To describe an outsider's view of the rise of Chairs in the Arno, I would first have to start a ways back with some info on a small band called Tumblepop. Tumblepop originated in Loma Linda in approximately '96-'97 and was the creation of a few high school friends, Tod Gillies, Mike Hiersche and Jeff Grube. The band name was taken from a coin-op arcade game at BK Subs, a small sandwich shop that catered mainly to the Loma Linda Academy student population.

The band played music with a primarily rock/indie influence and had little notoriety amongst the high school crowd. They were not surprisingly overshadowed by the more popular high school bands (composed of the more popular high school students) who were cleaner-sounding yet lacking in creativity. The talent show crowds were more impressed with good covers of classic rock songs and the hideous Dave Matthews Band than less familiar, original music.

Tumblepop would eventually leave Loma Linda Academy (as band members graduated) in the summer 1998 with little fanfare to introduce itself to Pacific Union College in the fall of the same year. Relatively speaking, the college student population was somewhat more accomodating. Tumblepop did indeed turn a few heads at their first college talent show performance. Some fans dug the sound, while others were quite impressed with Jeff Grube's ability to finish out a song while his drumset spontaneously collapsed on stage. Regardless, Tumblepop's fledgling performances earned it a small cadre of hard-core fans who would regularly attend practices and the occasional local show.

The band would occasionally employ additional help for some of it's songs. Ryan Fly would play the drums on certain songs, and I remember the band's first local show played at a pub in Santa Rosa where I was enlisted to sing lead vocals for the song "Drive Out." I can still envision the leering drunk woman who swayed back and forth in front of me, hippie-freakout-style, while I nervously butchered the vocals that I should have left to Tod who had written them and performed them much better in the first place. We were paid in pizza from the kitchen. Though the turnout was low and the crowd was largely indifferent, this would yet be a milestone in proving that it was indeed possible to play shows in the future.

In the freshman year of our college stint, Jeff Grube found an interest in keyboards and had bought a Moog, which would eventually become a staple instrument in subsequent Tumblepop tracks. The band continued to mature in content and proficiency, but would eventually break up after the band members went their separate ways at the close of the sophomore year of college. The talented and enigmatic Tod Gillies would eventually strike out on his own, heading up north to Washington and into general obscurity. Mike Hiersche headed down to southern California to continue his pursuit of a degree in engineering. Jeff Grube would also return to southern California, changing his major from electrical engineering to physics, finishing out his degree at UC Riverside.

After the summer of our sophomore year, the two Jeff's and Ryan fly would go to Italy for a year, cementing their ties and commiting the memorable act of throwing chairs into the river Arno while on a drinking binge.

Upon their eventual return to the Napa Valley, Jeff Excell, Jeff Knight and Ryan Fly would begin fledgling experiments with old keyboards, scouring thrift stores for anything bearing the heralded "Casio" trademark. The very first taped jam sessions amounted to horrific recordings of factory-set beats with three-tone variations, sounding like, well, the term "electronic cavemen" comes to mind.

While Ryan and Knight continued on with college, Excell would go early into the working world. The small apartment rented by Ryan and Excell allowed no room for any kind of practice or recording. This problem was semi-solved as Ryan moved to a larger house on Lodi Lane in Saint Helena, shared with Krista and two other PUC socialites, Sarah and Melanie. During this period, Excell had returned home to Auburn for a temporary stint at Denny's while scraping together a nest egg to return to Europa in the future. Krista would eventually move out, and Excell would move in upon his return to the valley. During Excell's absence (though he would visit on occasion), Ryan and Knight would begin to put more devotion and enthusiasm into musical composition. The idea of forming a band became yet more tangible as Excell moved into the Lodi Lane house.

The Lodi Lane house afforded much more room for equipment and practice. Unfortunately, the trio would occasionally be at odds with Melanie and to a greater extent the self-styled debutante-diva, Sarah. Annoyed but undaunted, the three of them would carve out time to experiment and to practice with increasing enthusiasm, talent and aptitude, acquiring more and more equipment including conventional instruments. Keyboards, guitars, pedals and drums began to breathe new life into the daydream of forming a band. As their interest in electro-pop and midi increased, macs, drum machines and higher-end keyboards would come to bolster their instrumental arsenal.

Sarah and Melanie eventually moved out, and Knight moved in. They held the fort for a few months until at last befriending the fourth and final member of the band, Becca Hsu. Though at first she was quite shy about singing, she would come to provide the female vocals and additional moog-saavy that would make the band complete at last. And, with a house to themselves they were able to devote as much time and energy as they wanted to working on their music.

As their first songs coalesced, CITA began to network with the help of their friend the internet. Sizing up venues to play proved to be somewhat of a gamble.

"So what do you call yourselves?"
"Chairs in the Arno."
"Say that one more time."
"Chairs in the Arno."
"Okay. We'll see you friday." -click- "Yeah, they call themselves 'Chairs for Amo'. No, I don't know what the hell it means either, but they're booked."

Joey, Annie and I tagged along to see them play the nondescript sports bar in San Rafael as they fronted for the Pauli Exclusion Principle, a better-known local emo bar-band with whom CITA had little in common. We sat smiling encouragement in the midst of a handful of beer-swilling roughneck blue-collars who were scared, confused and disoriented by the keyboards and drum machines.

As CITA continued to search for venues, they would be more succesfull playing locally and on tour with similar bands,(megamoog, program names) playing as far away as Bakersfield. The Saint Helena crowd was quite receptive to CITA's sound. Their persistence earned them a substantial following and they were able to produce and sell singles as they gained notoriety. Myspace (as much as I would try to minimize it) aided their ability to network and offer samplings of their music online.

The band members have for now been working on other projects as Knight would head up to Washington to pursue a Master's Degree in social work; Jeff and Becca headed to France to learn french; Ryan would go to Italy to toil at Villa Aurora and master his italian,. As just about anybody interested in the band knows, CITA is in the process of releasing an album via Mushpot Records. In the meantime, Knight has continued to hone his talents through his independent project Beep Kitty. Excell and aCCeb have done the same with their collaborative effort Little Naps and may also be releasing some form of music with Mushpot. Ryan is getting a genuine italian experience and i believe is still playing music.