Northwest Music History: Garage Rock

EVERYTHING’S GONE GREEN
PART I: Tom Dyer & Green Monkey Records

It’s September 15, 2019.  I’m on the phone with Tom Dyer from his home in Olympia Washington.  Tom tells me he was born in Des Moines Iowa, although his family moved to Olympia when he was five years old. Tom relocated back to Olympia in 2016 after decades of living elsewhere…mostly Seattle.  It seems fitting that he would have moved back to Olympia…he’s spent so many of his years dedicated to music that Olympia must be a very comfortable place for him. It’s certainly a completely different town than the one he grew up in. The low-key but world-renowned Oly scene has been the birthplace of some of the nation’s best indie labels, among them K, and Kill Rock Stars.  Nowadays Tom Dyer’s label, Green Monkey Records, stands alongside them.

Olympia has had an over-sized influence on pop music from the late 1950s trio The Fleetwoods, through the riot grrrl movement that unleashed  Bikini Kill, Bratmobile and Sleater-Kinney to today’s Hounds or David Petty. For decades The Evergreen State College (TESC) has churned out rafts of musicians, artists, authors, and educators that have shaped pop and alternative culture.  A smattering of those include illustrator Charles Burns, musician/producer Steve Fisk, John Foster author and founder of OP magazine, author/professor Mark H. Smith, illustrator and author Lynda Barry, DJ and radio host Steve Rabow, K Records founder Calvin Johnson, Benjamin Hammond Haggerty (a.k.a. Macklemore), actor Michael Richards(Cosmo Kramer of Seinfeld), Simpsons and Futurama creator Matt Groening, professor, author, activist, and journalist Robert McChesney, comedian and advocate for the differently-abled Josh Blue, Soundgarden guitarist Kim Thayil, former ‘This Old House’ host Steve Thomas, and SubPop founder Bruce Pavitt.  The list goes on and on.

Tom Dyer in his studio. 2009

The college is also home to KAOS radio-one of the perennially finest college radio stations in the country.  KAOS hosts Tom Dyer’s weekly Freeform NW show (1-3 PM every Wednesday, streaming at www.kaosradio.org/listen). His dedication to the pop/garage format that has long been a staple of northwest music makes him a great candidate for the show’s host.

“I get to choose ‘northwest’ as I define it. If someone says ‘Hey! You can’t include those guys from Montana!” I’m not bothered”.  Tom explains that he plays music of all genres and doesn’t follow themes “There’s really no theme to that show at all, Tom says. “It’s just a grab-bag of shit” His tone is obviously more in jest than sincere.

“The fun thing with KAOS is that I get total control of what I play, Tom tells me.  Although Tom has just told me ‘there’s really no theme, he says “Three weeks ago I did an Amy Denio show. It was two hours of the 8000 bands that Amy has been in.” He also tells me that two weeks prior to our conversation he did a show built around the seminal ‘Life Elsewhere‘ EP released in 1980 by Olympia’s Mr. Brown Records.  The record jump-started the careers of Steve Fisk, John Foster and the band ‘The Beakers’. “So I played a bunch of stuff off ‘Life Elsewhere’, a bunch of K Records and Engram stuff…basically from 1979 to 1984.

I also play ‘John Coltrane-Live In Seattle‘ It’s a great record!.” Tom says with enthusiasm.

Although almost universally known as ‘John Coltrane: Live in Seattle’ the record’s official name is ‘John Coltrane Featuring Pharaoh Sanders Live in Seattle’. Perhaps the ‘Featuring Pharaoh Sanders’ part is dropped because the entire band recorded that night were not as well known at the time, but have since become far more famous and well respected.  Just a guess.  The live recording was thought to be lost, but in 1971,  six years after it was recorded Impulse! Records found the tapes and released them as a double album.

‘OM’. Recorded October 1, 1965 at Camelot Studios in Lynnwood WA . Cover Design: Robert & Barbara Flynn

For those that don’t know, Coltrane’s ‘Live in Seattle’ was one of the earliest live experiments showing the public his transition from  Bebop to his more atonal and avant-garde period. Pharaoh Sanders had been a practitioner of this sound, and it was Sanders who especially brought his more experimental nature into Coltrane’s band. The performance was recorded on September 30, 1965, at Seattle’s long-gone jazz club The Penthouse. The band consisted of Coltrane and a stellar line-up that featured Pharoah Sanders on sax, McCoy Tyner on piano, Jimmy Garrison on double bass and Elvis Jones on drums. 

The next day, October 1, 1965,  the band set out from Seattle to Jan Kurtis (Skugstad)’s Camelot Sound Studios in Lynnwood; a town a few miles north of Seattle.  It was there they recorded the album ‘Om’  As the title suggests Coltrane was familiar with the Hindu Vedas and the Bhagavad Gita by then. The title ‘Om‘  refers to the sacred syllable in Hinduism that denotes the Infinite or the entire Universe.  Although Coltrane never called himself a Hindu (or any other faith) he was deeply interested in Vedic music and religion, and philosophy beginning in the mid-’50s.  It coincided with his recovery from heroin in 1957 which he attributed to a general spiritual awakening. In 1964 he had the chance to study with Ravi Shankar, the maestro of the sitar, and of raga.  He had also become familiar with the works of th yogi and philosopher Krishnamurti.  It’s thought Coltrane was on LSD for this recording session, but it’s never been confirmed.

