A few years ago, my brothers and I got together to play a show at a Charlotte club. It was a Christmas reunion of sorts. The show, the music, and the performance was a real train wreck. At no point were we playing what could resemble the same song. Covers were half-assed. Songs were incomplete. It left me wondering why we did the show to begin with.

Last Friday, the same brothers played what I consider to be the best performance we’ve been capable of. The Garrigan Bros. have come a long way since that fateful, awful holiday performance.

Most of our growth can be attributed to the fact that we’re actually a working band now-a-days. We play at least a show a month and are in the middle of recording a record. The songs are mostly unique to the Garrigan Bros (the exceptions are Jay’s solo songs that were our artistic foundation).

Rick Basdeo, Charlotte’s resident musical expert and shaman, commented to me after the set, “Those first few songs were really tight.” Thanks. The first half of the set contained our more traditional sounding modern rock songs. The second half of our set was a trip into the inane and nihilistic. Songs like “Tom vs. John” and “Eat Together, Shit Alone” are intrinsically ridiculous; however, they are always entertaining.

We closed with an unexpected cover of Metallica’s “For Whom the Bell Tolls.” Although we hadn’t practiced it, it was pretty much required playing in our garage in Fayetteville when we were growing up and learning how to play our instruments. I think the photo above was from that cover. Thanks, Lee for the great photo.

The Garrigan Bros. will return.

<a href= "http://mikegarrigan.bandcamp.com/album/gravity-affects-me">Another Day in Paradise by Mike Garrigan</a>

Mark encouraged me to set up a page at bandcamp.com, so I figured I’d give it a try. This morning (and, it took the better part of the morning) I uploaded our 2004 EP Gravity Affects Me to the site.

I like the interface and the user-friendly quality of the page. The site allows for paid downloads, lyrics, and “sharing.” One of the sharing options has been included in the top of this blog post. I like it. Let me know if you like this. And, feel free to share the album with your friends through email, blogs, or your favorite social networking site (myspace, facebook, twitter, etc...).The page can be accessed at http://mikegarrigan.bandcamp.com