Left to Right Chris Harford and Sean Keenan performing with Random Joe & the Strillards, circa 1978-79 at Princeton High School. (Photo by Erica Tener)

"My first band out of Princeton High School in New Jersey was called Random Joe & the Strillards with Sean Keenan, (who wrote “You Brains,” which appears on my first Elektra release “Be Headed”), Jeff Shangle and Jason Jones. This would be circa 1976-'80. We were quite a good young band, learning covers by the Cars, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Clapton, Stones, the Police, Talking Heads, the Clash, Devo, but we had some great originals too, most specifically Keenan’s hit “Mormon Blues.” Had we stayed together we would’ve been a cross between the Allman Brothers, XTC and the Replacements.

I then went off to Connecticut College with my best friend Jacques Hoffmann, dragging along our vinyl of the Stranglers and the Buzzcocks -- in defiance of all things Grateful Dead (though I love the Dead now) and promptly got radio shows and started a group called the New Rules with the senior Bob Broad. But then my sophomore year I started a group with Hub Moore. We called ourselves Three Colors (see www.soulselects.com) and it was this band that would consume my entire existence for the next six years. Three Colors was also comprised Hub’s brother Max, Barry Stringfellow and Dana Colley, whom I met when I transferred to Massachusetts College of Art in Boston. We lived like the Monkees. We shared a house on the outskirts of Boston and practiced nearly every night in the basement.

And eventually we became quite well-known in Boston. We then moved to London in 1986. Then back to New Jersey where we imploded like the drummer in Spinal Tap.

Dana went on to play sax in Morphine and Hub and I released major label records which both vanished into the system like the black hole of the industry will do to so many a band. Someday there will be some great jams that will emerge from that black hole.

In the meantime, since releasing my first record on Elektra Entertainment in 1992, entitled “Be Headed,” I began releasing the songs on my own label, which was first called Black Shepherd records before it reverted back to Soul Selects records, the label I had started with Three Colors back in the Boston days. There have been five releases since "Be Headed" and hopefully, there will be many more."

-- Chris Harford