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WHAT IS IT REALLY LIKE TO BE IN A MUSICAL GROUP?

BAND SCIENCE 101 Pt. #1, OR......

NED ROUSE’S DIARRHEA OF A MADMAN

WHY DO THIS?

First of all I want to let everyone know that playing live is one of the most exciting experiences you can have. Even if the music is bad, a band can make it their own and create an incredible atmosphere. When musicians click during a song or jam and get that telepathy thing going down, there is not any way to describe the charge it can deliver to you and others. When a groove happens, suddenly a group of people watching wakes up and notices that something indescribable is taking place. Musicians are crazy and that is why I wrote this first paragraph to proceed what follows below. You need to know, for what is written next, in the musician’s mind, is fully validated by the comments above. Lots of struggling becomes more than worthwhile for one moment of sheer musical bliss!!!!!

LET THE GAMES BEGIN?

The best band I was ever in was the least popular. The worst band I was in was the most popular. In the late 60’s or early 70’s people danced to anything. Of course they have been taught since that the ever so popular pulsating disco bass drum beat is what they must have to get close to the rhythm. If the music is simplistic then the inept audience could attempt to dance to it. This didn’t mean that your average drinking customer could dance. When they tried, it was always entertaining to the thinking band members. Patrons of bars come in and strut their stuff. The men do the equivalent of aerobic exercises and the woman get all dolled up, then dance like they are afraid that something may fall off from them. Customers yell out requests like you should know every song that was written. If you were to go and ask them for a steak at their job at McDonalds I doubt they could deliver the meat either. Since I didn’t tell them how to flip burgers or plow a parking lot, I figured they shouldn’t ask me to mess up a song so they could illustrate it with their self taught classically trained dance moves. As for bar bimbos, I picture the day 10,000 years from now when archeologists open a bimbo’s burial coffin just to be perplexed by the two silicone burial pillows that this society must have placed in their coffins. The music critics and out of work musicians hang out by the soundboard and criticize the bands that are working. At the end of the night the soundboard area is where all of the dejected drunken studs and their buddies hang out. Is this a coincidence? This is also the area where sad individuals can fight over the women who don’t want them. These are the mating rituals of the future families of rehab. Bar owners usually have a good thing going until they experiment with running different styles of live musical acts in the same week. Another problem the bar operators have is their own substance abuse issues or just good ole’banging the help! Many are usually unpleasant and have egos bigger than pretty boy guitar players. Did I mention that they usually have no musical taste? Often they leave the employment of bands up to their favorite bouncer or DAY manager, which makes a lot of sense to anyone from this side of Hell. If owners or managers have a favorite song, and they happen to be in the bar, several bands that I have played for, would rustle up the dreaded long version of that particular song. You gotta’ suck up if you want return work. …So much for the ole’artistic integrity. Expired dancing permits, lack of building insurance, lawsuits from drinking related irresponsibility, along with the local police popping customers as easy pickins’ at closing time, keep the musical landscapes ever changing. Bars get rich off of the misery of bands and others, and then close quickly. There’s always the exception, but the government eventually closes them down. Then you get to see a once prosperous business sporting locked chained doors with a FBI sticker on it.

WHO ARE THESE SO CALLED TALENTED INDIVIDUALS?

