Saltine City

Saltine City was an alternative rock band from Skaneateles, New York, that formed from a group that started in April 2008. The group's last performance with Tom Droppa and Josh Cook was July 23, 2011, and John's last performance was on July 7, 2012. The band has gone through a number of name and lineup changes. From 2010 to 2012, John Buterbaugh (vox/guitar/keys) and Ryan Sayko (drums/percussion). The band drew influences from British and American artists when writing originals for their two demo albums, Resolution and John Buterbaugh and Friends and for their 2012 album Saltine City.

Background Information
PREVIOUSLY KNOWN AS: JB&F, The Silent Majority, Sugar Crash, Flannel Fridays

ORIGIN: Skaneateles, NY, USA

GENRES: Alternative, acoustic, pop, rock

YEARS ACTIVE (as Saltine City): 2011-2012

LABEL: Parkour Records

ASSOCIATED ACTS: Young Halogen, Framing Chris, The City, Wolfe Road, Morpheus Child, Sinndrome

MEMBERS (on July 23, 2011): John Buterbaugh, Tom Droppa, Josh Cook, Ryan Sayko

Lineup Changes
A predecessor to Saltine City formed on April 4, 2008 as a fusion of two groups and two solo artists: Young Halogen (John Buterbaugh), Knee Deep in Corpses (Colin Wentworth and Shiva Sharma), Sean Cooper, and Mitch Lucas. John saw Colin's band on MyBand called Knee Deep in Corpses and as John's band Young Halogen had broken up, he expressed interest in the group. As Colin mentioned Sean Cooper as a member of the group, John officially joined and changed the name of the band to Sugar Crash. Mitch Lucas joined, bringing his guitar, keys, and ukelele-playing skills. Colin's drummer Shiva Sharma was also a founding member.

After a few weeks, however, Shiva left the band, believing it to be a waste, focusing his efforts on the band Framing Chris. Colin Wentworth was removed due to his reluctance to sing. Jake Simmons replaced Colin, bringing in multi-instrumental skills in guitar, bass, drums, mandolin, and piano. Mitch left the band to become manager; Nick Simmons took his place but left shortly thereafter. Sean's departure was the most dramatic, leading to a search for a bassist and drummer. During this vetting process, the band lost contact with Jake Simmons. Mitch offered to play bass and keys in addition to manager. Dan Lemp joined, and Shiva returned on drums with his brother Kartik on guitar.

However, as the Skaneateles All-School Show approached, John could not get Kartik, Dan, and Shiva to play. John attempted to hire Scott Bruening on bass and Mark Cannucciari or Tanner Scarr on drums to no avail. John turned to Mitch for bass and Andrew Ebert for drums. The three of them performed "Resolution" as the Flannel Fridays.

Kartik and Shiva left the band, causing the band to go on a short hiatus, while John continued to record demos. Eventually, John asked Kartik and Shiva to join the band again. However, Nick Simmons suggested that Jake Simmons and Ryan Sayko take their place. Still, the band was essentially a one-man band, leaving John to rename the band John Buterbaugh and Friends on October 8, 2009 to account for the constant lineup changes. The two Simmons cousins and Ryan Sayko backed John for the Pride Day concert and the Collective Car Challenge performers, but only Sayko remained as a constant member.

John completed recording of the lead singles, "Resolution" and "Quicksand," with drummer Ryan Sayko for the album originally titled Type X, now simply titled Saltine City. The self-titled album was released on iTunes on July 7, 2012. Tom Droppa joined the group to record "Don't Worry About Me" and returned to play a show at Creekside. Tom also recorded "One of These Days" and "Standing in the Rain" with the group. The band renamed itself Saltine City on March 25, 2011, and Josh Cook briefly joined the band to play bass at the Collective Battle of the Bands.

The band lost contact with Tom Droppa in August 2011, and Saltine City hasn't performed with more than two members since. In fact, the only time that Buterbaugh and Sayko performed together since Droppa's departure was for a few minutes at Creekside on July 7, 2012. Although the two jammed together occasionally, they have not performed in public together ever since.

Resolution
The recording of Resolution took place from April 1 to December 31, 2008 at John's and Sean's houses. The album was released under the Flannel Fridays name on January 20, 2009 and included 55 minutes, 52 seconds of content. Originally, one could download the songs from Resolution from the band's ReverbNation account. Only 20 CDs of this album were pressed. Many of the songs are attributed to Buterbaugh/Cooper although John wrote a great deal of the songs by himself.

The band received acclaim from a few friends and their music had been described as "refreshing," "original," "a different way of looking at things," and "living up to its word." A few of their friends stated that with some practice and better recording quality, the band would go far. Those who criticized the album said the keyboard drums plagued many of the tracks; a few criticized the band for its lack of technical skill. Nevertheless, many have praised the album for its originality and concentration on strong songwriting.

