Black Oak Arkansas

Dad was really into these guys back in the '70s...in fact, I think I heard them around the house more than I heard Led Zeppelin. This was my first hearing of them, particularly "When Electricity Came To Arkansas". I thought it was pretty cool how it started off, with lead singer Jim "Dandy" Mangrum scrubbing away on an old washboard with thimbles on his fingers. For the longest time, I thought of the washboard as a musical instrument before I found out what it was actually used for! The back cover, though, was a little on the hideous side...yikes! Apparently, this was the first concert I was ever at, when they went to see them in Seattle, sometime in mid-1975. My mom was still pregnant with me, so maybe the sound-vibrations resounded with me. Peter Frampton and Montrose were the openers. When Black Oak Arkansas came on, it was so loud that the crowd actually moved back a bit! And in all the years afterwards, Dad said that that was the loudest concert he'd ever been to. He also had a cool yellow T-shirt with the logo from the X-Rated album, which he'd found in the basement laundry room back at the Blue House, but it got ripped off of him during a tiff with my mom, or so he told me.

The Beatles (i)

It's hard to pinpoint exactly the very first moment I heard these guys, but I know it was spread over various points in 1979, and I was completely blown away each time. Geoffrey is totally into these guys at the moment, so I think I know what he's enjoying. This was definitely one of the first starting points. All I know is that I heard the first side of this album and went "Whoa....!". This was definitely something exciting, energetic and fun; "It Won't Be Long" really stuck out, and remains one of my all-time favorites. I remember noting how cool how they all sort of looked alike, wore the same clothes, and had the same haircuts. This one appeared in the album collection sometime not long afterwards, and it was more of the same fun, only there was so much more to hear and discover. "She Loves You" was pure dynamite, and istantly became one of my favorites. Oddly enough, I remember my mom playing the whole thing almost in one sitting. A great starting point, but the thing that is rather annoying about this collection now is that there is nothing from George on it. Did you ever notice that? This was another one that appeared suddenly. I was transfixed on the spot while hearing this one. I couldn't believe the nonstop ocean of screams that went on and on throughout the album. And a lot of my favorites were played on this one, so I was happy with that! Dad played the whole thing one summer morning, and all of a sudden, things got really interesting. A whole new sound and direction had opened up with this album. "Taxman" was (and is) a killer opening, "Love You To" took me away to a whole new place altogether, "Tomorrow Never Knows" was from another dimension, and--you guessed it--"Yellow Submarine" was definitely a trip I wanted to go on. I remember Angie and I playing on the tire-swing at the McCarver school playground, singing this one, but also coloring the submarine blue, orange, red, green, and any other color we could think of. Okay, now, this was something else altogether. Dad pulled this one out sometime towards the winter of that year, and I wasn't sure what to expect from the Technicolor-hued album, and the guys in marching uniforms, and with matching little mustaches. He put it on, and it sounded as if they were playing in some kind of auditorium in front of people. The words and sounds coming out made it hard to believe that this was the same group of guys who were just singing "Do You Want To Know A Secret?". Dad played the entire album even through dinner, and I don't think I ate much of it as I couldn't take my ears off the stereo. When the final orchestral buildup and final chord of "A Day In The Life" happened, I just sat there stunned as the needle lifted up off the record and it was over.

Pink Floyd (i)

The radio was playing one afternoon, something that was getting a little more frequent. I had just finished my lunch, and I heard it: a jumble of cash-register noises going along to a slightly unusual tempo, followed by a guy singing what I heard to be "Get a good chocolate, more pay, and you're okay!". Regardless, I was excited about this song, and it would be a little while before I heard it again and saw for myself who it was...someone called a Pink Floyd, and something about a dark side of the moon, although there was only a couple of triangles and some rainbows on the cover. Confusion aside, I took a liking to it right away, only if I had only heard parts of it for the time being. Dad only had a few of their albums, including this one with a most bizarre cover... Completely freaked me out, it did. I didn't even want to hear it, so it got filed away so I wouldn't have to look at it. A slight jump ahead with regards to our next home: one day, Dad and I went to the Sears store downtown on 13th Street, where they had the record store. I was actually more excited about this section than the toy section. Wow, just racks and racks of albums in shiny plastic shrink-wrap. I wandered over to the "P" section and found something that looked to be new: something called The Wall. Dad seemed interested, so he got it, but we never really got around to hearing it that day, yet he started playing it once I was in bed. My bedroom was just off the living room, and I would hear sounds emanating from there all too clearly. I remember hearing the sound of what sounded like a helicopter landing in the living room, shortly followed by one of the guys singing what I swore was "No dogs or cats are in the classroom". More confusion, to be sure, but I liked what I was hearing!

