Assuming we have musicians in this OT forum tell some history or stories and beginnings

Seeker of Rock

Seeker of Rock

The One and Only
I wish I had more access to pics on my phone but still refuse to buy more cloud space, but I’ll start…
My dad was a guitar and trumpet player and learned by ear. Never read a lick of music and BS’d his way by fake reading sheet music until college. Got a Harmony Stratatone and played in a band. Give it to my cousin when I was 10 and had a Yamaha something (YG 75? he never played. Stratatone came back with a cheap amp (probably worth $$$ today) and some electrical probs and I never learned to play…But there was this band down the street (suburban Cincinnati on the Kentucky side) that would rehearse in the lower bi-level house garage called Flesh N Bones. Young and did ‘60s tunes mostly for weddings. That’s what really pulled me into music, seeing it live. Then the KISS era circa ‘78, air guitar rock star ‘82, then learned the power chord and iron man and later a friend showed me scales and some lead licks. Then I got obsessed and got good enough to put together a real band and found good people to play with in HS. I’ll start with that.
 
And I’ll elaborate that I always ‘felt l’ music inside but it was the live production and performance that inspired me to start playing early on. Right or wrong, was what it was and made me push myself to learn and practice
 
And lots of good music on vinyl I could play on the Magnavox all-in-one system including (on vinyl) Long Run, Rumours, Theee Dog Night, Beatles, Willie Nelson, some country names I forget, but still music I could listen to besides a m radio
 
Put up something kinda new and fresh but has been many times here before…BUT not with everyone here currently and currently not on here. Ima retire to a coupla one hits and be fresh for work en la manana, but I want to hear you history and stories of getting into music because it’s fun to share. Musicianship has played a part in our lives and that’s what brought us to a site like this. Same as when it started under ‘Dragon’ and same why we still post here. Musicians are stereotypically are unique breed and I like hearing stories of others…the how, the why, the when and everything then, now and all points in between. 🤟🤟🤟
 
My dad took me to a little cafe where the Sphinx is now. The snake charmers were mesmerizing. There was a band named Amenhotep and the Pharoahs that blew me away. From that day on I knew I wanted to be a musician.
 
I started wanting to be a drummer and figured out how to to do simple hi-hat snare beats to radio at the time (a lot of disco radio but I had KISS Alive II on vinyl 🤟) I used pots as drums and a rounding baking sheet as a cymbal and these big wood dowel rods from a toy ‘logging truck’ as sticks.

This is in and around the time of that band down the street Flesh N Bones. Of course when I demonstrated my fledgling self-taught abilities to my dad the response was, “You really need to learn to play an instrument before you can play drums.” So I took up trumpet briefly in the elementary school band and quickly got bored within a few months and dropped it. Occasionally the drummer would let me behind his kit (first times ever behind a real drum kit) when they were on break. What a rush! Later, of course, I realized my parents just didn’t want a loud ass set of drums in the house and their tactic of avoiding it worked. A few years of messing around on the poorly-maintained FG-75 acoustic with no learning luck or inclination, I met a friend in Jr High with an old Silvertone guitar and amp case and learned Smoke on the Water playing single notes. Then in 8th grade a band of Freshmen called Illusions (Jr high in my Boone County KY school system was 7-9 grades, transfer to HS beginning at grade 10) played a talent show. I’m sure it sucked but don’t remember it sucking because these guys were actually making live music as a band on stage. Seem to recall there were like 7 of them. Shortly afterward I’d see the members (they were Freshmen and I was a lowly 8th grader) with ‘Illusions’ t-shirts spelled in rainbow prism letters on the front and what they played in the band on the back. TOOOO COOL! Continued playing little bits every now and then on my friend’s Silvertone occasionally after we’d get stoned. Got a Sears sunburst Strat and cheap Sears SS amp for Christmas the year of 9th grade where I could practice at home when I wanted. I wanted to be on stage with a band but not enough to always be hanging with friends than actually learning much on guitar…until another bud in our group showed me the two-fingered power chord, then taught myself Iron Man the Paranoid then Gimme Three Steps and was actually making music alone that sounded halfway decent (though no OD but still was hitting the chords and bringing it to life as a player. After much searching for a bass player in a Jr. high of probably 300 people, and a drummer with a kit and place to play together, I came up with two people and there was always an excuse of why one or both couldn’t get together. Maybe because neither could actually play (except by reputation) or maybe just no interest, who knows.