As Flannel Fridays, John and Nick Simmons received a mention, albeit misinformed, in the local press:

"Nick Simmons, right, and John Buterbaug [sic], played two songs at the open mic night at Joe's Pasta Garage on Thursday. John has been coming to the open mic nights since January. He is the soloist for the local band [Final] Flannel Fridays." - Jill Connor, Skaneateles Press

Track listing
''All lyrics are written by John Buterbaugh. All music is written by Buterbaugh except where noted.''


 * 1) "Resolution" - 3:00
 * 2) "Mystery River" – 4:00
 * 3) "Forget the Night" – 3:35
 * 4) "Dharma" – 6:30 (John Buterbaugh, Sean Cooper, Jake Simmons)
 * 5) "Lonely Clouds" – 2:20 (Cooper)
 * 6) "Vocal Minority/Silent Majority" – 4:30
 * 7) "Red Rose Princess" - 1:14
 * 8) "Deethang" – 1:49 (Buterbaugh, Mitch Lucas, Dan Lemp)
 * 9) "Huluna" – 3:37 (Buterbaugh, Cooper)
 * 10) "School" – 7:55 (Buterbaugh, Cooper)
 * 11) "In My Trace" – 3:39
 * 12) "Today's Today" – 4:45
 * 13) "Vox Demos" - 3:51 (Buterbaugh, Cooper)
 * 14) "Voxfree Demos" - 3:38

John Buterbaugh and Friends
John Buterbaugh released demo album John Buterbaugh and Friends on December 7, 2009 to a limited audience. Factors such as quality and equipment delayed the release of the album from December 1 to December 7. Phil Grimshaw of Wavemaster Studios recorded select songs on the demo album from February 28 to March 14, 2009. Two songs from Resolution were re-recorded for the album, and ten new songs appeared as well. The album features less electronic drum work, more guitar, and is considerably shorter than Resolution at 26 minutes, 30 seconds.

Track listing
All songs are written by John Buterbaugh.


 * 1) "Resolution" - ~3:00
 * 2) "Mystery River" - 3:02
 * 3) "Something There" - 3:13
 * 4) "Pickup Song" - 3:40
 * 5) "She Burns In My Soul" - 3:01
 * 6) "It's You I Can't Get Enough Of" - 1:32
 * 7) "Want You" - 3:49
 * 8) "Nothing Can Erase This Moment" - 1:00
 * 9) "Red Rose Princess" - 3:48
 * 10) "One of These Days" - 3:05
 * 11) "It'll Hurt Someday" - 3:35
 * 12) "This Is How It Ends" - 3:08

Saltine City
The album Saltine City was released on July 2, 2012 to iTunes, AmazonMP3, and Zune just days before Buterbaugh and Sayko would perform live together for the last time. Four songs were re-recordings of material from the John Buterbaugh and Friends demo album from 2009. All songs were recorded with John Buterbaugh on vocals, guitar, and bass, and most songs featured Ryan Sayko on percussion. "Don't Worry About Me" and "One of These Days" featured good friend Tom Droppa on guitar. "Tom's work really added new dimensions to the songs," said Buterbaugh. "Don't Worry About Me went from this drippy, dreamy piece to a funk rock jam."

The lead single was "Resolution" which was released in March 2010 followed by "Quicksand" as well as "Don't Worry About Me" and "One of These Days." These four songs were recorded at Subcat Studios from March 2010 to January 2011. The band also recorded "Standing in the Rain" in 2011 but did not include the song on the album.

After recording "One of These Days" at SubCat, the group performed a show at Creekside Books and Coffee in Skaneateles in January 2011. The concert was the first event at Creekside to be streamed live on the internet. The band recruited Josh Cook to perform bass guitar at The Collective Battle of the Bands in July 2011. The band later lost contact with Tom, and only John and Ryan persisted in recording sessions. Greg Carroll of GTC Studios recorded Tracks 5 and 6 in August 2011, while Tracks 7-9 were recorded at PKR Studios from May to June 2012.

Track listing
''All lyrics are written by John Buterbaugh. All music written by Buterbaugh except where noted.''


 * 1) Resolution* - 3:13
 * 2) Quicksand - 2:49
 * 3) One of These Days* - 3:18 (Buterbaugh/Droppa)
 * 4) Don't Worry About Me - 4:10 (Buterbaugh/Droppa)
 * 5) She Burns In My Soul* - 2:51
 * 6) Red Rose Princess* - 4:11
 * 7) If You Wanna Be Famous - 2:52
 * 8) Type X - 4:32
 * 9) SaviourSelf - 5:45

-*Re-recorded version of song from John Buterbaugh and Friends.

Other Projects
Tom Droppa went to school in Redding, California, and continues to play guitar in the Syracuse area. He and his wife recently celebrated their fifth anniversary.

Josh Cook continued to perform bass guitar in the Syracuse area up until at least 2017.

Ryan Sayko performed drums for various groups such as Fruit of Life, Non Scio, and Scaevola's Fire. He is currently pursuing a career in applied physics.

