CHC EP ANNIVERSARY (PART V) — Children*Having*Children

by DAVID A. PALATSI (Bass, Keyboards, Vocals)

Years. Miles. Measures. So much has transpired between Children Having Children's first EP and the band's recent music-making that it’s almost difficult to consider the two eras as the same musical entity…but not entirely impossible. So before letting all of you lovely readers get back to your amazing 2020, let me try to connect the dots.

Steve and I started a band back in high school when we were living in Atlanta. The band would mutate through various name changes and a revolving door of members, some of whom are still our closest friends to this day. Others…less so.

In our early twenties the band would lead us to New York in search of kindred spirits, but our first stop after high school graduation was the music school at Georgia State University. Our plan was to divvy up the know-how. I concentrated on studying the "music business" (in a form that was basically obsolete even then) while Steve learned how to produce/engineer our music. His recording classes offered us regular use of the university's recording facilities and helped him land an internship at Southern Tracks Recording.

Between those two studios, we settled on the name Children Having Children and recorded the songs that make up the first EP. There were many all-night sessions in those rooms, eating takeout chicken wings, cramming in an hour or two of sleep on the couches, driving fifteen miles home, and then struggling through a day of classes and jobs. I admit that I have to laugh a bit now as it felt at the time like we were trying to make our Sgt. Pepper's, but I am equally filled with pride that we took it so seriously.

Even though we never had a full band in Atlanta and couldn't play proper shows, we still rehearsed at least three times a week. Although we had spent years practicing in an airforce-base adjacent, spider-infested outdoor storage unit with no climate control (hello winter!), we decided to relocate to a new space to prepare for the sessions and were immediately greeted by new challenges. Housed in a converted warehouse and shared with a friend's industrial band, the new space had absolutely no soundproofing between units. We were surrounded by punk bands and hip hop producers going full blast at all times, which made it difficult (and often miserable) to practice our intricate arrangements without the power of a drummer.

I'd go to school all day, go to practice for up to five hours, get home just before midnight, maybe say hello to my girlfriend, and go to sleep just to do it all again the next day. Sometimes with a part time job thrown into the schedule. This is how seriously we took the band and the preparation for the recording sessions that we hoped would change our lives.

The opportunity to record at Southern Tracks was amazing and will always be one of the coolest things I’ve ever done. We had access to world-class instruments, top-notch equipment, great recording rooms, and a totally professional atmosphere. While I think Steve's songwriting and recording abilities are miles further down the road today, it’s still incredible and informative that we recorded in the same room as so many amazing bands and musicians at that embryonic stage.

A highlight of those sessions and the epic of the EP is “Museums," which still has gravitas today. The heavy distortion at the end of the song is probably the clearest representation of how my musical tastes influenced the record. I'm a big fan of My Bloody Valentine and walls of guitar, so I always loved how the distortion on my bass and the fuzz on the guitars kick in at the song's climax.

When the original version of the EP came back from mastering, Steve and I were both unhappy with the results. We decided to get it remastered and I also convinced Steve to replace two of the songs on the original tracklist with newer recordings that were intended for a future release: “Film” and “This Certainty”.

“Film” was my favorite of our songs at the time and still sounds exciting to me. My vocal part was more prevalent than on our other songs and I love my bass line. The arrangement builds and builds with a guitar solo that Steve meticulously composed. I remember our guitarist Matthew practicing that solo over and over during our rehearsals and when it clicked, I really felt like we were a rock band.

As a listener in 2020, my favorite of the batch and the song that means the most to me is "This Certainty." I'm glad that I fought for its inclusion on the EP. I have a 4-track cassette tape demo Steve recorded in high school that includes this song, which was the first he'd ever written. The demo version has an alternate title and different lyrics, but musically the song is incredibly unchanged. Pressing record in the Southern Tracks control room as Steven played the mellotron part out in the live room is one of my favorite moments of the whole process, and I think this track holds up with anything CHC would play today.

I felt slighted at the time for not having any songs I'd written included on the EP. I thought of the band as a partnership between Steve and myself with our revolving cast of bandmates that would hopefully stop revolving at some point. But the band consensus was that the songs on the EP should have a cohesive voice. The five songs that ended up on the record are better than any songs I had at the time, but I still felt unhappy that my voice wasn't a part of it in the way that I wanted. I thought our situation should be more collaborative like Pink Floyd, Fleetwood Mac, or The Beatles, bands whose records featured multiple songwriters and singers. Instead we ended up taking an approach closer to The Smashing Pumpkins, with a more linear sound and voice. I didn’t admit it to myself at the time but this realization sowed the seeds of my departure from the band a few years later.

After leaving the band and putting down the bass, I took up the camera as my primary form of expression and feel like I'm much better as a photographer than I ever was as a musician. Even back in my band days I was always attracted to striking images and the cover of the EP is one of its strongest assets. It’s like a great Storm Thorgerson cover (shot by our friend Ali Kesner) and I’d credit it with setting me on my path as an image maker, a blessing that's allowed me to continue collaborating with Steve and allows me to still be a part of the group in a certain way, lending my vision through the lens.

If you've never heard the first EP, then you have no idea what I've been rambling on about. So take twenty minutes and give it a listen. I can hear all its flaws and imagine how we would have made decisions differently today. And I hear the sound of the two most important relationships in my life other than marriage and fatherhood. Steve and Matthew are the brothers I never had and my time in Children Having Children is a core and cherished part of my being. This EP was a milestone for me and I still love these songs, like postcards from a very different time in our young lives.

***