Then the following year was first year in Boone Co HS and Sophomore (first year) included Freshman from two or three junior high schools which meant a wider pool to choose from. I had gotten a Peavey Bandit 50 amp by then that had EQ and built in distortion. I found a drummer almost immediately. He played tri-toms in marching band and had a kit and a basement. So there we played over and over again, Irin Man,Paranoid and Gimme 3 Steps and made live music. Found a bass player who played bass in church band of his Patir father’s congregation. Wasn’t that good except on the Skynrd tune because he knew how to do simple walking bass lines. I wasn’t that good because I still didn’t know how to play lead though I was decent in rhythm. And I could sing so filled that niche with (at first) an old Realistic dynamic, then (that Christmas) with a Shure 585 mic, first real mic ever and still put into one of the inputs of the Peavey Bandit. So I had a working band…bliss! We played a talent show that Fall with some other real bands and lost I’m sure in a landslide but hey, we played! Bass player’s preacher dad was there, heard the Black Sabbath tunes we had his lil dumpling playing, and made him quit immediately. Learned pentatonic minor scale and learned lead (decently) with 2 months or so and practiced scales and songs solos almost non-stop. Got a new bass player (a good one) from a neighboring high school and we picked up more songs and could actually play them through now that I could play the rhythms and leads (and still sing). So we had an actual band. That Summer unexpectedly we moved to Indianapolis. Huge school (compared to Boone Co HS in KY) and lots of musicians to choose from. New kid on the block and only guitar on my mind and met a football player in one of my classes, took my amp and guitar to his house one weekend to show off and he called some girls down the street to listen and rumors started so met a drummer playing in another band and we took their rhythm guitarist and bass player and stole a singer (really really good one) from another rival band and the two bands co-ruled the school for two years. And it’s been music or bands ever since minus a lot of down time in the 2000s after marriage and kids.
 
My all original band from 89 to 92 did a couple of one-off (I know, oxymoron of plural one-off) shows in the last few years and took intense practicing for me to get to the level (probably 75% of anyway) playing I was when I was gonna be the next EVH of the world. Lol at young naivety but I did get pretty decent and had a blast playing in those days. At rehearsals (about a month before the shows and up until the day of) things start coming together seamlessly at the end and just the sheer energy and excitement that comes from individuals on different instruments playing different parts and pulling it into a unified sound is one of the greatest highs I think anyone can every experience. When I’m stage it’s up to monitor levels and shit is all spread out and not reverberating in small closed walls…nice but you never hear that same close-quartered sound of being in a confined space and hearing every little fuckup and every little detail nailed. It would be sooooo fun to get a semi-serious cover band going and play out occasionally a few weekends a month. I’ve been too damn lazy to work at something like that but still want to and hope I overcome the lazy barrier keeping me from it. 😞
 
Without sharing stories but laying the foundation of how it happened, that’s my story. I suck at being succinct on forums and txtg so apologize for the wordiness of my posts.
 
First radio guitar system on Angus Young - AC/DC 1978. He came in from the back of the audience and played to the stage. Everybody parted for him and no security. Brilliant night - my first real rock show.
 
Didn’t know Priest at the time but remember KK Downing and his hair down to his knees and the music energy rocking though I didn’t know the songs
 
Folkcafe said:
What year and do you remember the opening act?
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1978. Omaha Nebraska. I don't remember the opener. Mom remembered they were really loud. Judas Priest would fit the bill. 🤘

I worshiped kiss back then. Mom met the piano tech I guess at the restaurant she managed. He gave her free tickets.

I can still remember the smell...
 
Seeker of Rock said:
My dad took me in ‘78 (?) riverfront coliseum and Judas Priest opened. Unforgettable 🤟🤟🤟
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I have a buddy that was signed with Bill Aucoin around 78. Aucoin managed Kiss at the time. New England Toured often with Kiss as the opening act starting sometime around 78 but perhaps late in the year. I know they ended their first tour in debt.

Paul Stanley helped produce their first album and Todd Rundgren produced their third. So just idle curiosity.
 
Debut album is still my favorite and just GOOD solid rock n roll tunes on that. Hotter than hell my least favo of the early trio album release: love Gun, Destroyer both epic imo
 
My "uncle" by marriage I did not know well, well, at all really. At the time, probably at age 7 or 8, I knew he got hurt while "in the army". At that age of simplistic thinking, in that time where every kid played with little green plastic army men, all military was pretty much "the army". The reality of the matter I later came to understand, he was a Marine, wounded in Vietnam. Shot. As wounds go, not seriously, I reckon. He survived, for whatever reason their marriage did not. Anyway, not well, but I knew who he was, could recognize him. I found myself at some outdoor gathering, picnic, party, whatever it was, can't even remember how I got there. There was a stage there, guys playing music, guitars, drums, pretty cool. I'd seen before in real life people playing music, but I think before then not the whole kit and caboodle, drums and everything. They began to play, hey, look, there's Gary! Hang On Sloopy! I know that song! Wow, Gary, I know that guy, a guy on the radio. Gary, on the radio, famous. I was already a broomstick guitarist, caught some grief one time from my older brothers for rather than play football in the backyard hanging in the sunroom and singing my heart out to Sweet Caroline into a hair brush, sweet young thing down the block Caroline. But back to Gary, wow, a guy I know, Gary, on the radio, and right there in front of me in a field behind someone's house playing their famous song from the radio, Hang On Sloopy. Normal guy, my "uncle", on the radio. How cool is that. I wanna do that. Trade in my broomstick for a guitar, maybe I could do that? How cool would that be.
 
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