John ran a small business in his recording studio until the preamps on his audio interface burned out in August 2013. He still has his drum kit (Mapex kick and toms, Ludwig snare, Zildjian cymbals), Fender Aerodyne bass guitar, Variax guitar, Martin acoustic guitar, and Luna ukulele.

Recent Developments
A Saltine City reunion is unlikely as Buterbaugh and Sayko live 10 hours apart, and Sayko cannot remotely record drum parts from home. However, Buterbaugh released a 10th anniversary re-recording of "Resolution" to ReverbNation on January 16, 2022. The song was exclusively Buterbaugh playing exclusively real instruments (no MIDI samples) exclusively on his iPhone.

"The redo makes 'Resolution' into pretty standard classic rock song," Buterbaugh argued. "The re-recording has finally allowed me to fall back in love with what I considered one of my most overplayed songs. I've distributed at least three versions of this song before, and this fourth version has no acoustic guitar. What was a cringy, schmaltzy song about a high school crush has become totally fresh and inspiring to me."

Within a few days, John also released punk-inspired re-recordings of "Quicksand" and "One of These Days."

"'Quicksand' was the next single I released on iTunes after 'Resolution,'" Buterbaugh recalled. "I thought the lyrics were better than the melody. The melody is not great until the chorus, and the guitar solo was not great either. This new version has a pretty solo, which contrasts with the rest of the song being so much harsher. It was basically 'discount John Mayer' before."

"I always took a lot of pride in "One of These Days" because it's the kind of song I always wanted to write," Buterbaugh said. "I still thought something was off with the way the rhythm guitar was arranged in the studio version. I felt the arpeggios in the first verse were corny-sounding. So, yeah, it's got double-tracked guitar. And the lyrics still seem so relevant with how detached these Zoom sessions are and how I continue to not really care about certain things. I thought that was perfect material for punk rock. Yeah, so, there's no piano anymore. Whatever. It's punk now. Who cares?"

Press Coverage and Other Mentions
“Together for the first time live: John Buterbaugh will be joined by friends Tom Droppa on guitar and Ryan Sayko on drums.” - Cary Briel of Skaneateles Talk

“Skaneateles singer-songwriter, John Buterbaugh, launches new website!” - Cary Briel of Skaneateles Talk

“Skaneateles resident John Buterbaugh never imagined becoming a musician, but at 19 years of age he is a singer/songwriter bringing his emotion laced music to the masses.” - Gene Eve Viggiani of Skaneateles Talk

“Check out the awesome sounds of Skaneateles singer-songwriter John Buterbaugh!” - Cary Briel of Skaneateles Talk

“John Buterbaugh to play at Creekside, May 21st” - Cary Briel of Skaneateles Talk

“Buterbaugh enjoyed the event because “everyone and anyone can do it.” He has played guitar for more than two years and prepared his pieces for the open mic night, but says all that practice isn't necessary.” - Gavin Strube of Skaneateles Journal

“In addition to opening the night with Mitch Lucas, John Buterbaugh played his own arrangement of "Charlie Brown" in minor.” - Skaneateles Press

“BEST LOCAL BAND!” - James Garzia on Facebook

“you guys are great! you should make a purevolume page” - Hayley Simmons via ReverbNation

“john i never would have guessed you were such a great singer! you did an amazing job on resolution!” - Hannah Gibbons via ReverbNation

“You did a great job singing on Resolution.” - Shiva Sharma via ReverbNation

Associated Acts
Saltine City was marketed under the Parkour Records indie label, which acted as more of a collective for music groups in the Skaneateles area.

Other acts include:


 * A Thousand Times Over (Noah Woods, et al.)
 * Almighty of the Exiled (later Fix Nation): Chris Blessing (vox/guitar), Nick Sherman (guitar)
 * Freaks and Geeks
 * Jake and Hayley (Simmons)
 * Knee Deep in Corpses: Colin Wentworth and Shiva Sharma
 * Long Lake: Nick Smolenski and Corey Newell
 * Megan Grosholz
 * Mister Maybe: Corey Newell, Mike Teixeira, Nick Smolenski, Kohl Davis, Adam Leesman
 * Nick Smolenski
 * Non Scio: Nick Smolenski, Kohl Davis, Ryan Sayko
 * Scaevola's Fire: Kasia Rybczyk, Nick Smolenski, Mike Teixeira, Ryan Sayko
 * Seventh Spectre (formerly Lithium): Corey Newell, Adam Leesman, Nick Smolenski
 * None More Than Heroes (formerly Discovering the Waterfront): Tylor Kenniston, Brandon Brault, Chance Kane, Johnny Rosato, London Rowland
 * Sean Cooper
 * Shotgun Orchestra: Nick Simmons
 * Sinndrome: Tom Droppa (vox/guitar), Corey Huband (vox/guitar), Josh Haines (drums/backing vox)
 * Skantown's TBA: Nick Lee, Kohl Davis, Luke Drancsak, Matt Delasin
 * Tyler Lorey
 * Tyler Munson
 * Vicky Tracy