C-Gate started out as a couple of old friends deciding it was well past time to throw a project together. Kent Meloy had been colllaborating with Deb Giarratana just get some vocals on some tunes he’d been writing and recording on a stalwart Yamaha MT1X 4-track cassette recorder. Not too long into that process Jeff Goins joined the experiment. They were a little surprised at the vibe these tunes had, but it kind of stalled there. Kent put together a collection called “Fighting Inertia” from these recordings in the early-mid 90’s. It never evolved beyond a couple home-burned CDs just for the helluvit.
But the itch was spawned. Not too much later, Jeff Bentle (college buddy of Kent and lifetime pal of Goins) returned from a five-year stint in Texas and they really started talking about creating a band. Kent had worked with Joyce Bentle (then Templeton) on the Jerrod’s Dream project and asked her if she wanted to come out and play.
Trying to come up with a name was tricky – Bentle suddenly came up with the name “Collins Gate” and everyone realized it somehow captured the perfect vibe. Funny thing, he got it by mis-remembering the Hollin Gate from Lord of the Rings, where Gandalf led the Fellowship into Moria. It’s not the last time Tolkien touched the band. (Who am I kidding, at least four of us were die-hard fans)
The cross-section of influences was all over the place. The two Jeffs where huge Jethro Tull fans (Goins played flute like Ian Anderson), and their songs had a heroic, minstrel-ish storytelling vibe. Kent was still stuck in his head somewhere between Rush and Ramones, all about crunchy huge guitars and spooky synths. Joyce was somewhere in the middle – a huge fan of things Celtic, spooky, kinda goth, and Debbie was the pure voice that somehow pulled all of that together.
Writing and recording bits at Kent’s tiny little studio with its brand-new Echo Layla audio interface (first one of it’s kind to hit the home-musician market) was a joy, and much laughter and more than a little magic ensued. The trick was how to wrangle it live, as all the drum tracks were drum machine.
Soon Jay Nungesser joined the fray on percussion, and Dan Walzer later on kit.
The whole lineup (which changed and morphed over time) began to read like a 70’s arena band’s trajectory:
Deb Giarratana – vocals
Kent Meloy – electric guitar/bass
Jeff Goins – vocals, flute, bouzouki, bass
Jeff Bentle – vocals, acoustic 12-string, bass
Joyce (Templeton) Bentle – viola, keys, vocals
Josh Suerkamp – percussion/kit (just a couple months)
Liz Wu – percussion (a couple gigs)
Jay Nungesser – percussion/occarina
Dan Walzer – kit
Annie Wilson – vocals (on Dragonfly, Fellowship, and One Night Only)
So, on to the music. Before we get to -actual- Collins Gate music, here are a few cuts from “Fighting Inertia” by Kent and Deb, including a very early version of “Tunguska Love Affair” that ended up on the first C-Gate album, “Nine-8” that Kent and Deb arranged as a surprise for his wedding. For a final treat, there is the very first recording Bentle, Meloy and Goins ever did together in the studios of the now defunct WNKU, circa 1986 – “A Parody of Goodbye Days” .
This is the first Collins Gate (and only one actually released) album. This version is an extended one, including five songs not on the original recording.
Next recording is a bit of a weird case. The band was accepted to come and be a ‘guinea pig’ at Full Sail down in Winter Park, FL. We got a road trip and a week of free recording time while giving the students someone to record. The sessions were never finalized, so even though it was recorded in the spring of ’99, it wasn’t until late 2019 that Kent was able to get the old 24 track tapes digitized and rebuilt the songs from scratch.
Though only an EP, and two of the songs already done on the previous album, “Chains” makes it’s first appearance, as does “Jealous Moon”.
“Jealous Moon” was a writing experiment, and almost a dare. Each band member agreed to write a stanza or two about the moon, but no music nor any communication with the rest of the band about what they were writing. The idea was they would take those bits, sight-unseen, and write the song during the non-recording times that week. What ended up coming together is an eight-and-a-half minute little epic that rapidly became their favorite song of that phase of the band.
Not long after the Full Sail sessions, Deb decided to leave the band and the search was on for a new female lead – the sound of the band had become reliant on the melding of male and female voices. After a surprisingly short search, Annie Winslow joined, adding not only her voice, but another set of acoustic guitar chops. During this time Dan Walzer joined on kit. A jazz drummer by training, it was a cool groove that really cemented the sound. Jay Nungesser had been doing hand percussion and occarina on and off with the band during these couple years, and they packed up the band and all the recording gear they could and headed down to an A-frame on a couple hundred wooded acres south of Elizabethtown, KY, and began recording “Dragonfly”. The intent was to make a full album, but these five tunes are as far as they got.
Not too long after this trip they were contacted by Cincinnati playwright Blake Bowden, who had a wild idea of putting together a theatric stage version of Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings”, complete with elaborate costumes and puppet-based monsters. He had heard some of the bands more Celtic-flavored offerings and asked if they would supply the soundtrack.
They said yes almost before he finished asking. The album “Fellowship” was essentially recorded in two long days. Much of the ambient music was improved the first day, while the more structured songs came on the second. Blake was extremely pleased, and the plan was that the band would perform them live during the play, but due to the weirdness that was the Tolkien Estate (this was before Jackson’s films had hit, so they were still -very- concerned about keeping the stories under tight control), Collins Gate’s music was not allowed to be used in the actual production.
It’s an odd collection, but here it is.
At this stage of the band’s tenure, things were starting to go a little off the rails. Kent’s wife had recently had their first baby, other band members were finding themselves pulled in different directions at different speeds. It became clear that the ever-present ‘creative differences’ monster was poking its predictably annoying little head into chinks in the armor.
Not too long after Fellowship, the band played what would be their last gig at the first of several Harvest Moon Benefit Festivals that Kent and Jay put together. It was a fun show, and all in all not a terrible way to go out, everyone still laughing and just having a blast playing their odd little brand of music.
