MY AUTHORIZED BIOGRAPHY OF THE EVENING RIG

Note: Much of the following information was taken from court documents that, by Minnesota State law, should have remained permanently sealed. The method by which I obtained them and their source is a secret I shall take with me to my grave. Unless of course I am threatened with prosecution, in which case I will no doubt quickly turn rat to save my own skin. Like all writers, I am a contemptible little coward. (BDS)


A standard biography of a band like THE EVENING RIG would probably dwell on the obvious. Former and current bands (THE CRUSH, THE CARDINAL SIN, APRIL EPIDEMIC, CADILLAC BLINDSIDE) or the impossibly dull subject of influences (Johnny Cash, The Wedding Present, Bryan Adams, The Replacements, Drive-By-Truckers, The blah-blah-blahs.) But really, who cares about that shit.

It’s the story of how these three musicians met that I think will prove most illuminating.

Jason Miller, Jake Jarpey and Becky Hanten first crossed paths at the Minnesota River Valley Juvenile Detention Center in New Ulm, Minnesota. The year was 1992.

Miller was the "white collar" criminal of the bunch. He was taken down in a scheme to pocket fundraiser candy bar money. Using his prodigious charms --one’s a court-appointed psychologist would later describe as "typical of a sociopathic personality"-- Miller recruited a cadre of "special needs" girls from his school to sell an allotment of 12 Hershey’s 52-ct Variety Packs. He planned to collect the money from the girls and then frame them for the candy’s disappearance. The plan would have netted him a cool six hundred dollars and change, money he planned on using to buy a second-hand Gibson Les Paul. Unfortunately for Miller, a swim coach witnessed him in the locker room planting evidence among the girls’ belongings (half-eaten candy, wrappers and a few stray bills.) After quickly pulling on his Speedo, the coach apprehended Miller and dragged him before authorities. Oddly, just what this 46-year-old male swim coach was doing in the girl’s locker room somehow seemed to pass without comment.

At his trial, Ansel P. Winkleman, the presiding judge in the case described Miller‘s scheme as, "the most heinously cynical act ever perpetrated by a 14-year-old."

So Miller was shipped off to juvy where he was quickly tagged with the nicknames, "Fresh Meat" and "Dimples." He was an obvious target for those elements inclined to "use him as one would a woman." Always a shrewd one, he paid one of the older kids $11and a carton of KOOL cigarettes for his protection. That kids name was Jake Jarpey. Unfortunately, since Jarpey was monitored closely and expressly forbidden from having matches or a lighter he ended up squeezing the tobacco from its paper tubes and eating it. He used the $11 to buy stomach medicine.

Nevertheless, a bond was formed.

Jarpey, you see, was what cops call a "Firebug."

He had started small, incinerating armies of plastic soldiers deployed in the woods behind his house using home-brewed napalm he created with ordinary gasoline and his older sister’s "L.A. Looks" hair gel. (She bought the stuff by the tub.)

It escalated from there; old Christmas trees left out at the curb, a neighbor’s woodpile, the cardboard dumpster behind the local Pizza Hut.

His coup de gras was burning the name of the band METALLICA into the turf of the school’s football field. Unfortunately, the "lightning bolt" portion of the "A" came too close the field house and adjoining bleachers. From there it spread to a maintenance shed that housed lawn tractors and the gasoline to fuel them. The shed’s explosion rained fiery debris down on the school itself, which having had all of its asbestos removed, quickly burned to the ground. (But not before the blaze inexplicably took the Dunkin’ Donuts across the street with it.) This strange occurrence lent credence to a long-held belief among the students that an underground passageway linked the basement faculty lounge to the Dunkin Donuts. Thus allowing teachers to, "totally duck-out and get donuts and coffee and shit!"

Becky "The Kid" Hanten was the last to arrive. She grew up in Rapid City, SD and had been by all accounts a model young person. She was a fine student and a youth golfer of some regard. However, a breathtakingly commonplace act of bullying would eventually reveal Hanten’s terrifyingly violent nature.

Becky had a "My Pretty Pony" lunch box. It was quite dear to her. (More dear to her than anyone could have imagined.) One fateful day at third period lunch some rough-necked brown baggers took it upon themselves to snatch it away. A humiliating game of "keep away" ensued, with the usually composed Hanten growing, as one witness described it, "all funny and scary and stuff."

Finally, driven to the point of madness, she savagely blinded one of her tormentors using only the straw from her Capri Sun juice bag. They say the blood flowed like spring rain that day. Hanten was about to take a trip up the river. Another result of the gory scene, V8 and Hawaiian Punch were pulled from the cafeteria’s menu, never to return again.

Family connections saw to it that she would serve her time away from South Dakota in the relatively "soft" juvenile rehabilitation system of Minnesota. Once there, it wouldn’t take long before she fell-in with the likes of Miller and Jarpey.

Their exploits at MRVJDC would become the stuff of legend. But that story will have to wait for another time…

It’s time to look to the future. And the future is, THE EVENING RIG.

Brian David Shuey March 2006