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Peter
the HeeBGBs

Peter

Peter.
Peter is a 17 year old male. He lives in Deerfield, a fairly homogeneous [which he does not like] suburb of Chicago. He likes the city of Chicago a lot.
Peter is introspective [both now and in general].
Peter is a senior at Deerfield High School. He is Vice President of the Wind Ensemble [band] and proud of it. Despite the rampant neo-hippieism and materialism that prevails at the school, he has many many friends.
Peter is different. He is well skilled in using both sides of his brain. All of his close friends come from different ‘groups’ of people.
Peter likes to play music, and to write, and to draw, and to dance, and to learn, and to breathe, and to love and a whole bunch of other cliched stuff.
Music is important to Peter. A lot of people say that; Peter means it. Peter studied piano for 9 years and currently plays the trombone [classical and jazz]. He experiments with music on his computer and played for the seminal band Hat Time. He is also learning guitar and – because there happens to be a drum set next to his guitar amp downstairs – drums. Peter's also known to show up playing bass at random times... Peter realized a while ago that being in a band was a dream of his. Peter realized sooner ago that this dream is more attainable than one might think.
Peter believes in balance. Balance is essential to anything.
Peter believes Radiohead’s "Kid A" is the ideal record. He also thinks that Black Rebel Motorcycle Club is extremely underrated.
Peter tries to attend as many concerts as possible. This is a very, very small amount of concerts; he does not live extremely close to Chicago and it is hard to see shows on a school night. His favorite concert has been seeing some guy named Guy, the Prosaics, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and Liars for eight dollars. Following closely behind are the White Stripes at the Metro, and then Radiohead in Grant Park.
Peter has dreams for the future. His dream right now is to attend New York University in New York City, where he will study journalism or writing or something. He will also find many like-minded friends and form a number of bands until finding one that clicks. He hopes to view/hang out with the Strokes, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Interpol, Liars, the Rapture, the Mooney Suzuki, Erase Errata, Enon, the Realistics, Radio 4, !!!, the Prosaics, Ryan Adams [not cause of his music as much as.. well.. he knows everyone], those crazy Electroclash people, and the like.
Peter has more than slight addictions to the internet and buying CDs.
The Soviet Panda is Peter’s platform for music [using both the website and the name] and launching space for his thoughts, ideas, experiences, writings, etc. Bear with him; he’s trying to learn html.

The HeeBGBs


It is summer of 2002. Peter is discovering new music from the city of New York, such as the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and the Liars, and older music, like Television. Peter’s friend Zack is listening to [and thus sharing with Peter] bands from CBGB’s in its heyday, including the Ramones and the Talking Heads.
Peter and Zack are both between their junior and senior year. For Peter [I couldn’t say for sure about Zack] this means stress and anxiety. Stress over quitting a job at life guarding, not finding a new job, being bored, wasting time, needing to apply to college, deciding what to do with the rest of one’s life, a jumbled ‘love life,’ feeling that he is not doing something correctly, wanting to make music, having Hat Time break up… Peter has a lot of anxiety. He also has a lot of nervous energy because he is a teenager while all of this is happening.
Peter hears the song "Out of the Races and Onto the Tracks" by the Rapture.
Peter buys an electric guitar. He listens to more music and learns more about playing guitar.
Peter hears the song "House of Jealous Lovers" by the Rapture.
Peter and Zack go to Zack’s basement to play music. Zack sits behind the drum set; Peter picks up an electric guitar. Peter plays a dumb, repetitive riff on guitar and Zack comes in banging.
Afterwards, Peter realizes that not only is his nervous energy mirrored in the music he listens to, but his nervous energy finds release in this nervous, energetic, stupid music that he and Zack are making.
Peter gets another riff in his head. He tells Zack to come in. With a disco beat. And the rest is history.

The HeeBGBs, if you cannot tell from the name, is about the release of nervous energy in music that looks to and dumbs down [way down] the music of New York, past and present.