This story is as close as it gets to the Fa
mily Jewels.
I started Trimming The Shield with my borther Bo and our brother-from-another-mother, Levi Fuller in 2002. It was really just a means to an end at the time. We had just recorded our first record as our band 33 Slade, The Way to Win, and had no label backing us at all. I made some calls to Grown-Up People who had some serious experience in the whole label-running thing, asked questions, and kind of modified the model as I saw fit and/or could afford to do.
We did release that first album as a team, and then after that, it just wasn't realistic. Levi relocated to Seattle and Bo was busy playing lots of music at the time. So, I've kind of just been doing it as I can ever since. It's certainly not a Big Label, and so far I've only been able to release projects that I'm a part of... But, I dream of doing more with it, and my dreams have a way of becoming realities in due time.
Here's the best part of the whole thing: where the name comes from. I'm three years older than Bo, which means nothing at our current ages, but as kids it was a bigger gap. When we were respectively about ten and seven years old, Bo had a school project to do. He was supposed to make a family crest that included the surname, photos, etc. I mean, at that age we're talking about some poster board, glue stick and glitter action. But still, school projects can be daunting, especially if you're doing them at the very last minute, which was just such the case. So, classically, Bo tells us about the project the night before it's due. Panic. Chaos. Off we all ran to the CVS to stock up on the aforementioned supplies so that he could set up shop for the night.
Hours passed.
Finally, after no word from the Shield Shop, we went in to check on the busy worker. The busy worker was fast asleep. The poster board that had started out at about eighteen by twenty-four inches had been laboriously whittled down to something closer to the size of a greeting card. It seemed that symmetry had been eluding my poor brother all night, and in an effort to harness it, he had trimmed that little shield down to nothing. The events that followed could get me arrested by the Second Grade Police, but I'll tell you anyway: I made the shield. It looked as much like a seven year old had made it as I could stand for it to (I have issues with perfectionism, you see). Crisis averted. We were never found out. From that moment forward, the ultimate acts of procrastination would be referred to as, "trimming the shield". And here we are.
I am a proud member of that original trio of pals as well as the Procrastination Champions of The World.
We do what we can.
xoxo