BIOGRAPHY: The story of Kelakos is about four musicians all determined to pursue their musical ambitions.  While the band did not achieve national prominence, they did succeed in supporting themselves for four years by appearing in clubs, schools and other venues, sharpening their talents through hundreds of performances.  Three of them joined forces as teenagers in Cohasset, Massachusetts.

When Mark Sisson moved to Cohasset from Seattle he had an electric guitar and joined with George Michael Kelakos Haberstroh, a talented singer who took up guitar once the first band was formed.  Lincoln Bloomfield Jr. had been, since grade school, a sousaphone player who took up electric bass.  George, Mark and Linc, with others on drums and keyboards, formed “Emergency Exit” during high school and college years, renamed “The Criminals” in the early 1970s.  They drew inspiration from the Beatles, Hendrix, Rundgren, Clapton, Allman Bros, Cobham, Zeppelin, The Who, Johnny Winter, CSNY, Grand Funk, Rhinosceros, Santana and many more influences, playing clubs and schools across New England and going full-time in 1974.

Carl Canedy grew up in upstate New York, developing his drumming skills and developing music industry connections in Ithaca, Elmira, Cortland, Corning and surrounding areas.  In 1974 Carl made his way to Boston, performing with a number of bands before meeting George, Mark and Linc.  Carl was an accomplished music professional and a songwriter as well, who shared the band’s ambitions to create their own musical legacy.

The band took the name Kelakos to honor George’s family heritage, and moved to New Jersey in late 1975 to play clubs throughout central New Jersey, the Jersey shore, New York and Long Island.  After a year the band relocated again, to Ithaca, New York, which was a lively hub for recording and performing musicians.  Ithaca became Kelakos’ base of operations for the next two years.  They took fifteen of their original songs into the studio from 1976-1978, producing a single – “There’s A Feeling” / “Funky Day” (1976) – and an album, “Gone Are The Days” (1978), from which the title track and “How Did You Get So Crazy” were also issued as a single.

The three engineers involved in this album all went on to significant accomplishments.  Les Tyler, who handled the two songs on the 1976 single, went on to run a number of audio technology companies including DBX.  Alex Perialas, now producer and owner of Pyramid Sound Studios in Ithaca, NY, and Associate Professor of Performance Studies at Ithaca College, produced several successful metal recordings in the 1980s.  Tony Volante engineered for Donald Fagan and has worked for top studios including Sound Lounge in NYC, where he now handles TV and movie post-production.

In 2013, the original 16-track 2-inch studio tapes were run onto separate digital audio files by SI Studios in Old Forge, PA.  Lincoln Bloomfield mixed the raw tracks into the 15 songs in this collection, which were then mastered by Blaine Misner at Cue Studios in Falls Church, VA.

This limited edition CD, with digipak album art by Eric Philippe including a 12-page information booklet, is available for purchase from CD Baby at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/kelakos4.  The music is available on download and streaming services worldwide.