Buddy Holly

This is one of the many instances of that time when I heard the soundtrack album to certain movies long before seeing the actual movie (Young Frankenstein and Up In Smoke come to mind). I wasn't missing too much in this case; the concert sequences are bitchin', but the rest of the movie (to me) plays like a typical '70s sitcom, minus the laugh-track. Aside from that, this album was my first exposure to the music of Buddy Holly, and I was impressed with the songs and performances on it, even if I wasn't to know that it wasn't the real guy. I still loved "That'll Be The Day" the best. Later on, we got this one, and I finally got to hear The Real Deal!

The Lovin' Spoonful

Dad pulled this one out, one sunny summer afternoon in 1979, and played "Summer In The City"...wow, what a song that was! Very unusual structure, chord changes, the breakdowns, sound effects--I loved it immediately. And then a nice little pile of non-stop cool songs on the other side of the album: "Daydream", "You Didn't Have To Be So Nice", "Did You Ever Have To Make Up Your Mind" and "Do You Believe In Magic?". I liked what I was hearing, although I was transfixed by the image on the cover: four figures made of either clay or papier-mache. I couldn't figure out what it was supposed to be; I thought it was some sort of teacher sitting on the stool with his students behind him. This wasn't exactly my first taste. Back at the Blue House, A K-tel album called Hit Machine was around, and one of the cuts was John Sebastian's "Welcome Back". Flash forward to the summer of 2012, after hearing about the passings of Epstein and Horshack from Welcome Back, Kotter, I played the song on YouTube, and Geoffrey loved it (and still does!). I got to thinking of the old Spoonful album of Dad's, and how much fun I had listening to it, so I played him the same cuts for him before a nap...and he loved it! And now it's one of his most-requested things to listen to!

Elton John

When I think of someone I heard a lot of work by at the white house, I think of this 8-Track tape of Elton John's Greatest Hits album. I don't remember picking this one out or anything, Dad was just playing it one day, and I loved what I was hearing. After that, though, I asked to hear it again and again. Obviously, I liked "Bennie & The Jets" the best, and on the 8-Track copy, the song was on there twice. In fact, there's even a picture of myself on Christmas Eve of 1979, banging away on a little red toy piano, and trying to sing this, so I had the urge in me even back then! One evening, Dad had picked up and put on Greatest Hits, Volume II. I was expecting some more great tunes along the lines of "Rocket Man" or "Daniel" or "Bennie", but...no. "Island Girl", "The Bitch Is Back" and "Philadelphia Freedom" didn't work the same magic on me, though I liked his cover of "Pinball Wizard", and this was before I saw Tommy. I still loved the first one, and we played it so much that we eventually wore it out completely and had to throw it away. As a result of the second volume, I didn't really keep up with anything else he'd done, but had fond memories of the first volume, even if I hadn't played it at home for a very long time. One day in 2009, thirty years after first hearing it, I found a vinyl copy of Greatest Hits at the Goodwill Outlet store, in nice condition. I bought it, took it home, put it on the turntable, and re-connected with an old friend after all those years. It felt great.

White House Ball

In early 1979, we moved across town to 2134 South L Street, which was painted white at the time. Two things happened. First, I was getting a little older, my brain was expanding, and I was taking in a lot of things within the space of just a little over a year that we lived there. I had a pretty heavy crash course of a musical education, and a lot of it still resides within me to this day. Second, I was picking up on the concept of time; I began to notice that Dad had two days off per week, and we almost always had fun on them...even more so in the mornings when Angie was at school, and it was sometimes just the two of us. The stereo would be on, and there would be something new playing. And not just music, he would also play comedy bits by various funny-guys, and although a lot of it went over my head, the audience sounded as if they were having fun! On days that he was at work, I braved venturing into the album collection, pulling certain ones out, and just being mesmerized by the artwork on the covers. I think I helped myself learning how to read and learning which colors were which. Some of the things I heard here resonated a little deeper in the next place we lived in, but this was house was a major starting point for them, so some of the bands' work here can sometimes overlap between them.

This is also when I noticed a rather wide split between my parents when it came to their respective musical tastes. Dad was primarily into Rock, and also into a little of everything else along the way, but mom was more into '60s AM pop singers, and Country from the same era. So I also heard a lot of stuff that I didn't particularly care for, but things have to be heard before you can figure out whether you like it or not.

Santana

I remember this one being played a lot during the summer of 1978, most particularly side three of the original double-album set Moonflower. I liked "She's Not There" a lot, but I would be amazed years later to learn that The Zombies had originally wrote and recorded it. It was followed by the instrumental title track, which is still a personal favorite to this day, but is not one that gets heard a lot these days. I remember it once being used as background music a few times for a call-station "bumper" on the local TV station KTPS-TV, so I guess I wasn't the only fan of that song!