There were a few decent players that I had the privilege to work with. They were kindred spirits and wise people, in a mean business. I will not talk about them this time. If you ask me about what I remember most about playing in clubs professionally for over 37 years as a percussionist, my answers would be, the backside of all of the guitar players. Sadly many musicians trick themselves into believing they’ll be rich and famous someday. So they never invest, have benefits, or job security. There are a lot of benefit functions held to address their heath concerns in their later years. I also remember that most musicians won’t let the soundman do his job. Good soundmen are like quiet talented sages. They tell musicians things that they do not want to hear or do. So the band misbehaves and cheats the sound person whenever they can. “Oh was I too loud?” or “I can’t hear the monitor!” are naughty and effective protests. The biggest assholes in the bar always fight by the expensive sound equipment and think the light show area is a beer table. Within my bands there were a lot of volume wars, alcohol problems, unpleasant sexual quirks, and drug usage. Now most guitar players really feel they are never loud enough because they are sooooo special and that they have to solo or grandstand in every song. Rock guitarists can’t play country and country guitarists suck at rock, but they never realize it, ever! Some of the very best players I have had the pleasure of working with have lousy musical tastes and a lack of discipline. They play for the women only, often choosing to play just good enough to get them laid, or be offered different ways to get high. God forbid if you were to write music and actually play it for the audience. A lot of musicians are convinced that everyone is so homogenized in the audience that they could never handle unheard of music. So I wrote music to and from gigs, then in between, for myself mostly. I practiced and created constantly. I did folk gigs on the side. A folk audience is a listening audience. Some bands did my rock songs and they went over well. Guitar players liked to stick them in between two proven dance numbers. I did absolutely love the few live and creative concerts I was allowed to be a part of. Again, the original material fared well. That is all I want to say about that. Bass players are an interesting, but different breed of guitar player. Good bass players are dedicated. Mediocre and bad ones curse the day that they didn’t learn to play lead guitar. They know that they do not play lead, are never too much trouble, often act, and announce things from the stage like top 40 DJ’s. A bass player is fun to lay down rhythm with. My opinion is that for some reason they can really get plowed and still manage to play. This is why they are usually the first band members to gain weight when they get older. Just like top 40 disc jockeys,…ehhh! It is too bad that they will usually owe the bar about what they made playing in a given week. This brings us to the people banging the cans. Drummers always remind me of Animal from the Muppets. They usually are fast, funny, wild, and out of control, especially when stepping out from behind their kits. Percussionists are usually stuck in the back where no one can really see them, and are given throwaway songs by the Clash or ZZ Top to sing. Even if drummers don’t smoke, …they do! They are placed up high on a riser where all of the cigarette smoke hangs. The drummer is constantly sprayed with fog juice. No one ever seems to know just what chemicals are in fog juice, and it is always set up next to the drummers. It puts corrosive jelly build up on your cymbal stands. Not being able to afford physical therapists to address the constant shock to the arms, and inhaling tons of unknown toxins, is probably why you only see young drummers with oldies bands on VH1. Now keyboard players are another story. Creative music allows them to fly high, but in reality, in most popular music situations, they are usually just playing fills for the band. The bad ones are reduced to playing one handed, or strumming a turned down rhythm guitar, also grabbing a tambourine when they are often not needed. In one band I was in, the keyboard player constantly used his dormant hand to blow his cocaine worn out nose and draw attention to his crotch by playing “Knobsie” with himself. If you have a singer, and that is all they do, the band wants them to at least play a tambourine or cowbell to earn their cut. This usually means, not in time with the drummer. If any of the other people in the band get to sing, the singer gets to dance for 1/4th of the night with various chicks, and flaunts it. In the most predictable bands, after a while, soon the musicians are plotting against dead wood members or trying to upgrade to better musicians. Gotta’ have the best bass player or better guitar player to play the same simple notes and riffs that the last guy had, in reality, played well enough. This usually means that the original chemistry of the band gets upset and they, unfortunately, upgrade themselves out of a once successful project. Something must be briefly said about band women. For the most part they are reduced to being nothing more that penis storage facilities to most bands. Band wives or girlfriends gossip like that’s their job in the group. I have seen bands run and ruined by them in many creative ways. Dramas run rampant. I made mistakes and had them too. One of my women was so badly behaved, that one time my fellow musicians held a meeting to kick her out of the band. That’s pretty good for her since she wasn’t in the band at all except for being drunk at the gigs she came to. She was like so many other band barnacles that we wish upon ourselves. The only thing worse than this was if the band was all male and you had one-woman member. I’ve worked in bands with females before and it was never a good experience. If two people in your band start a relationship with each other, which they usually did, then every bit of democracy goes out the window. Then after the bitter damaging break up, or having the band trying to bang her on the road, she’d exercise her power as a hot commodity to abruptly quit to explore a solo career. The beauty of this female technique is usually totally breaking up a band, then obtaining a short lived musical career for herself, and last, but not least, finally finding her future calling and work as librated housewife. Note that this was not about my friend Lucy! She was a wiser spirit! Some bands can transcend these problems and remain a professional business.

WHY DOES IT ALWAYS END WITH DUCT TAPE?

