Casey Hess has hit the big time now and is playing with the Burden Brothers, his work can be found at www.burdenbrothers.us. For recent art and music projects by Don Relyea please visit www.donrelyea.com the evilcomputergenius or 7vials.com or ropelab. Bobby is in Colorado now, and has become an avid mountain man.

There are rumors about Casey and members of Halls of the Machine doing some new Jump Rope Girls Shows. That would be awesome.

The Jump Rope Girls was envisioned by Casey Hess while recovering from open heart surgery in the mid nineties. The band was named after the young girls he saw jumping rope outside his hospital window while convalescing. Bobby Maloney joined Casey at first and the duo performed off and on around the DFW area for a year or so until they were joined by programmer artist Don Relyea in late 1996. The band won a myriad of local music awards in Dallas and Fort Worth during it's active period from 96-2001

The trio released 8 Track Demos on One Ton Records in 1999. Casey Hess-Lyrics, Guitars, Vocals, Don Relyea - programming, synthesizers, Bobby Maloney- programming, synthesizers

FORGETTING HOW
I'm in the whitest skin
Sipping digital lips
Hazy are the days of radiation rays
All the views from a hospital room
All the shots they came too soon
You fall then you call
Like rain from above
Fall on Dallas
Be my Dallas
While I'm forgetting how
I will forget to die
Maybe drinking myself dry
Maybe lifting your skirt up high
To converse it hurts
I'll tear your radar to the ground
'Cuz my signal belongs around
You fall then you call
You're like rain from above
Fall on Dallas
Be my Dallas
While I'm forgetting how
My love it grows bolder
Like scars on a soldier
Your wires they hold tight
I feel them in moonlight
And the ships they can flow by
Through love and starry eyes
And we won't disappear
Our signal belongs here.
C.H.

SLINGSHOT
All of my coins are gone
I jet stream through the toll way
Was hanging out with the boys
Cuz laughter makes you feel safe
And over there the girls do shots
And bitch about their boyfriends/X's
All the girls want older men
To sweep them out of Texas
Oh Mary Mary please
Just hide your baby there
You are a sling shot girl
I am the rock you hurl
Shoot me across this town
Over the buildings yeah
I might just land somewhere nice
I want to watch you from there
Oh Mary Mary please
Just hide your baby there
You are a sling shot girl
I am the rock you hurl
All of my schemes have changed
The team won't dare to rescue me
The boys are all crashed out
The girls are looking hard
For the prize they wanna see
Your eyes aren't into me
We used to kiss in the streets
Travelled across the sea
Sourrendered to your fleets girl
Stuck to your gravity
I know I don't need this
I only say this once
You count the days till it ends
This happened just last month
The days it ends
C.H.

LOOKING FOR MOTHERS
Sad rushes by like a mean red car race
Throws old ashes in my face
The old blood and new found melodies
Cry out like lost kids in K-Mart stores
Looking for mothers
Through orchards of regret
These few dreams I won't let
Dive into empty pools
A signal from control
Orders a low blow
A message to stay alive
This is a ride I wanna leave
This is a race in a black car
On empty and smoking bad
Ablaze and ironclad
And when the shots come
They don't bother me
Cremate the viens
In hopes to save me
To cry in the hall we have to walk down
The ringing ears that cancelled sound
Orchards of regret
Come down
C.H.

LIKE PINK
You're far enough to be out of view
And close enough to be see through
A baby's gleam
Like morphine
This is no house that love built
I can't clean what I've spilt
She's a peak through the keyhole
Bare bones and see through clothes
Throw your hottie scent on
And roses flock to the feet
Of the girl striking the poses
Like pink
She wants you to notice
This is not the house
That love built
I can't clean what I've spilt
Like pink
Close enough to be see through
A baby's gleam
Like morphine
Close enough to be see through.
C.H.

JETS AND MAGIC
Thrown from the haze of dawn
The breeze sings a battered song
Remote her mind from it all
It wears off and stars they fall
For my babies
I will take the orders
They'll have new shoes by Easter
This is what I do
Char will watch the boys till 8
In this office
I must stay
This is what I do
Char is in a lover's mindset
And the boys
They play all day
With jets and magic
It's been blue moons
Since last I touched you
This is our family
This is what I do
C.H.

SILVER GIRL
I mourn the death
Of the life I had before
I was a golden boy
And I had my silver girl
I took her every day
Like medicine
She used to hold my hand
Through all the burnt skin
She says everyone deserves a rainbow
And all I can give you
Is a handful of black coal
Her smile her laugh her calming look
Who wants to miss a lover?
Who wants to be in a circus
When the clowns leave town?
You're a trapeze heart
I'm no safety net
So you tore apart
On a mountain top
You're a wedding ring
You're a house of hope
Where the birds sing
So do I close the door
On the life I had before?
To be a golden boy
And to have my silvergirl
To take her every day
Like medicine
Will she hold your hand
Through all the burnt skin?
C.H.

Don Relyea, Casey Hess, Bobby Maloney 1997

The Jump Rope Girls often played with guest musicians. Guitar master Mike Graff of Course of Empire played on a couple of occasions. Gabby and Burette Douglas of Buck Jones and now the Cush played a set or two. Members of Red Animal War and other bands joined the live line up for shows.

The Jump Rope Girls photo in data base entry in the gracenote CDDB is joke. I forget who was responsible but it is pretty funny. The photo is actually from an 80s hair band named Juliet. You can see the joke is still going on after all these years on Amazon's entry for 8 track demos.