Helix was formed in the Summer 1979. Dave Cutter and Tim Parkhurst rented a building (to live in) where Highway 101 exited onto Higuera.  We rehearsed in this building, which had once been a slaughter house. 

When I was growing up, it was a surplus store run by a Vietnam Vet who called it “Tiki Tom’s Surplus”.  He later turned it into a church called “The Morning Sunshine Christian Center”.  We heard that he had to leave town because he had too many wives. There were windowless brick meat lockers in the back where Dave and Tim’s roommates, Luke and Robert, set up grow lights and a small pot farm.  Tim slept in a loft under the skylight.   Tim’s Drums were setup in front of a big cross on what was once the altar.  This was a very cool place to rehearse and hang out. 

At the time, Tim was working at a local music store, Castle Music. We met Chuck Whitaker, a bass player there. Things really jelled when Chuck joined.  His girlfriend at the time, Carrie, did lots of the posters and marketing stuff for us gratis.  I recall that Chuck had this very weird bass speaker that he had build. We thought that it looked like Captain Pike from Star Trek Episode "The Cage".

Chuck: We met at --what the heck was the name of that music store??? -- One of the guys there told me to come by after hours when Tim and Pat would come by, some local prog rock freaks that he thought I might get along with. That was WAY more interesting then the top 40 crap I had been doing with a bunch of drunken frat boys (though our version of Santana's Europa was actually pretty awesome...)

Tim: I was working at Castle Music at the time. I set a record for staying at that job for a little over a year (the owner, Ron Resnick, went through employees like most people go through underwear). Anyway, the job had it's perks including being able to borrow equipment and play with it. That's how we got the Tascam four track setup for a couple of days while at the Morning Sunshine Christian Center. I think we also recorded instrumental tracks to a Kansas tune one night. Another perk of working at Castle was the fact that it got me (and later Pat) into the NAMM show. Been back a few times since then, always an interesting experience and a mix of rock stars and wannabees. Working at Castle also allowed me access to equipment to record an early demo of "Won't eat prunes again" and a punk / harmonica version of "You light up my life" for Weird Al. He bought me a pizza dinner that night in return. I shoulda asked for royalties. ;)

Through Tim, we had access to lots of new gear that was coming out. I remember Tim demo-ing one of the first Prophet-5's for me. Tim was always bringing home some new Synth to play with. At one point Tim borrowed a reel-to-reel 4-track recorder which we used to try and record a demo tape.  I think that we only recorded the instrumental tracks of “Holding on to Yesterday”.

During this time, I bought the ARP Avatar, the first commercial Guitar Synth (Analog... Pre MIDI). I really wanted to be able to play like Keith Emerson, but from a guitar. The Avatar was very expensive ($1600.00), and was very hard to play accurately, though I found ways to use it for solos... lots of reverb/echo/delay to cover tracking glitches.

I recall that we rehearsed a lot, but only played a few gigs.  We played in front of Castle Music, as well as 2 gigs at Poly Royal and a performance in the Student Union Quad.

Tim: We played there 'cause I was working at the Cattle Mucus... I mean Castle Music and it was the store's grand opening (about 3 months after the place actually opened).