The greatest invention/tool or aide for the band was what I fondly call Band Droppings (or Duct tape). It fixes everything from the bands guitars to glass cuts. Bar owners hate it because they also need it too. Its gum never goes away. It may even be a way to mark you territory. I know some band members that used it as a sexual tool. I have also heard that it can fix a radiator on a Trans Am, broken drumsticks, or keep a diaper on a baby. You cannot describe band life and leave out Duct tape or the joys of a Duct tape band fight during tear down at the end of a gig. Maybe it could cure cancer or become one of the basic food groups? Nawwwwwww!

LESSON #43&1/2: DO NOT MESS WITH THE BAND CHEMISTRY

Once upon a time there was a little band that could, called Earth Route. It was supposed to be just an easy wedding music money short-term project. Shortly after it formed it became quite clear that it wasn't going to go in that direction at all. It wound up being a great local Rock 'n' Roll project. We jokingly called it Nuclear Rock, because of our explosive way of delivering the goods. When we were hired to back up bigger bands, we often blew them away, and got most of the attention. The chemistry between its' members was great. It was a very hot project that would live out its' packed life intensely within two years. For all of us band members this was a two year lost weekend. I remember how faithful our following was. We have never lived and partied so hard in our lives. We were like a circus coming to town, and many people ran away with this circus. Earth Route shows were excellent. For the most part our playing was great, and we had the best sound-man in the region. The competition was not having any fun, and we did! I have to also mention that we had 3 crazy and funny front men who had great chemistry. We worked well as a comedy team in our between set banter. We hated how unoriginal bands front men always sounded like top 40 disc jockeys, and were never anything but dreadful. We changed all that. People left our shows getting more than their money's worth. We weren't afraid to write and perform our own original music, along with the regular standards, that we usually perverted all up, with our own comical sounding-like lyrics. Sometimes we laughed so hard we cried when we would change the words and get a reaction from the dumbfounded audience. It was so intense that band members dropped out because it was too hyper. Let me also say this about band chemistry. When you have a winning combination, don't mess with it. Earth Route had good playing, and singing, but our Bass player wasn't really a musician. He was a nice, fun, positive guy, who looked sensational when he played, was one of the most popular guys in the band, and only played Bass on his one low E string. That did not matter to our following. Only the best musicians was now the cry from within our band! When we fired him, it became the start of our end, and it wasn't ever the same without him. As far as I know, he never played again, resumed his prior life selling Shackley vitamins, and working as a full time electrician. We replaced him with one of the best Bass playing musicians I have ever known, and we still lost our gigs and crowds. Fans scolded us. I missed him a lot and I was one of the main instigaters. Our booking agent was a jerk, ( what a surprise!) and he began booking our heavy rock act into tiny little country redneck bars. In one such bar, (the Antler Bar in Pentwater) they had to move a pool table to give the band a spot for all four members to play. Well, my drum set would take up that whole area. To me it was a definite low. The only thing missing between us and the audience was chicken wire. Then we started constantly getting mostly terrible bookings. We started making fun of ourselves now calling the band Beer Trout. We did make some recovery, but now the effects of constant partying and work were setting in. The singer left for an all-original group called General Kaos. New singers were tried. Earth Route had a slow agonizing death. In the end there were only two of us left. Wanting a fresh start the band got a female singer, a new Bass player, and then renamed itself Crowd Control. We went on for a year or so. Crowd Control could have been more than it was. This strong female artist, that was now singing lead, and our guitar players did not get along. Our soundman and she did. They left. I finally quit and helped form a country band that was called Route 3, and that band gigged constantly for a couple of years. The guitarist formed the Stagger Bush Band. All in retrospect, I believe if that band had stayed together, we'd all had been burnt out, then all dead, a few years later. The newspaper articles proclaiming our greatness are all that remain. Hats off to Earth Route. A little band that did!

