Bodiless

Bodiless has been an ongoing musical alias of Jeff Croteau since late 1994, when he changed his working name of Monument to Bodiless. As Jeff began to record songs for the follow up LP to Monument's Resolve in Tenses (1993), and he also opened a recording studio in San Diego, Union Recking Co. Through Stephen El Rey (Burning Hands), some of these recordings came to the attention of Richard Dashut, who was starting his own label, Orchard Music Group, with David Eike, a former engineer at Ocean Way. OMG signed Bodiless, along with an act Jeff had produced at Union Recking Co, The Cat Mary. OMG rented and moved into 41B studios in Westlake, CA, and recorded both bands. Bodiless recorded about 8 songs at 41B and Jeff mixed them and the older songs with Neale Heywood. After the recording was finished, Jeff recruited Pat Meagher on bass, Derek Dutt on guitar, and Paul Chandegra on drums. Bodiless' debut album At Most Fear was released in 1996, the final release for OMG, not long before it folded. Bodiless played their record release party at The Casbah and a few more shows before Paul had to quit for health reasons and threat of deportation back to England. Jeff managed to track about 9 songs with this version of the band and this album will be released soon along with some live recordings. By 1998, Jeff continued recording as Bodiless, mostly playing drums and overdubbing alone, but also with John Slaney on bass, creating an album that will be released as The Faintest Candleglow. Jeff formed Baraka Sea with Zat Baraka and they eventually performed with Bagavan Das in San Francisco. Their style was devotional, something like Kirtan, but original songs. This record will also be released soon. Jeff forgot about music for quite a while and picked things back up in 2009 when he formed a rowdy bar band, Dark Lights, which inspired recording another Bodiless album that will be released soon, on his own. Bodiless released Splinters of Light in 2014, and many more songs and recordings are in the works.