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Aaron Carlson had been trying to make a band since the last period of the last day of seventh grade, when, after ersatz lip-sync versions of Milli-Vanilli and MC Hammer, five ninth graders took the talent show by storm and with a real-live, earsplitting rendition of "Iron Man." Thus the thunderclap ending of 7th grade and Aaron's introduction to real puberty. He tried to learn the guitar, gave up, and decided to just be the singer. By the time he got to college in Harrisonburg, VA, he had been earnestly trying to make a band for all of adolescence. Harrisonburg ("The Friendly City"), a hodgepodge home to Russian and Dominican chicken industry workers, leftover hippie students, and low rent eccentrics, also had thriving basement rock. House shows complete with free beer, sweat, and smoke were not only drunken celebration grounds, but storied havens for the arts. Yearning for a more pronounced leap into the fray, Aaron asked his pal Mike Scutari if he had brought his drums to college. He did not. The drums were in a basement in New Jersey. But the drums, in turn, found their way down I-81 and things inched towards fruition. Edward Donohue was walking into the basement to do his laundry while a nascent incarnation of the Carlsonics were toiling about. Aaron asked Edward if he wanted to join, and Edward, arms full of dirty clothes, quietly accepted the offer and began his tenure as chief guitar alchemist for the band. For approximately two years, the Carlsonics engaged in the thoroughly Dionysian vibe of the Harrisonburg basement scene. After graduating with a string of adventurous rock shows behind them and armed with virulent disdain for their respective day jobs, the band found themselves calling the District of Columbia��a sleepy village on the Potomac��home beginning in late 2000. John Passmore, a mild mannered Connecticut lad cultured in the ways of the Gram Parsons, Bob Dylan and Leadbelly, imported his New England stoicism. However, it was when low-end lifer Nikki West also surfaced from Harrisonburg's abandoned train yards' towers to join the boys in DC, an aural-psychic corner was turned, big rock was achieved, and the band began to enjoy their day jobs as an undercover agent enjoys false dialogues. Two self-released Eps, incessant touring in their 1984 Chevy and 1982 Ford vans (Airhorse I and II, respectively), and many cathartic shows later, the band continuously enjoys driving around the country and playing rock! Look for their first long player, "THE CARLSONICS," this August from The Arena Rock Recording Company. For more info, do contact Dawn Barger at Big Hassle or Kevin French at Big Shot Touring for booking.