Colin Alexander Avore,
February 19, 1980-June 18, 2021
One day back in high school, I was talking with my friend Andrew, now better known as Drew Stevyns, on the phone. He had started a rock band with a couple of guys in his area—him on vocals and guitar, Scott Riddle on guitar, and Colin Avore on drums—but they had no bassist. The drummer, however, had a bass guitar and amplifier. So Drew asked me to play bass for them, and I agreed.
One day I got stuck at Colin’s house after practice waiting for my mom to pick me up. Among other things we played basketball and talked a while, and became not just bandmates but friends.
I only stayed with the band for a few months, but later I started another band with my brother Luke on vocals and guitar, a fellow student of my guitar teacher named Lindsay on bass, and Colin on drums. The goal was just to play one show at the local church’s new annual “coffeehouse” event for young bands and be done with it. Turned out we stayed together a few months and played a couple other shows, then Luke went to college and Colin moved to California.
But a few months later, Colin had a change of heart and decided to move back to Maryland. In the meantime, I reconnected with Lindsay and began writing new material. Luke’s influences had included ’80s and ’90s rock bands like REM and They Might Be Giants, and while I enjoyed them as well, I wanted to play something heavier and more serious.
The first song I wrote in its entirety, complete with guitar, lyrics, and bass lines, was Shot Down Again. Colin was the first to read the lyrics. He laughed when he did, which I thought meant he found them silly, so I said, “Yeah, I know it’s probably a little cheesy.” But he said, “No, I like it.” So the lyrics were finalized, and we began practicing the song with Lindsay. (We had trouble figuring out workable accompaniment for the odd time signatures of the guitar intro, which was inspired partly by my classical guitar lessons, so I ended up playing that part solo.)
Lindsay’s mom once offered to help us pay for a studio recording, but I really didn’t think we were ready at the time, so I declined. Later going to college out of state, spending a year abroad for the Watson Fellowship, and losing touch with Colin for a few years all got in the way. In the meantime, however, I had refined Shot Down Again with a couple of other drummers and a second guitarist, cutting an outro solo to tighten up the structure and making some small revisions like adding some harmonies and alternation between the guitars in the guitar solo to get a stereo “ping pong” bounce effect.
But even after tracking down Colin again in 2006, it was some years before we got a decent recording of his drum parts, and still more before I got around to tracking the guitar, bass, and vocals. Finally, just when I was about to send him a rough mix in mid-2021, his brother posted a note that Colin had died.
It wasn’t until late 2022 that I decided I had to complete what we started, and got back to mixing Shot Down Again. In thinking about what to do with it, I decided to create a video using whatever footage and pictures of Colin I could find as a memorial for him, sending it to his mother for Christmas and posting it publicly on Colin’s birthday. You can see the video below on YouTube, and if you wish, visit this site’s store page to download the mp3 or download the video.