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Catoctin Frederick, MD 301 293-4193 Send Us 
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| In the News |
Catoctin Classic Rockers Play Derelict Music
By Tara E. Buck
News-Post Staff
The Frederick News-Post, Thursday, May 27, 2004
FREDERICK, Maryland -- When they met more than 30 years ago in high school near Rockville, they probably never thought they'd still be playing music together, again, well into their 40s.
But today, the members of a local band, "Catoctin," do just that.
Likely harboring vivid flashbacks of the 1970s rock-and-roll wannabes they were, today the group -- along with another member they picked up along the way -- plays original music as well as rock and blues classics form the likes of Jimi Hendrix and the Rolling Stones.
Bass player and vocalist Steve Chambers, 48 of the Five Forks area, said recently he prefers to use the term "derelict" when describing the type of music Catoctin plays.
"We play blues, classic rock, derelict music," Chambers said. "Neil Young's pretty influential, and the Stones. We cover some Robert Johnson songs. It¹s stuff I hate to classify."
Chambers' high school friends Donna Whitmore, 48 of Thurmont, and Mark Peterson, 47, of Richmond, Va., were only recently reunited musically. They invited Eric Westbrook, 42, of Washington and a friend of Chambers' for the past several years, to join them.
Whitmore plays a mean lead guitar, highlighted in many of the Hendrix covers the band belts out. Peterson is the drummer. Westbrook sings and plays the acoustic guitar. Together they form a sound that is uniquely their own, but also reminiscent of the acts they're trying hard to follow.
While the group plays strictly for pleasure (all have professions outside of the music biz), they are preparing for public performances set for Saturday, May 29, at 9:30 p.m. at the General Braddock Inn in Braddock Heights and also July 3 for the Thurmont conservation Club.
Recently they rehearsed an original song, "Ghosts of Fort Detrick," which was penned by Westbrook and Chambers. The song is a tribute to the civilians who died not only as a result of anthrax-tainted mail, but also to those who died after working with or around anthrax at Fort Detrick.
Chambers conducted extensive research into public information surrounding the local anthrax-related deaths in the 1950s, he said. The song mentions Joel Eugene Williams, an electrician at Detrick who died from pulmonary anthrax in 1958; William Allen Boyles, a microbiologist who contracted anthrax and later died in 1951 and Albert Nickel, an animal caretaker on post who died after being bitten by an animal infected with the Machupo virus. Fort Detrick today, has streets named after each of these men: Willard Place, Nickel Place and Boyles Street.
The song--
With lyrics like:
Fort Detrick Fort Detrick
The ghosts of your past
Haunt these buildings and
Roads and lakes
As long as these poisons last, as
Long as they last
--is not meant to be critical of Detrick, but instead a reminder of the tribute to the many civilians who died as a result of governmental experimentation with the virus. The song is especially poignant for Chambers, who doesn¹t live far from the ponds drained by the members of the FBI as they investigated the source of anthrax found in 2001 in the U.S. mail.
"We just started writing our own songs," Chambers said. "The Detrick song came about because we (Chambers and his wife) moved from D.C. two years ago and the Brentwood postal facility was there. It just hit home there and then we moved out here and, of course, we have the anthrax ponds in the neighborhood. That kept me thinking about it.
The song really is just a kind of remembrance for the people that died, not just from the recent anthrax attacks, but once we started looking into it, it went all the way back to ¹51 and ¹58," he said.
"We¹re talking about the individuals whose lives were lost and affected by it," Westbrook said. They are quick to point out that they aren¹t trying to disagree with the work that goes on at Detrick.
"Despite the untimely and tragic deaths, Fort Detrick continues to have a remarkable safety record," Chambers pointed out.
Another original piece, "Leatherman," is sung from the point of view of a homeless wanderer, who actually roamed parts of New England and upstate New York in the late 1800s. Westbrook found inspiration for the song and its lyrics after reading an article about the man and subsequent legends in Yankee magazine.
"It's not so much about homelessness," Westbrook said. "But we use the homeless guy as a metaphor."
Whitmore and Peterson were in another band as adults before their bass player quit and they asked Chambers to step in. Chambers knew Westbrook from a job they held together years before, and eventually he was invited to sit in, too.
A graphic designer (Chambers), commercial and fine artist (Westbrook), software developer (Whitmore) and vocational rehabilitation specialist (Peterson) by day -- at night, the group jams.
Whitmore plays Hendrix licks -- it bears repeating -- like a pro and Peterson and Chambers drive hard beats that just don¹t quite. Westbrook also lends a professionalism to his singing that surprises the audience often expecting band sof this caliber to fall flat.
"It's something that never should have happened," Chambers said jokingly of the forces that brought the old friends back together again. "It was just so unlikely."
But it did happen, and it works. Catoctin is fun-loving and serious; socially conscientious but also into lyrics that don't lend themselves to much thought (i.e., Willie Dixon¹s blues standard "I'm your hoochie coochie man/Lord, everybody knows I'm here").
Sounds like a metaphor for the decade of the 1970s, right?
Actually, the band is a lot more emotionally satisfying than the 1970s probably were and Catoctin is sure to please fans young and old who are lucky enough to catch a performance.
"We're all working professionals," Whitmore said. "We're doing this for the fun of it, but also seriously enough that we can get out and play once a month or so for a gig."
It is likely the band will only gain more momentum from here on out.
Click here to view an image of the News-Post article