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Badlees Timeline

January 1st, 2010 | Add a Comment

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1988	Bad Lee White is formed in Central Pennsylvania by Ron Simasek, Bret Alexander, Jeff Feltenberger, Steve Feltenberger, and Clint Barrick. What Goes Around by Bad Lee White is released in November.
1989	Clint Barrick leaves the band. Pete Palladino joins the band and they change their name to The Badlees.
1990	Steve Feltenberger leaves to join the Marines and is replaced provisionally on bass by Ric Stehman. The band releases their EP It Ain’t For You on October 10^th.
1991	Paul Smith joins as the Badlees permanent bass player.
1992	The Badlees release their first full length album on January 14^th, the self produced LP called Diamonds In the Coal. The band secures a corporate sponsorship with Budweiser.
1993	In August, the Badlees release their second full length album called The Unfortunate Result of Spare Time, produced by Jack Pyers.
1994	The Badlees become the first Western band to play at the Qingdao Beer Festival in China, August 14th through the 18th. The band records their next album, which was originally to be called “The Badlees” in Harrisburg, PA in the Fall of 1994.
1995	The Badlees release River Songs on February 28^th on their independent Rite-Off label and the album sells in excess of 10,000 copies by summer. The album would eventually sell more than 250,000 copies worldwide. On July 28^th, the band signed a two record deal with Polydor/Atlas, starting with the international re-release of River Songs later in the year. The Badlees open up for Jimmy Page & Robert Plant on October 19^th in Buffalo, NY.
1996	In March, the band records the video for “Angeline Is Coming Home” at the famed Charlie Chaplin Studios in Hollywood with actress Juliana Margulies and director Anthony Edwards. During most of 1996, the band tours nationally with artists such as Bob Seger, Greg Allman, The Gin Blossoms, and Edwin McCain.
1997	In Autumn of 1997 the band starting recording at Bearsville Recording Studio in Woodstock, NY the material for the album that would become Up There, Down Here.
1998	In May, Polygram is sold to Segram’s which forms the Universal Music Group and puts many projects, including the Badlees new album, “on hold”. Eager to Get out some new material, the “unplugged” EP The Day’s Parade is released in July.
1999	In a rebelious act, the band releases the independently produced and financed Amazing Grace in April, and is dropped by their major label the next day for “breach of contract”. By August, the band signs with Miles Copeland’s Ark 21 label and releases the long-anticipated Up There, Down Here. Bret Alexander and Paul Smith officially open Saturation Acres Recording Studio on 09/09/99. Long time manager Terry Selders departs from the band at the end of the year (and millenium).
2000	Pete, Jeff, & Ron release 50:45 Live, produced by Pete Palladino.
2001	Three Badlees “side” projects produced and released albums in the Spring of 2001; Jeff Feltenberger’s Echotown, Pete Palladino’s Sweet Siren Of the Reconnected, and the trio of Bret Alexander, Paul Smith, and Ron Simasek as The Cellarbirds produced Perfect Smile.
2002	In January the Badlees released their first live album If Memories Had Equity. Renew, the band’s first studio album in three years, was released in June. The band performed in New York City to record the television special Renew and Rewind, which aired in August.
2004	Jeff Feltenberger, one of the band’s original founders, announced he was leaving the Badlees to pursue other interests in March 2004. Bret Alexander released his first solo album, Gentleman East, in May.
2005	Saturation Acres produces the song “Keep On the Sunny Side” with vocalist K8, which runs nationally on commercials for Day’s Inn for several years.
2008	Saturation Acres studios relocates from Danville, PA to its current location in DuPont, PA.
2009	The Badlees release Love Is Rain, their first studio album in seven years in October.
2011	The band recorded a live, unplugged, storytellers performance on Thanksgiving Eve.

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