Rockin' Out The Door ("The Rock Show", part two)

Every time it's October, or if I'm in that part of town, I'm still haunted by the memories. In a good way, because of the fun we had watching The Rock Show, and even getting to be part of it at the end. And in a bad way, because most of the people in my life from that period are now gone, or have long since disappeared. I haven't seen Henry J. since the T-shirt signing party at our house in the summer of 1984, and I have no idea of whatever became of him. I didn't have much of the show to remember it by, except some loose artwork pieces by Dad, and my own memories. I can't believe we didn't take a camera with us to that final episode!

As the years went by, I would bring up the subject of the show, but it didn't register with many, because a lot of people didn't have cable at that time. But one day down at Guitar Maniacs, I brought this up with Johnny Jones, and he had a story to tell me.

Back in the early 1980's, he was in a local band called Menace, and one evening, he and the band's singer paid a visit to Henry J. at the studio...and took a handful of pictures to prove it!



Wow...there he was! And look at the equipment they used! It may have been pretty high-tech stuff then, but does look pretty threadbare and low-budget by today's standards. But I remembered the cool posters on the walls and in the studio. The memories really flooded back seeing this. Since there was no video, this looks as if this is all there was to prove that the show ever existed.

I made a little slideshow with pictures of the long-ago meetup, with an appropriate song to go with it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0CbOqviAds

On July 25, 2021, John L. Rice left me a YouTube comment:

Sweet! Thanks for posting this. Every once in a while I try to search around looking for any videos from Henry J's show, especially the video battle of the bands he put on because I was the drummer in one of the bands that competed (THEATRE) and through a series of Spinal Tap type circumstances we were eliminated twice but got into the finals won the grand prize! lol I keep holding out hope someone video taped this shows and even a bad copy would be fun to see.

For those that don't remember or never knew, Henry J had 17 bands play in one day (!) at the Temple Theatre in Tacoma WA USA and video taped the whole thing. Then once a week he would play one song each by two bands and people would call in and vote for their favorite of the two. (a land line with a touch-tone phone was required, and I think it cost $0.10 or $1.00 per vote but the memory is fuzzy and it may have been free to vote?) After many weeks of eliminations the top 6 favorite bands (Crossbow, Theatre, Madcap, Menace, Xanadu, and Rennegade) and special guest band Freeway Jam played live at the Midland Hall south of Tacoma on December 20th 1982 and audience members were given a paper ballot to fill out for which of the six bands they wanted to win.

The grand prize was stated as "A television contract for cable TV" which I'm sure all the bands were thinking "Holy crap if we win we'll be on our way to becoming rich and famous!!!" but . . .what took place was we were given two days to record what ever we wanted at Evergreen College's video studio in Olympia WA and I believe it was mostly the AV students enrolled at the college doing the engineering. We discussed just working on one song to make it as good as possible but instead opted to play as many songs as we could.

The first day was pretty much all setup and sound/video checks (maybe we recorded one or two songs?) and the second day was a bulk of the recording and then teardown/pack up and leave. The only involvement that Henry J had was arranging the studio time and providing the black video tape (. . . actually there was a period of time where we couldn't get a copy of the video . . .I think maybe there was some "confusion" over who was responsible for payment for the tape and eventually we managed to get a VHS copy of the tape but I don't think any of our stuff was shown on Henry J's show). I don't remember ever seeing Henry J at the recording session and I never saw him again.

For anyone interested, while there is no Henry J or his show's content, the video we recorded is on YouTube here https://www.youtube.com/user/Theatre1982 A lot of it is rough, weird, and unintentionally comical at times, but we are grateful to have this record of what we were doing at the time so thanks Henry J and all involved!!!

Maybe others that were involved in any way with the "1982 Cable TV Battle Of The Bands" will see this and add their own recollections? :-)

The Who (i)

Dad pulled this one out in the early winter of 1978, and played "Boris The Spider". I liked it. The funny connection was, there was an orb-weaver spider hanging in its web, outside the window; we sort of adopted it as a pet and named it Boris, after the song. Following that was "Magic Bus"; since we rode the city bus to get places, I connected with this one as well. I liked the cover, especially the guy in the tie-dyed clothes, pinching a cigarette between his fingers, cracking a joke and making the other guys crack up. A little over a year later, when we had cable TV, one of the channels was showing the movie version of Tommy; some of it went over my head then, but I liked the music to it; going to the original album some years down the road, I enjoyed it even more, and even trained myself how to sing by singing along to it. I'd seen the movie enough times that I knew all the words. Their music had a lot of impact on me well into my 20's, as I became a born-again fan after not hearing them for quite some time, and was soon getting my hands on anything by them that I could, bootlegs included. And now Tommy is one of Geoffrey's favorites, and one of his most-requested CD's when it's time for bed. Sometimes he'll even sing "Sensation" or "Tommy, Can You Hear Me?" for fun. I think the torch is being passed on quite well with these guys!