The Story of TORA!TORA!TORA! (gadgets assignment)

Tora!Tora!Tora! Has been together for a little over a year and originally consisted of Matt Nolan, Ryan Squirrel, Mike Berezny and Myself. We play music that is largely influenced by the first and second waves of early Punk Rock and really all types of Rock and Roll. I joined in about January of 2009 after about a year of searching for a new project since I had decided to throw the towel in on my previous effort Ryan Mudd and The Stuff. I had only been playing guitar for about a year and a half at this point so initially I was going to sing. When it became apparent that we could use some more guitar I decided to learn how to sing while playing and we started writing our first songs as well as performing a couple I had written previously. In 2009 we played about 25 shows and recorded an as of yet unreleased six song E.P. 2009 was an exciting year for all of us as a band because we got to play alot of fun shows with bands like The Stitches, Angry Samoans,and Funeral Dress and we even managed to get our selves kicked out of the Knitting Factory after a fight with another band.
2009 though was a very tough year on us personally. Our drummer Ryan Squirrell had a tragic and unexpected death in the family, me and Matt both started at different Universities, I totaled my car the week before I started UCLA and in November I was diagnosed and hospitalized for a life threatening bone marrow disease that gone untreated would have killed me. After all this we had to regroup because Mike Berezny quit the band and as if nature itself was against us our studio lockout flooded.
2010 is a new year though. We are stronger and tighter than ever and are continuing as a three piece. The hardships of last year have fueled the creative process and the trimming of an extra member has allowed us to become a more focused cohesive unit. We look forward to releasing our already recorded E.P. and writing new material as well as getting back to a regular schedule of shows every weekend.
I have added a gadget that displays our site's rss feed on the side of the page as well as a music player with our songs and a slideshow of pics from 2009 is in the post.