...have a ridiculous story to tell. It is their own.
Cantwell, Gomez & Jordan arose from the
ashes of the much-ballyhooed mafia-ridden "Chapel Hill Scene." Anne
Gomez had just been thrown out of UNC's prestigious law school and
was looking for some paying gigs to support her Army of Three-Legged
Cats.
She was known for her electric bass and vocal
stylings in the rather esoteric world of beach resort dance bands like Special
Agents of Her Majesty's Secret Cervix, The Blue-Green Gods,
and the seminal Shaggy-Dawg's Shag-o-matics.
Anne hooked up with her former sorority sister Shannon
"The Biggest Drumset in the World" Morrow. Shannon was the
unifying "backbeat" behind HMS Cervix's spankin' rhythm
section, as well as the blood that flowed through the mighty Bicentennial
Quarters, Hillsborough's finest metal outfit since the Unoriginal
Sinners.
Anne and Shannon immediately re-bonded but still
needed a guitarist.
They needed look no further than David Jordan.
After his expulsion from UNC's Ph.D. program, guitar player David
Jordan decided to end his self-imposed hiatus from music. A veteran of
such staples of the Catskills circuit as Polycarp, Glockenspiel,
and Tony D'Antonio's Blue Velvet Chillers, he had certainly
racked up his share of "cred." He had a vision for NC's musical future;
he just needed some partners.
David completed his community service just in time
to join with Shannon and Anne to create Cantwell (named in
honor of Shannon's favorite Alaskan nineteenth-century Goldrush town,
the study of which had always been a passion of hers). The music was
dangerous, edgy, and threatened to dismantle Rock as we know it — and
reassemble it into a soul-less musical Worldcode for the twenty-first
century.
But, after a handful of promising shows and one
brilliant long-player, Shannon "had to leave town." This time for
Joliet. No one said a straight life was easy, and old habits DO die
hard. Maybe life "on the outside" was too stressful — and too full of
temptation.
Anyway, Anne and Dave still had bills to pay, so
they got the first drummer they could find to fill in until Shannon was
"all better": Dave Cantwell, backbone of party funk-metal
jokesters Analogue (and his own solo experimental hip-hop John
Williams tribute "project").
In a bizarre coincidence, the young drummer shared a
name with the band he once drunkenly heckled. To avoid confusion (and
dispel rumors), Anne and Dave Jordan decided to re-christen the band Cantwell,
Gomez and Jordan. Says Gomez: "We were hoping the name would sound
like a law firm or an ice cream company or something. You know:
conceptual and shit."
Conceptual and shit, indeed! Gomez and Jordan's
exciting, original, quirky tunesmithing combines with Dave Cantwell's
ham-fisted drumming to create a new NC music like no other. Well, maybe
like some other things, but I can't remember any of their names right
now.
--Daniel Forthrite