FOR PEOPLE WHO LIKE TO PARTY & DANCE

The band Complaint Department was created to be a moneymaking dance band. It was never supposed to be a writing or creative project for any of us. It was a band of fun with financial purpose. I worked beside a lot of good people in those years. This band was started in my living room, and it quickly became one of the more successful bands to ever play clubs in the Grand Rapids area. We assembled the first line up of the group, and during my 1st divorce, moved practices to the city in the keyboard-player's house. The rules were simple, perform dance music, and have fun. We earned gigs, and off we went, playing constantly, for an unbelievably long run, which is almost unheard of in bands. My life was in shambles towards the end of my first marriage, and I needed the power of a musical project to help see me through. That is precisely when a guitar player/singer came into my life just at the right time for a commercial music project. The thing I liked about him the most, was his drive, and ability to want to handle the business end of things. We were also going through relationship loss pretty much at the same time. A bond was created. In the past I had been the front man, or the businessperson in a few prior bands, and hated the games involved in working with club owners, or booking agents. One of his strengths was that he had those skills to offer. He probably excelled in this area because he had been treated poorly in his previous project by being kicked out of the band he formed, when he broke up with the female keyboard player. Again proof of the sad hassles that can happen when romantic relationships happen within bands. This gave him the skill to want to control band situations more effectively. He did all the business and mostly fronted the band. What I liked the most about him is that he would tell you right up front that he wasn't a great guitar player, or singer, but an actor/performer, with a lot of convincing guts to fool the audiences. Let me tell you this. In a bind he could cover excellently if a guitar player was a no show, and sometimes he did just that. Another main player I have to mention is our Bass player. He was with the project longer than most of the other guitarists. I have never played with such a solid Bass player. Blessed with a wicked sense of humor and timing, he, for the most part, co-fronted the band. So between the Bass Player, Lead Singer, and myself, came the banter that always gave the crowds permission to join us in downing libations and partying! He played powerfully and exactly, even though he was often totally wasted. Whenever he drank, the audience joined in, and he got them to spend lots of money, trying to keep up with him. Bars loved us! He sadly left the band when he got married. He was forced to straighten up, and quit, by his wife. He was having way too much fun, and she was so jealous of the other bar bimbos, along with people in general, that gave him any attention. I never saw him again, and it was never as much fun without him to my drum's front right. Our group went through many other personnel changes over the years, with the nucleus of the band remaining pretty much the same. Once I had to fire a guitar player for having alcohol issues, and doing illegal things, behind our equipment at a gig. Another time a person was let go for anger management issues. He yelled at everything and everyone. There were guitarists that were let go for not showing up on time. At one gig our womanizing keyboard player was late for a set because his wife was beating the crap out of him in the parking lot, after catching him with another woman. These infidelities happen often with musicians, but what amazed me in this situation is what follows. At one point later in that night I turned to see him playing, hidden from the audience behind his keyboard stack, bloody and bruised, on both of his knees, praying to God to get him through this night. I was amazed that he moved from playing a riff to the praying hands position so quickly, and professionally, without missing a lick. It was even more interesting that he never appeared to learn from this episode. Many of our musicians were well behaved and talented. We had 2 great soundmen over the years. This group of happy capitalists was versatile. If we couldn't find Rock n' Roll gigs, we'd become the Rawhide Roosters and do a rare country job. Most of the time people left our successful project just to form their own bands, or creative projects. My life-long friend, Marvin Hubert, was there the whole run as our band guru and electronics rescuer. It cannot be said enough how much all of the bands members and their wives/girlfriends benefited from knowing him, and they all appreciated him. When he passed away, many band folks attended his funeral. Most of the musicians left us on the best of terms, with money, and to Complaint Department's credit, much more experienced. Of course, as always, I wrote and created music in all of my spare time knowing this was not going to be an appropriate project for my originals. Our group was a band for the audience alone. We had a great following. If you didn't like the music, you liked the presentation. If you didn't like the presentation, you liked the sound..etc…you could make no mistake, that fun was about to happen. The band made them willing and unwilling participants. There were many nights we brought up customers to play air guitar with the band. Sometimes we got the audience all crazy, encouraging them to flash the band, so we joined in and played our last sets often in our underwear. One night I came home, and my 2nd wife found 50 bucks stuffed down my underwear. Rarely did I ever drink when I performed, but I had on that night, and truthfully I am telling you all, I still do not remember how the money got there. Let it be known, that is not why I am on wife #3. That is another story. We were known, jokingly in clubs as, the messiest band in the world, due to the massive amounts of confetti, suds, silly string, theatrical snow, and alcohol that we sprayed nightly all over the audience and ourselves. One bar threatened a cleaning bill. In this band, member's bar tabs could go higher than the money they earned for playing the gigs. That is the honest to God truth. I began playing electronic drums to conserve the wear and tear on my limbs, but got this idea on how to better interact with the crowds. So I soon invented a body drum suit that allowed me to play drums off from my body from triggers, on my clothes, and in my shoes. Note that Fleetwood Mac came up with my idea one year later. Mick Fleetwood till uses it in his shows, but I thought of it first! I was in that group over 8 years until tendonitis forced me to quit drumming. I also had simultaneously developed timing problems due my heart fibulation condition that got worse with time, and was eventually corrected by heart surgery after I left music. Complaint Department went on as a band years after I left. The band always welcomed me back to sit in with them whenever I came to watch. It was a lot of fun to work with so many wonderful people. I called it, the band that refused to die. My co- founder/friend now lives in Arizona, is happily married, and has just become a proud father for the first time. Who was all of this remembrance for?……..I guess for people who like to party & dance.

