Reunion '91 by AZ IZ

It never occurred to them that more then 50 people would want a tape, though they played packed shows virtually every weekend. Marketing was a foreign language to Az Iz.

The next trip to the studio resulted in their first big time radio play, a major accomplishment for a band outside of the big city spot light. Of course the band did nothing to capitalize on this new found promotion, they were preoccupied with trying to line up a gig at the next kegger.

The third trip to the studio cemented their “legend” status in the suburbs. The band scored a bona fide radio hit with the original recording of “Say It to Me- Talk Dirty”. Spending 5 weeks at number 1 on college radio was a feat in and of itself, the fact that the college had never played a local band before made it even more amazing. Once again the band proved their ineptness to capitalize on this silver spoon opportunity, though they did get a feature article in the local paper, it was just more fuel for local myths but nothing more.

Soon, responsibilities out weighed the dream of rock-n-roll and the band was no more. Families, jobs and new cities brought an end to Az Iz but not after a life time of memories were created in those short few years.

Like most legends, the facts grow with time and the truth lies somewhere between the lines. How good was the original band? Well that’s subjective, and needs to be separated from how “fun” the band was live, but the Az Iz reunion ‘91 disc gives you a taste of what the band was doing in the early 80’s. A high school reunion brought together three of the four original members for a weekend in 1991. Spending a weekend in a garage with some amateur recording gear and a beat up borrowed drum set, original members Duayne Zeigler, Charlie Robinson and Darin Di Pietro were joined by fill-in Aaron Uhrich (original member Aj Schulte was long out of touch by this time) to lay down the basic tracks for 5 of their, by now, oldies but goodies, plus one new original- “Be Here For Me”.

After finishing the recording they gave out low budget cassette copies for kicks and never gave it much more thought.

2006- A long lost reunion cassette shows up in a bag of old tapes that was discovered while cleaning out a closet. The tape still had the original cover and, all things considered, wasn’t in bad shape. It gets dumped on a hard drive and made into a CD. Word spread to a few friends and they wanted copies to “bring back those memories” just for laughs. Well if you can make a copy for a few friends, in 2006 you can make copies for the whole world. For nothing more glamorous then “archiving” purposes, this digitized version of the lonely reunion cassette that was stuffed away in a brown plastic grocery bag is now available online, and CD, for anyone who cares to have a listen. Who knows, maybe one of the old Az Iz fans will stumble upon this and the memories will coming rushing back. Maybe they’ll dig up their old “Can’t Stop Rockin’” t-shirt, open a beer and be taken back to a Friday night at the local VFW hall where all we had to worry about in life was collecting enough money for the next keg........

Az Iz reunion ‘91:

Duayne Zeigler- Vocals

Charlie Robinson- Drums

Aaron Uhrich- Bass

Darin Di Pietro- Guitar

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