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Thursday, June 26, 2008

Small-Town Band Gives Hope to All

By Rory Mcclannahan
Mountain View Telegraph
      I know that pride is a sin — one of the deadly ones, in fact.
    Still, sometimes I just can't help myself when it comes to touting the accomplishments of people I know. I don't even have to know them that well.
    So my pride is worn on my sleeve when I talk about Gio Urbina and Jonathan Anderson. To fans of their band, Hit By A Bus, they are known as simply Gio and Skreech. To folks in Moriarty, they might be known as “neighbor.”
    I first met Gio eight years ago when she was a high school senior and Skreech I only met through a phone conversation a couple of days ago.
    Gio was a member of the Honor Civics class at Moriarty High School in 2000 that went to Washington, D.C., to compete in the national “We The People” Constitution contest. I was fortunate enough to report on the class' efforts to raise money for the trip, the state contest and, finally, the students' trip to Washington.
    My first impression of Gio was that she was a rocker chick who really didn't fit in.
    “Yeah, that's about how I felt,” she confirmed for me last week.
    But she is smart and deserved to be on that trip as much as anyone. She was nice, and I'm sure we chatted on the trip, although I can't really remember what those conversations were about.
    “A good kid,” was the lasting impression I got from her and the rest of the students on the trip.
    It's eight years on now, and I still consider Gio, and now Skreech, to be good kids, although I don't know if calling them kids is really fair.
    While still at Moriarty High School, Skreech helped start Hit By A Bus. After the pair graduated in 2000 and went off to the University of New Mexico, Gio joined the band and they began to get more gigs. Somewhere along the way, they made the decision that maybe they had a shot at making a career, and they threw themselves into it.
    That kind of commitment to something that may never pan out took courage, and I imagine the support of a lot of people. In the past couple of years, the band has got some attention, eventually playing a couple of dates on the Vans Warped Tour and playing lots of gigs wherever people would listen, and even some places where they wouldn't.
    “Our weirdest show was probably when we played at a homeless shelter in Compton,” Skreech said. “They really weren't into us.”
    Some people might think that rock and roll is about sex and drugs, but the reality is a lot different.
    “It's a lot of hard work with long hours in a van with a bunch of smelly people,” Skreech says. “Our hope is to just be able to make a living by playing music.”
    Recently, Hit By A Bus released a new CD, and both Gio and Skreech have been making the rounds to music stores, begging for shelf space. They've been hitting up reporters and radio station program directors. They've made a big marketing push online through the band's Web site. Copies of the new CD, “The Optimist's Handgun,” are available through their Web site, www.hitbyabus.net, or at any area Hastings store.
    So even though I've had literally nothing to do with their increasing success, I still feel pride for Gio and Skreech. They give hope to anyone from a small town and are willing to work hard.
    That's something we can all be proud of.
   
    Contact Rory McClannahan at 823-7102 or online at editor@mvtelegraph.com.>   

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