TAKE ROUTE 3 AND GO TO EASY STREET

During the early 1980’s one of my good friends, that I had known since kindergarten, asked me to join his band. I had just gotten out of a successful band and wanted to do an easy project. I hadn’t heard him play in years, but figured it must be very loud rock n’ roll, since the last time I had heard him he was almost breaking windows with his big Sunn amplifier. He had put together a three-piece country-rock band and was playing small clubs in the Grand Haven/Holland area. They had a bass player, a guitarist, and just needed a drummer. The band had been playing a while and was called Route 3. I thought that this would be some quick and easy money for a while, so I joined. It was not so easy and I wound up playing with the band for about three years. Once we had started rehearsing, I soon realized it was an efficient, good little band. Our first gigs were a little shaky because I had to learn the music too quickly, and was playing too much like a rock drummer. The guys were all fine and patient with me. Soon I was to learn that with country music the drumming is about feel, and sometimes what you don’t play. That’s when I started to have fun. We played sometimes quiet, with people eating their dinners 3 or 4 feet from my drums, or louder later on, for the dance crowd. All of us sang and I usually sang lead on rock stuff, or high falsetto harmonies behind the other guys. I added to our sound, with a keyboard, by playing occasional parts with my right hand, while I used the rest of my limbs to drum, making us one of the best little 3 piece/4 piece bands around. We worked all of the time and made money! I want to tell you about the bass player I started with. He was a big guy with one of the sweetest voices, for that style of music, I have ever heard. He was kind and mellow about most things. He conveyed those good qualities to our audience, even when he was frustrated about something going on that he didn’t approve of. Eventually he decided he wanted more out of a band, and left. I always will remember the mellow phrase he said to the crowds, after singing that Alabama song, Feel So Right. “Ladies and gentlemen, thank yall’ for dancin’ to that song. Songs like that wouldn’t be written if it weren’t for the band Alabama.” He would then leave a very long pause, where all of the drunken dancers would look up at him, and shake their heads dramatically in agreement. I always thought to my self that I could never say something like that with a straight face. This proved to me, something I always felt was true, that audiences, for the most part, believe everything you tell them. That man is the guy I want to speak at my funeral. We quickly replaced him with a great bass player who I worked with earlier in the band Barbazoonka. He did not sing much, played this music well, and loved making the money. We knew he was not there long term, and had greater expectations, but was a nice honest guy to work with. We played a lot at this dive in Holland, called the Streetcar. They loved us there and always had us back. It was an audience packed, little seedy bar, full of violent mutants, and butt ugly women. Whenever I sang, the customers all thought that I sounded like Elvis Presley. They did drink an awful lot there. The first day I played there, the bartender asked me not to stand under the archway, by the pool tables, because that is where people fight, and often get stabbed. Within 2 weeks of playing a person was stabbed. Another person, soon after, was murdered in the parking lot. We took our breaks in the street out front of the bar, where it was safe and in view of the traffic and squad cars. The stage was as big as a coffee table, so my little 1930’s era champagne Leedy drum set filled the whole stage. The PA, equipment, and guys were on the edge of the dance floor. The men were mostly southerner’ sounding, with greased back hair, and nasty tattoos. The women had, what I always call onion butts, with your typical Dutch bun disease appearance. The following is not an exaggeration. Out of the 2 years we played there, the band counted only two female customers that looked attractive and dressed nice. The first came in to visit her mother, and meet me at closing time, because her mother told her about this nice guy/drummer, who sounded just like Elvis. This mother was a bar regular, that I had been having numerous conversations with, over the summer, whenever we played there. She had been telling me about her little girl for months. Her mother explained everything to me, and then brought me up to the bar for a matchmaking introduction. I thought I was going to meet a Cro-Magnon Louisiana troll, and let’s face the facts, healthy families just don’t go around presenting their daughters as cake for musicians to try a piece of. To my shock I was looking at a living model-like doll. She was a beautiful fiery redhead, with porcelain looking skin. She was on a vacation from her job at the Holland Life Savers’ factory, where she ran a machine that made the cherry flavored Life Savers. Her mother told her daughter, right then and there, that she