AARON GREGORY

June 2007

When I met Aaron, I didn't know many people in San Francisco. Kenny Fowler introduced me to many and perhaps most of the meaningful of San Francisco music but my girlfriend introduced me to Aaron. She always had a knack for finding very interesting people. He saved my ass on at least one occasion, and I marveled at his love of the group JAPAN. And we both love the recording process and felt experimenting with sound was as valuable as writing a song. Aaron and I recorded strange music together along with Ricky Williams before they became Midgets. 

Aaron and I were both were bike messengers at RedCo famously wearing the classic red jumpsuit. In SF at that time many of those into punk music worked there also at one time or another. Jonathan, Craig and I all worked at RedCo together the same time is Aaron. It made getting to rehearsal much easier to do. 

I'll treasure my memories of our time together as messengers, collaborators, or as a dad - and roommates chillin' on the Florida St house roof on a July 4th as fireworks popped off around us. I do not have bad memories of our time together. He was a loving father, and the years in SF allowed me to see that being an oddball dad was okay. Aaron had high standards for himself, perhaps he wasn't being fair to himself - but he always wanted to be better, achieve more, know more and experience more, so he could share it with those he loved, be it his family, friends, or the music community.

We communicated even while he was locked up in a foreign country. I remember thinking how "the Prisoner" was one of his favorite dramas - and mine, but I never got a chance to explore that topic.

Like Tim, Ricky and Annie, he died way too young.

                                                                    Paul Hood May 2013

I didn’t really get to know Aaron well when he was first in the band. It was after we had broken up and I helped him move to his house on 20th St where Paul used to live that we hung out the most. We did a bit of recording and hung out on his roof alot. When I returned from the UK Aaron was no longer playing but working for Tom as an engineer and Chris Issak as a tour manager. He was a father and was working hard to support his family. I took his daughter Alice to see a “ A Christmas Carol” at ACT. Then things changed as they do and I didn’t hear much about him for years except occassionally through Paul. His circumstances in his last few years always suprised me. I always thought he would open his own studio or start a label. It was not to be.                                          Craig Gray 2013