And then there's Mods!

October, 1997. During the daytime, while church meetings and such were going on above us, Tom, Winter and I couldn't make a lot of noise, so we had to practice as quiet as possible. We were making up a list of songs we were going to play for this show, as it was going to be all cover tunes. We had picked out songs by the Yardbirds, and a handful of songs from the first Kinks album, though none of the familiar songs (and most definitely not "You Really Got Me").

We would listen to an album on Tom's old record player (one of those old ones I remember from elementary school) and pick out the songs we wanted to learn. We would then play along to the song with our instruments as we listened to it, and then played the song through on our own a few times. Thus, we learned certain songs in a very quick, easy and effective way.

Towards the end of the month, and after a half-dozen practices that way, Dan joined us for late-evening practices (after Tom made his rounds through all parts of the church, making sure no-one was there). Winter's girlfriend, Jazzmyn, and other friends hung out in the living room space, listening to what was happening in the practice-room. It was a long living room, with the kitchen on one end, and the practice room on the opposite end. The place was furnished with old couches and restaurant-booth seats.

Winter and Tom would pick out certain songs, we'd play them through two or three times, and then we'd move onto the next one. Dan wasn't too familiar with the type of stuff we were playing, but he would learn it, play it his own way, and it worked every time. I was coming to grips with the Thomas organ, and though it was similar to my Wurlitzer back at home, it had reverb and lower-keyboard bass notes that I could use with my left hand.

On some of the songs, I merely banged the tambourine, as there were no particular keyboard parts in "I'm A Man" or "Evil Hearted You". On one rendition of "Heart Full Of Soul", Winter forgot the words, so I filled in, and then he said I should sing that one when we played it. I couldn't turn my microphone up that loud, as the PA speaker was hanging right over myself and the organ, and it would border on feedback. At least I had one song to myself!

Tom and Winter had taken the Kinks' song "Long Tall Shorty" and gave it new words, and called it "Handsome Devil". The words they now sang were not too far from the original, but we all got a good laugh out of it, especially at Tom's other title for it: "Long Tall Satan".

We were playing loud, fast and hard on these songs. Sometimes, Tom or Winter would call out a title, we'd play it (and very well), and it would immediately find itself on the setlist, tacked on the wall amongst Xeroxed shots of The Who and The Yardbirds. Some of them included "The Train Kept A-Rollin'" and "Who Do You Love". I was recording these practices on one of those hand-held GE tape-recorders, and though the sound came out distorted when I played it back afterwards, the energy on them was amazing (ain't that how it always happens?).

After three practices with Dan, we were ready to play the show.

We'reThe Pace, baby, is that clear?

September, 1997. The phone rang one evening. It was Tom, a guy who had read one of the musicians-available flyers I had posted around town during the past couple of months. He said he worked at Guitar Maniacs downtown and also that he had a practice space with a lot of instruments to be played, and would I be interested in coming down for a jam the next evening? Sure. He told me it was in the basement at the Episcopal Christ Church, and to knock at one of the basement windows.

That's where I found myself the next evening, not far from my old stamping grounds, knocking on one of the basement windows. One of the guys came out to bring me in; his name was Winter and he was the guitarist in this gathering. The place they were at was the caretaker's quarters of the church, and that was apparently what Tom did during the daytime. We met, and then I was helping them lug a full-sized Thomas organ into a good-sized room, where the walls were covered in blue shag-carpet. Drumset, guitars, amps, PA. They had it all. And so we plugged in.

We began to play, mostly Yardbirds and Who tunes that they knew. Sounds like they had paid attention to the influences listed in my ad. Wow, I thought, These guys are on the same page as me. And not a bunch of 47-year old alkies, either! Their drummer, Josh, appeared at the last minute, and we played through the Yardbirds' "Evil Hearted You", which was interesting to hear.

They liked what I was doing, as they invited me to come back again for the next jam. I got to know these guys a little more over the next few jams that happened, as other guys came and in out of the picture. Seems Winter and Tom were figuring out who was the most workable and stable players. Josh was their drummer, but he didn't turn up much. Actually, the drumset belonged to one of the guys, named Brandon, but he would play Tom's bass while Tom and Winter were on guitars. The jams continued.