should take me right home. She reminded her daughter, before she took me away, to make sure to give me lots of love, attention, and to keep me there a long time, since I was going through a very awful divorce. The band was going to take a short 2-week break, so she did just that. We flew to her home, speeding all the way in her black Z-28. I also quickly called in for 2 weeks much needed vacation time away from my day job. During that 2-week period, I only rarely left her bedroom to watch TV, or use the bathroom. She was very athletic, sexual, and had a soft, cute, thick southern accent. I needed to look no further for any female companionship in my life, but alas, someone once told me the most beautiful women, are the ugliest women on the inside. This case, unfortunately, was not the exception. I came home abruptly at the end of that 2-week period, after I found she had a little girl, who came home from her Grandmother’s that last day. She never, ever mentioned her daughter at all. I love children, and was disturbed to wake to an 8 year old girl, who had wandered into her mother’s bedroom, her first moments back, to ask me which one I was. Her mother then took on a whole different persona. She was a verbally abusive woman who clearly did not like her own child at all. To this little girl she was a screaming bitter tyrant, but to me she was a soft speaking, loving person. It was like that the whole last day I was there,….nice to me, rotten to the kid. So I left and never returned. I guess I had learned a new lesson. When I went back to work I was still sore. This next remembrance is much less tainted. Like I told you before, at the Streetcar you never saw pretty women, and never, ever, ladies. The band never talked about it. It was just an unwritten law of playing this particular gig, so the second woman mentioned here will be explained this way. Being a drummer is to know that all you ever see of your band mates are usually their backsides, when performing music, unless they turn around between songs. Vocal songs anchor them to microphones. Instrumentals focus them on their playing, and on the people in front of them. Percussionists can become lonely, so we watch the crowds, if we can see past the stage lights. The whole time I played at the Streetcar, I never saw the guitar or bass players faces once during a song. The front door was 2 feet from my drums. One night, in the middle of the song, Highway 40 Blues, a beautifully dressed, attractive woman came in that bar by herself. The Bass player turned, looked back at me, raised one eyebrow, and gave a slight laugh. I couldn’t believe it either. She didn’t stay long. As she was leaving, we looked at each other briefly, and frowned at each other. I never saw the bass player look back at me again. After we finished playing, we all sat at a table amazed that in the whole time we played there, this was the first real babe we had seen there. Our Bass player eventually quit the band. Then an amazing keyboard player, who covered Bass riffs with his left hand, joined our band. This was probably, to me, the best sounding line up of Route 3. He was a good sounding Las Vegas style performer with a voice that sounded like Rod Stewart. He was eccentric, aloof, and not easily pegged by the guitar player or myself. Who cared? I liked this guy’s playing a lot, and we had a lot of great times, until we decided to break up. He now plays, with two great guitar player friends, in what I consider, to be the best local band around, Mane Street. This finally brings me to the bandleader, and man in charge, the guitar player. Like I explained earlier, I have known him for years. I was not so surprised that his talent had gotten better with the years, because he had always loved his music so very much. He is one of the nicest people I have ever known. He has been there for me, many times, over the years. It was a very delightful surprise to learn that he was an exact and proficient musician. I had hung out with him a lot over the years, but our musical paths just had never crossed. He played each part with a respectful sound to the original. We were kept busy by his ability to do good band business. He also had us playing many nice clubs full of people, who really appreciated the band he brought to them. You always knew where you stood with him. He was never temperamental or difficult to work with. I remember he had a technical understanding of so many things. We enjoyed playing together, and it was always easy to find that very important, groove pocket with him. He and I are still great friends. He recently lost his spouse, who was also very musically talented. They were a good match and were doing musical projects together. To both of their credits, he tells me that he will continue to create music, and preserve her musical legacy too! Lastly, as always, I want to mention our other great band friend, Marvin Hubert, who was there in support of us so many times, even though he preferred a more blues or rockin’ project. God must have badly needed an excellent repairperson up there. A lot of things aren’t being fixed down here now.

