Some of the best bands first started jamming together in college: Talking Heads, R.E.M., The Commodores, Phish, and, of course, Twiddle – which got its roots when Mihali Savoulidis and Ryan Dempsey met during their freshman orientation at Castleton State College.
Now, there’s a new band that formed from a Castleton connection.
Chief Technology Officer Gayle Malinowski and LAN/Systems Administrator Jonathan Czar have been colleagues for 25 years. The pair began playing music together in January last year, and recently had their first performance as the Electrostatic Cats.
“It originated when our department did a performance during Dave Wolk’s farewell,” Jonathan said. “My daughter was home on break week, and we were playing together. I had an electronic drum pad and asked Gayle if she wanted to come over and try it. She just had so much fun doing it.”
Gayle, who learned various instruments including the piano and trumpet in elementary school and has a background in dance, says that learning the drums was never on her radar.
“I had a friend who had this electronic drum set. I can play through headphones without making a lot of noise, and it was a way for me to play drums and still be married,” she said with a laugh. “It’s not like an acoustic set. So, I tried it to see if I could do it and if I liked it.”
The pair began playing music together at least once a week since last January.
“We got through a few songs and I knew something was there pretty immediately. There’s a certain uniqueness there, too. I fill out the rest of the instrumentation playing organ bass pedals with my feet, so we sound like a full band and can play these songs pretty faithfully,” Jonathan said. “We took some time to figure out what we could play and what we couldn’t. I thought it would take longer than a year.”
The pair doesn’t utilize looping – or recording a section of sound that plays continuously over and over again – or any backing tracks.
“All the sounds we’re playing are live, which is unique to do with two people,” Jonathan said.
In addition to the drums, Gayle also plays the keyboard and has recently begun introducing harmonica into their music, which includes some of the deeper cuts from U2, Muse, The Cure, as well as more recognizable, mainstream songs.
Gayle’s cat, Super Mario, is the inspiration behind their name, and their logo mimics the escape key on a computer keyboard – paying homage to their work at Castleton.
The duo is happy to add another moniker to the mix: colleagues, friends, and now, bandmates.
“We’re both big fans of music and have similar taste in music. We’ve attended a lot of concerts together,” Jonathan said. “We’ve worked with each other. This is just another thing we can enjoy together.”