? We made the ladies all sweaty? No? OK.) When Waffle imploded - as was inevitable whenever you've got a band whose members live in four different cities - Matt and Anthony formed Shrinking Violet with Pete and Christos (who had played together in another band whose name I can't remember) in 1996. (Other members of Waffle went off to form Tampa's radio-friendly heartthrob band Pulling Birds. It's all connected, see?) Shrinking Violet started off as a four-piece (bass, drums, and 2 guitars) with Pete and Matt trading vocals. They continued as a three-piece when Pete left the band for greener pastures (read: more groupies) with Nick Sharp and the New System (you say you've never heard of this influential Tarpon Springs-based band either? But they've been on USA network, people! No? OK.) They added old friend (and Gainesville resident) Ryan Rayhill on lead guitar in late '97 or 1998, and resumed as a four-piece with Matt taking on all the vocals. Rockin'. During this period they wrote a number of fast, poppy rock anthems and slow, dignified ballads - 2:22, Coward, Where I Stand, She Goes, Eclipse, I've Never Heard of You, etc. - that drew on the best of their influences: REM, The Who, Built to Spill, Blur, The Beatles, Dillinger Four, Sloan. I watched them change from the buddies I had played guitar with in another average garage band into serious, deadly, full-on rock contenders, and I pumped my fist at a number of their shows, all, sadly, played in Tampa bars to a limited audience of bored bikers and metal-goths. Matt and Anthony were the high-school buddies who got left behind in Tampa when their pallies went off to Gainesville for college, and so they continually heard stories from their friends about all of Gainesville's good non-death metal bands and its clean, modern music venues where people actually went to see live music without needing to be enticed by 2-for-1 fajitas. They wanted to play here and, happy ending, they finally did. New Gainesville guitarist Ryan Rayhill booked them a show at the Orange and Brew in the Reitz Union, sometime in the fall 1998, with the Pawn Rook Four and PopCanon. They played one of the best shows I had ever seen, and the Shrinking Violet set ended supremely with English grad student Chad Woody executing a perfect Pope Dive from the stage into a stack of cereal boxes. Brilliant! It was wonderful, it was rockin', and it was their only Gainesville appearance ever. The following year Anthony got a job as a Blue Man in the Las Vegas branch of the Blue Man Group, and that was the end of the band as a touring, playing thing. Matt graduated from USF with his degree in Music comp and moved to New York, Ryan graduated from UF and eventually moved to New York, and Christos...well, I think he's still at USF in Tampa. They don't play so much, but they just finished recording their first CD at Panda Studios in Clearwater, FL - 12 songs, all terrific. Maybe they'll be back someday. I got my fingers crossed (especially since I got a roadie gig IN THE BAG, y'all!).

You know...I'm 99% sure that I wenttop high school w/ Christos and Pete. EastLake? Well anyways...the band whose name you don't rememberin the first paragraph was "Simple". I still have a tape of them playing @ my house. Moreover, I moved to colorado and just finnished my degree. I was in town, doing the nostalgic crap... wanted to look christos up and see how life has been...havent talked to him since 1998. so....if you could forward him this message...or tell me how to contact him, i owuld appreciate it. katie