WHAT IS A BARBAZOONKA?

A Barbazoonka was a band put together in the late 1970’s to be a progressive rock band. It was first called Temple, but soon after mutated into the name Barbazoonka. We got the name Barbazoonka from a cartoon of a woman walking down the street with two wooly porcupine-like creatures clinging to her front. One of the men, close by on the street, says to the other man, “Hey, look at the Barbazoonka’s on that chick”! In the bands early days, it was just the guitar player and myself, putting up ads in the local music stores looking for other art-rockers. I remember we put up an ad, with our phone numbers that said something to the effect that, local musicians looking for progressive rock/fusion players that want to create artistic music. So if you play simple 3-chord rock, got married to a fat ugly groupie, and are now paying huge amounts of child support, you need not apply. That ad got both good and bad reactions. I remember it being graffiti splattered with incensed responses like, good luck finding anyone, assholes, and, you idiots will never have a band. We loved the responses we got. I guess most of what the ad conveyed was true in the local music community back then. But we did eventually get a Bass Player, Keyboardist, and Sax Player interested, and none of them were wanting to play simple 3-chord rock, or married to fat ugly groupies, while paying huge amounts of child support. Cool! We were all young, in our 20’s, and the band made many changes based on trying to upgrade to the best line- up possible. This often left many talented musicians out of the band when it seemed necessary. At first the nucleus was basically the Guitar Player, Bass Player, Sax, and the Drummer (me). Later it was the Guitar Player, Drummer, Soundman, Bass Player, and Keyboardist. Over the bands duration we had at least 4 Bass players and two lead singers. Many times the musicians didn’t deserve to be eliminated. I think they sometimes got thrown out for reasons that were too simple, or situations that could have been more easily remedied. Many of them I have played with since Barbazoonka, in other bands, and still I have a great respect for them all. Over the years I have apologized to several for my old upgrading ways. I want you to know that almost all of our players were good people and musicians. Only one was a weenie, and we all know who he is. Let me tell you about the others. The guitar player was fun, exact, and had a good sense of humor. Our soundman was clever, knowledgeable, and interesting. He was worth hauling those devil-awful heavy SP-3 cabinets around for. The Bass Players were smart, eccentric, and talented. I had lots of drums, humor, and percussion instruments. Our keyboard player was a good creative player, with a very heavy Hammond M-3 organ, and lighter Fender Rhodes piano. Our singers were nice folks too, but doomed in such an instrumental focused band. In it’s early stages I felt we were really onto something powerful, so that is why I consider this band one of my favorites, and we wrote good/ambitious original music to boot! This band had plenty of fun and entertained itself quite well. Back then we practiced and practiced, every weekend. We didn’t gig much because our music wasn’t disco or 3-chord rock, but we were proud of that. We played live whenever we could. We tried very hard to keep it together. The audiences that saw us live always liked the band. Local clubs were becoming more and more disco, country, or pop rock oriented establishments, so we eventually we tried to be more commercial. We just wanted to play live and work. What more can be said about trying to be more commercial? It was not in our hearts. With us, damping the creativity would be like expecting water to not be wet, or wanting a tan, and having no skin. Thus the fun quickly left. We became lazy, complacent, and after a few very good years, it was the end of this band for us. If we only knew then what we all know now. There were many experiences, and bands, after, that made us all better players. What could Barbazoonka do with all this modern equipment that musicians have now? Well I guess we ex-members all know, but just don’t do it with each other!

