Daydream Radio

By Will James

Daydream Radio was a testament to the challenges of keeping a band alive in its nascent state. After over two and a half years competing visions, artistic evolution and a struggle with the more practical arenas of band management, the young quintet has decided to throw in the towel.

The band – guitarists Chris Kryiakou and Eddie Laguna, drummer Tony Lopez, bassist Thomas Smollins and vocalist Sean McNicholas, all in their early twenties – played roughly fifty shows on Long Island, Manhattan and upstate New York. They chronicled their intense blend of experimental- and indie-infused punk in two demos released over their three-year lifespan. Their last performance passed this month.

Laguna, who picked up an electric guitar for the first time at Daydream Radio’s first practice, paints a picture of a band whose musical style progressed rapidly from pop to experimental, but whose working relationship became problematic over the years.

“Daydream Radio's demise really came through by ignoring the internal problems that we had,” Laguna wrote in an email. “All of the turning away finally came to a point where the internal problems were affecting the way we were making music. Not everyone was putting in a hundred percent. We were playing shows toward the end missing band members on stage and all of these strains were taking the fun out of playing music.”

There was the added pressure of sitting in the sidelines watching local bands like Permanent Me and Envy on the Coast, with which whom Daydream Radio came of age, garner national success. Daydream Radio played their first show on Dec. 4, 2004, at Merrick’s Temple Beth Am alongside very early incarnations of Permanent Me and Envy on the Coast. However, where their peers continued to employ what Laguna calls “get famous quick” elements, Daydream Radio began to outgrow pop-punk and sing-along choruses around the same time they lost their original singer and bassist – Rob Martinez and Tom Assortato of Drawn in the Sky – just two performances into their career.

“People are comfortable with familiar sounds,” Laguna said in an interview. For a while, that seemed to explain the comparatively slow progress of Daydream Radio while Envy on the Coast and Permanent me were featured in magazines and snapped up by labels. However, Laguna has come to realize that bands that stray from the path, even a little, require that much more work to catch on. In the end, a self-described “half-assed work ethic” took its toll on the band.

“We contemplated what we were doing wrong. I had thought to some extent it was that people were afraid of things that didn’t sound familiar to them, and maybe because we didn’t rock catchy choruses we weren’t getting the attention I thought we deserved,” Laguna wrote. “It wasn’t until I took a step back to realize we needed to pull ourselves together, and have everyone put in one hundred percent before we would get any attention. We weren’t fulfilling the responsibilities like we should have. We didn’t go out and be aggressive like we should have. It wasn't that the kids weren’t listening, it was that we weren’t bringing the music to the kids' ears.”

Still, Laguna sees an unhealthy fear of the unknown in today’s culture. “There are a lot of good bands that aren’t getting the coverage they should be getting,” he said in an interview. “The bands that are falling through the cracks are the ones that are not sounding like the other bands.” Of the Long Island music scene, Laguna cites We Meet Under Tables and Robbers, who Kryiakou joined after Daydream Radio dissolved, as examples of bands messing with the status quo. “I hope that doesn’t go overshadowed.”

As of right now, it’s not known whether McNicholas, Smollins or Lopez will be moving on to any new projects. Laguna, though, is part of an unnamed collaborative project with Chris Davies and Tom Kelly, two engineers from Bedtime for Brezhnev Studio in Huntington. “We're really working on rhythmic guitars and drums with interesting time signatures to create something that will capture people’s attention,” he wrote. “My ideal musical entity is something that encompasses a lot of energy, but is dynamic at the same time. It knows when to be calm and it knows when to be chaotic.”

Looking back, he attributes this taste for the abstruse and the experimental to his time in Daydream Radio. While reminiscing about Daydream Radio’s first months, Laguna wrote, “Chris and I started a fascination with delay and effects pedals, not to mention we started listening to different music as well. Around the time of the lineup change I started getting heavier into jazz, funk, Latin, reggae, experimental, and some of those elements were leaking into the music.”

That’s not the only thing Laguna is taking with him. “Musically, Daydream Radio has become a stepping stone in my life as a musician,” he wrote. “I'm not sad that it’s over; Daydream Radio made me into a better musician. It taught me so many things about the internal management of a band, and not to ignore problems, just take care of them as they arise. If we had just done that in the first place we would probably still be making music, but it’s not something to dwell on because I feel like I left the band with a lot more knowledge. Toward the end I think I started becoming a better songwriter.”

Bedtime for Brezhnev Studio is releasing a compilation of Long Island music in Sept., featuring Daydream Radio’s last recorded song, “Dirty Baby Blueberry.” You can reach Daydream Radio and listen to their music at www.myspace.com/daydreamradio.

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• Punk
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