Well... Where do we start? Ah, yes... Bad Connection started out when a lonely musician in need of some extra dough for the summer, decided to put up some flyers to advertise giving lessons in guitar. This musician received a telephone number from an actor friend of his, of another musician who wanted to get better at guitar. Well, these 2 musicians met up, and needless to say... The rest is history.
Those musicians turned out to be Mike Kiker and Rodney Rydzewski, and the actor friend was o...
Well... Where do we start? Ah, yes... Bad Connection started out when a lonely musician in need of some extra dough for the summer, decided to put up some flyers to advertise giving lessons in guitar. This musician received a telephone number from an actor friend of his, of another musician who wanted to get better at guitar. Well, these 2 musicians met up, and needless to say... The rest is history.
Those musicians turned out to be Mike Kiker and Rodney Rydzewski, and the actor friend was one Kirk Contreras, himself an aspiring musician, who eventually joined in on the fun.
Anyway, we first got together as "Verna", named after an actress friend of the group, whom we all lusted after a bit due to her performances in school plays. The group consisted of Mike playing keyboards and lead guitar, Rod on rhythm guitar, Kirk on occasional guitar and percussion, Devin Krenski on bass, and first John Garofolo on drums, later replaced (at the last minute) by Mark Nucero. That band only had one gig, at a Battle of the Bands at Archbishop Ryan High School in NE Philly. They had the unfortunate task of opening the show, and after only an afternoon's worth of rehearsal, didn't pull off a very good performance. However, this did afford Mike the oppurtunity to sit in with the winners of the battle of the bands, The Don Lafferty Experience (they needed a keyboardist), but that collaboration was short lived.
After that, the group continued on as an acoustic 3-piece called "Youth Tree". Rod played guitar, Kirk played congas, and Mike played various instruments like bass, guitar, mandolin, flute, percussion, etc. Unfortunately, this band never had any gigs. They almost got to play at Jillian's at Franklin Mills Mall, but couldn't do the gig, due to lack of material, and the fact that Mike went on vacation with his family that weekend.
Sometime later, Mike and Rod stumbled into Sam Ash Music, where they came across a sprightly young guitarist and singer named Lou Kramer. After playing through a bunch of well known songs that were mutually known between the 3 aspiring musicians, they got together as "Sweet Sound", and recorded a bunch of demos of material penned by Mike and Lou Kramer, Sr. (Lou's dad, himself an accomplished guitarist and singer). Unfortunately, most of the material didn't hold up, and we weren't quite motivated to get gigs. Soon after, Kirk moved to Florida, and so one chapter ended in the story of The Bad Connection (Kirk Contreras is still an aspiring singer/songwriter that you'll find playing at coffee houses in Florida, in the Delray Beach area).
After months and months of going to guitar stores and mucking about, Mike left to join "Pandora's Toolbox" as a bass player, leaving "Sweet Sound" as a duo of Rod and Lou. After growing tired of the name, Lou came up with a name that better suited the kind of music that this group was trying to make, "Bad Connection"! Whether it be a bad telephone connection or a bad connection with the modern music industry, either way, the 2 guitarists felt that they had stumbled onto a name that seemed to finally fit. Their first gig as "Bad Connection" happened at a Halloween Party of their old friend Devin Krenski, which was abruptly ended when the cops came on the scene. Whether or not that was a sign, it certainly felt to the duo that they were going in the right direction.
Mike's membership in "Pandora's Toolbox" turned out to be quite fruitful for "Bad Connection", as they had been invited to open for the group one night at a coffee house on Frankford Avenue called "Expresso Yourself" that Pandora's Toolbox had frequented. Mike even sat in playing bass for "Bad Connection" that night. Sometime later, Pandora's Toolbox, unfortunately called it quits after the departure of it's drummer, and Mike started to focus on playing solo. He frequented Expresso Yourself, where he occasionally met up with his cohorts in "Bad Connection", even sitting in on occasion on bass. It was during these gigs at Expresso, that Rod and Lou had stumbled onto a wunderkind drummer named Joe Szymanik. At first, Joe was one of the "house" drummers at Expresso, where he sat in regularly to back up the variety of artists who performed there, but also played occasionally with both Mike Kiker solo and with "Bad Connection", and soon enough was asked to join the band full-time. Soon after, they found (what they thought at the time to be) a permanent bass player, named Brent. The new band soon sought the help of Mike and his recording gear in his bedroom studio to record some demos that featured the new drummer and bass player. However, Brent's membership in the group turned out to be short lived, and Mike was quickly asked to re-enter the fold, taking over on bass, full-time. Soon after, Andy Amato also joined our ranks, as our full-time keyboard player.
Currently, we are in the midst of recording our first album at Nebula Zone Recordings. We hope to have the album released sometime in the new year.
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