After about a month, Tom called me and said that we had an offer to play a Halloween show, and that he had a drummer who could sit in with us for a few practices leading up to the show. Great! It was going to be him, Winter, me and his old friend, Dan, from Olympia, with whom he'd played in an earlier project. I was in!

We would hang out before and after jamming, talking about what kind of music we were into, and about past band experiences. They told me about a show they had played in the summertime with their drummer, Josh. Seems they had played on the roof of the coffee place down on North Division and I Streets, Temple Of The Bean. I asked what they called themselves. "The Pace", Tom said. Very cool!

THE ROCK SHOW (Part 1): "We're rockin' out the door!"

Back in the early 1980's, cable TV was still a new thing that not a lot of people had, but we were one of the few. In fact, it was our only major luxury. We ended up watching more movies and comedy specials than network TV shows. This was when the box on top of the TV held only about 27 channels, and not all of them were filled up.

One of the local channels in Tacoma began to broadcast a half-hour music-video show called "The Rock Show", and they'd show the hard-rock and heavy-metal videos of the day (Iron Maiden, AC/DC, Quiet Riot, Rainbow, etc.) with an occasional nod to The Doors and Jimi Hendrix.

The show was hosted by a guy named Henry J, a long-haired guy who wore jeans, and a black vest over white shirtsleeves. Just a cool, laid-back rocker guy, who always announced at the end of the show, "We're rockin' out the door!".

How local? The show beamed out of the local cable place that was only five blocks from the house, and the show went out live. My Dad met Henry J while paying the cable bill one day, and I remember him taking me to visit the studio where they shot the show. Sure looked a lot bigger than on the TV! It was around my seventh birthday, and I was given a mylar Pac-Man balloon that happened to be floating around there.

My Dad and his brother were aspiring cartoonists, and began drawing up posters for the show, featuring caricatures of Ted Nugent, Mick Jagger, Cheech & Chong, Journey, and even Henry J himself. Next thing we know, both of them were invited to make a couple of appearances on the show, showing their posters. Very cool!

All good things come to an end, and in October of 1983, we heard "The Rock Show" was going off the air, and we were all invited to be on the final show. I remember getting to introduce Henry J back to the show after a commercial-break, and noticing the microphone was way heavier than the one I played with at home. At the end of the show, the whole lot of us gathered in front of the camera to say goodbye, and I remembered to shout out the show's tagline: "We're rockin' out the door!"

There was a small effort to get the show back on the air some months later, and some T-shirts were made at a place over in Fife and autographed by Henry J at our house, but nothing happened.

Unfortunately, all of this happened six months before we got a VCR (again, we were the first ones on the block to have one), so this moment was lost to posterity. But, my best friend James Gardiner saw it when it went out live, so that was always good enough for me.

It was my first taste of show-biz, and I would never forget it.

UPDATE: October 1, 2011:

I was doing a little investigation and research into where I could perhaps find any tapes of the show. I contacted City Cable 12, who gave me the contact info for a guy who is currently the production manager for Comcast, but who was also in the production team for "The Rock Show" and other programming for Group W Cable back then. He told me that they operated on such a tight budget that they re-used videotapes over and over and over until they wore them out, and then tossed them. And so, there is officially nothing in the archives to be seen, and the moment is forever lost.

...is this thing on?

Greetings and hallucinations!

This is my blog spot, my first one anywhere. Which is funny, considering I have this reputation for not being much of a talker, or for being "too quiet". All I can say to that is: too many people out there just don't know when to shut the hell up. They just open up their mouths and fall right in, don't they?

If you join this blog, you will find out some things about me you never knew (or couldn't be bothered to ask). I will tell some stories about my past/background, my musical endeavors/adventures, and other hyphenated topics you may find amusing. And there are going to be some pretty damn funny things I have up my sleeve, or things that are going to make you say, "I've been there myself!".

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