Stroke 9

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Stroke 9 is a band that was formed in the San Francisco Bay Area in 1989.

[edit] History

The band actually formed due to a "Rock Band" class at Marin Academy in San Rafael, just north of San Francisco. In 1990, as a project, the class went to Jim Reitzel's Right Sole Studio in Kentfield, California. They produced a demo containing five songs, including "Blindness", "Wild", and "Dream Song". After Spring that year, the Rock Band seniors,

Luke Esterkyn (Guitar and Vocal)
Greg Gueldner (Drums)
Tom Haddad (Bass)
Kirsten Stromberg (Keyboard and Vocal)

took their final half-semester off during Senior Project to form the band Stroke 9 for full credit. They set up in Luke's basement and started writing songs for their next demo.

Stroke 9 had their first "official" live performance at Caffe Nuvo in San Anselmo. They split up for the summer and didn't get back together until the summer of 1991. However, Tom Haddad and Kirsten Stromberg had no desire to revive Stroke 9. Therefore, Luke and Greg recruited old schoolmates John McDermott and Stephen Heath. They moved from the basement to the garage, and played publicly anywhere that they could.

The Modern Era of Stroke 9 truly began in April of 1997 when the band asked Eric Stock to fill in on drums. This legendary show, at Mill Valley's Sweetwater, marked Eric's entrance into the band and the completion of the current line-up. Eric was a New York transplant who had previously toured with Modern English (but is not an original member of that 80's sensation).