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Meet The Jitters – The Cape Cod Band Formed By The Pandemic & Technology

The Jitters
Written by Brian Tarcy

CAPE COD – In early 2020, the world was going along as it seemingly always did when suddenly the whole system got a case of the jitters.

Things froze up. Things started up, then stopped again. It was worse. It was better, and then it was far worse. It was all so jittery.



In this chaotic atmosphere, a Cape Cod band was born. They were  physically miles apart from each other, but they connected through the wonder of technology and the virtue of patience. 

Meet The Jitters – Liam Hogg on drums and vocals, Rick Barry on guitar, and Paul Roberts on bass – three calm yet passionate musicians who were determined to make music during the pandemic despite dealing with a technology that at any time might get the jitters.

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Using an app called JamKazam – sort of like Zoom for musicians – the three began playing music together a year ago and have not stopped since.

“If it were not for the pandemic, none of us would have explored what this software has to offer,” said Roberts.

Three nights a week for the past year, Hogg in Harwich, Barry in Marston Mills, and Roberts in Plymouth, have hooked up to JamKazam and played music with each other live and mostly in-synch (when there are no jitters) over the internet as if they were in the same room.

“I can’t think of any musician that wants to play alone,” said Roberts. “For a while, this is as close as we could safely get.”

 

 

WaveCovid 19, Quarantine, & A Band On JamKazam

This story begins, as a lot of pandemic stories do, on Friday the 13th – March 13, 2020.

“My last gig was Friday the 13th,” said Hogg, who was already in several bands before The Jitters. That night, as word came that the state would be shutting down for two weeks to flatten the curve, Hogg recalled that while some bands were cancelling gigs, his band, Earth Junior, “decided if everything is going to shut down, we better play.” They played.

“After that,” said Hogg, “I stayed at home watching the news for two weeks.”



Meanwhile, Barry and Roberts, both of the band, Soul Purpose, had been playing a couple of nights a week up until the shut down.

Barry recalled a gig with another band he is in, Anna & The Moderns, shortly before the shutdown when the toilet paper shortage was big news so the band offered a 12-pack of toilet paper as a prize for a dance contest winner.

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About the author

Brian Tarcy

Brian Tarcy is co-founder of Cape Cod Wave. He is a longtime journalist who has written for the Boston Globe, Boston magazine, the Cape Cod Times and several other publications. He is the author of "YOU CAN'T SELL RIGHT FIELD; A Cape Cod Novel." He is also the author or co-author of more than a dozen mostly non-fiction books, including books with celebrity athletes Cam Neely, Tom Glavine and Joe Theisman. His previous book was, "ALMOST: 12 Electric Months Chasing A Silicon Valley Dream" with Hap Klopp,who created the iconic brand, The North Face.
For more information, see Briantarcy.com
Brian is a long-suffering Cleveland Browns fan with a long-running NFL predictions/political satire column connecting weekly world events to the fate of his favorite team, now at Whatsgonnahappen.com.

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