NOT A STROKE OF LUCK

When I got out of high school my first real band was a band that we named Stroke. I had been in several school bands that performed at dances, but this would be my first bar band. I had put up ads in all of the local music stores and I was contacted to audition at this house on Innes Street in Grand Rapids. I showed up with my 5 piece Slingerland Buddy Rich Jazz model drum set and set them up. There were 3 other musicians there. Two were brothers and had been local musicians in bands for a while. They were not exactly normal to someone from a small town, but hey, it’s rock n’ roll. The brothers had a bit of a reputation for being difficult to work with. I would soon learn why. Their father owned their equipment and PA system. I found out later that he didn’t own this stuff to control the band, but merely to help his sons keep in music, and not to sell it for drugs, or lose it to divorce. The one brother, the lead player, was aloof, played well, and had an unkempt look. He had substance abuse issues and never was reliable. The other brother, who proudly called himself the Funky Junkie, (what more can be said) was a nice enough guy, who played rhythm guitar and sang lead, when not numbing his brain with wine, and pot. Our Bass player was a guy who had the hottest car around. It had multiple carburetors and went only 4 miles on one gallon of gasoline. We called him a gear-head. I always thought that he was a great guy, and he was a fellow that I ended up playing with in a couple of bands over the years. The band also had a disgusting leech of a roadie who was nothing more than a creep who took advantage of under-aged groupies. Come to think of it, I don’t recall him ever really working, or doing much of anything to help us. He didn’t last long and jail was in his future. It was the most interesting place to practice because of the many screwed up musicians, friends, and groupies that came through that seemingly revolving front door. Soon the band had gigs and we were out playing in the local rock clubs, VFW, and Polish halls. I remember playing those places like the Brass Monkey, Eastern Street Hall, Monroe Street VFW, and the Middleville Lounge. The music we played was contemporary 3-chord rock. The Bass player and I occasionally talked the brothers into trying something more musical, or difficult, but they didn’t want to have to practice. They wanted to hunt deer and women. By no fault of our own, at some point we became pretty good, and were getting better all of the time. Now what is a leading destroyer of bands in this musical landscape? I can tell you in two un-simple words. Band women! It all began to unravel around the constant dramas with the band women. When we obtained girlfriends, they got into the woodwork of the band, and we let it interfere. Soon no one was doing anything the ladies liked and they made us pay. These women teach valuable lessons that we sometimes forget. Our lead player was becoming an unreliable hunting hermit. The Funky Junkie was getting more into wine and substance abuse. While the bass player and I wanted to play better, and improve, we had much stress to contend with, because of the conflicts between our girlfriends. Both of us couples had made the severe mistake of deciding to share an apartment. Our ladies were stabbing at each-others backs. When our living arrangements failed, I went and tried living in the lead player’s house. This was terrible and doomed too. Whenever they fought as a couple, which was often, they fought with weapons. Knives and screaming was not how I was brought up to behave. After a while it was clear that I was not relating to the two brothers at all. I was constantly upset with the lack of the bands motivation, and was not understanding of them. One day I came to practice, and they had all met earlier, and decided to kick me out of the band. The three of them stood there, telling me that they didn’t like my girlfriend, and the direction I was going in, in that order. I was so sick of the band that I rejoiced, and quickly got my things to leave. It was a great day! I agreed to play at our only scheduled gig left. This last gig was in Sparta, at the township’s Civic Center, playing to a thin, dismal group of people. My friend Marv made me a hangman’s noose, out of some rope, he had found lying around. I played that whole night with that noose around my neck, hanging from the rafters, as a kind of symbol of how they had treated me. I am convinced that they didn’t get the joke. A photo of me, at that gig, in that noose, is on the Bands Page of this website. I never went back. I knew they wouldn’t survive as a band, and they later proved that thought to be fact. I never worked with the guitar players again. The Bass player is still a good guy who occasionally plays. The lead guitarist quit music totally, while his brother dabbled only a little in music, and eventually moved to Hawaii. Last year I saw their father’s name listed in the obituaries. They sure put their father through a lot. The obituary said his sons were still living. It was hard to imagine them as anyone living in their 50’s. It’s equally hard to imagine them healthy. I hope for their sakes they are. I’m glad they were my first band experience, because I learned by mistakes made with them, to be more successful in my following projects.