The band was the same as the previous nights’ appearance at The Penthouse along with noted Seattle multi-instrumentalist jazz musician Joe Brazil on flute.  It’s said that Brazil had jammed with Coltrane and company live the night before. The session at Camelot was produced by the near-legendary Bob Theile.   Although recorded in 1965, the recordings were released on Impulse! Records January 1968, about six months after Coltrane died of July 17, 1967, of liver cancer. At the time of its release critics and fans savaged it, even calling it Coltrane’s “worst album”.  Eventually, most of those critics and fans would come to think much better of the album, and in some cases were heavily influenced by it. By the release of ‘The Major Works of John Coltrane’ in 1992 the 29:07 track ‘Om’ was included alongside ‘Selflessness’, ‘Kulu Sé Mama’ and ‘Ascension Edition I, and ‘ Ascension Edition II’

Life Elsewhere. Steve Fisk. The Beakers. John Foster. 1980

Back to Tom:  “My show on KAOS is pretty borderless although it needs whatever northwest connection I put on it. That shit doesn’t sound near as crazy as it did 40 years ago. When I got ‘Life Elsewhere‘ in 1980  I thought ‘this is just fucking cool!’…and it was pretty cool…I loved ‘The Beakers‘!”

“When I was in high school there was Captain Beefheart…that was crazy as shit, but it’s not so crazy anymore; now there’s a bunch of that sort of thing.  I get to play Zoot Horn Rollo,” (a.k.a. Bill Harkleroad, formerly of Captain Beefheart’s Magic Band). “He was my guitar teacher (via Skype).  He lives in Eugene Oregon.   Occasionally I play something from his solo album ‘We Saw A Bozo Under The Sea’.  I get to make up the rules.!

Tom has some other experience in radio.  In the ’80s he was host of the show Audioasis on the U of W’s alternative station, KCMU.  “That’s where I first met Jonathan Poneman”. (before SubPop).  Jon referred to me as a ‘Record Mogul’ back then.  I guess we know how that turned out!” Tom says, with a chuckle. “I don’t begrudge them their success. They occasionally put stuff I like besides Mudhoney, who I usually like anyway. I think they did a lot of clever label stuff when they started, and for better or worse, they got lucky. They got ‘hold of the magic ring. Who doesn’t want that?  I think it is great they’ve kept it going so long”.

Tom tells me that during his years at Olympia High School he was the singer in several cover bands. “I didn’t know many of the words, so I just made them up,” he admits. “One of the band’s name was Sahara Pack Frame. We played almost the entire ‘The Family that Plays Together’ album by Spirit. We also played my so-called composition Black Death.”

“After I graduated in 1970 I couldn’t get the fuck out of Olympia fast enough.  It was like ‘LET ME OUT!!! Tom bummed around the northwest between Alaska and Oregon for a few years before landing in Seattle in 1975. ’. “In my 20’s I took up guitar and sax,” Tom says. “My first Seattle band was The Adults.”

In 1979 Tom met Harvey and Deanne Tawney who, along with Tom, shared an appreciation of Ornette Coleman, Captain Beefheart, free jazz…and The Dave Clark Five.  In the beginning, they experimented with improvisation, going by the name The Pigments.  In early 1980 The Pigments changed its name to The Adults and mostly gave up improvisation in favor of straight-ahead rock. During their stint as The Adults, Tom, Harvey, and Deanne were joined by bass players first the author Adam Woof and later Howie Wahlen. Somewhere along the way Bob Blackburn would become their single bassist as well as doing some vocals and writing some of the band’s songs.

Poster by Tom Dyer & The Adults

t wasn’t long until another new name and a new format came about; The Adults became The Colorplates.  By returning to some experimentation the band was afraid of being pigeonholed into the cringe-worthy, catch-all lump of bands meaninglessly designated as ‘art-rock’The Colorplates ran like hell from that cursed label, and one of the best ways to do it was to dive deeply into another ill-defined genre called either punk-rock; or worse…post-punk. Later, in a partially tongue-in-cheek bio for The Colorplates Tom wrote:

“They mainly played punk joints like the Gorilla Room and the UCT Hall with bands like Student Nurse, The Pudz and Pell Mell. Mostly for friends, but occasionally for sailors. They managed to do a bit of recording…none of it made it to vinyl, which was the punk rock mark of success back then.”

Tom’s next move was to form The Icons, a band which lasted roughly between 1981 and 1985. The band included Tom on guitar vocals and keyboards, Steve Trettevick on keyboards and vocals,  Rick Yust on bass and back-up vocals, and Tim Nelson on drums…as well as back-up vocals on one song. The Icons recorded one album, ‘Masters of Disaster’ and a live album recorded at The Hall of Fame, a nightclub in Seattle’s University District.  The album is known simply as ‘The Icons at the Hall of Fame’ and according to some accounts, captured their final performance.  Recording at The Hall of Fame took place either on April 17 and 18 (according to the cassette’s cover) or January 3 and 4, 1986 (according to the cassette’s flip side j-card notes).

The Icons. Appointment with Destiny. 2010.  Cover Art by Martin Cannon

The Icons wouldn’t play again until 2010 when Green Monkey Records released a new album called ‘Appointment with Destiny‘.  It was a collection of about half of The Icons earlier songs they’d never recorded and half all-new materiel.  The Icons played one show for the album at the time.   After playing a show for the unveiling of ‘It Crawled From The Basement’ “The fellows had so much fun,” Tom tells me, “that they wanted to play more”  Tom tells me he wasn’t interested in gigging, but he was on board with making a second album.

At the time of its release, Tom wrote ” ‘Appointment with Destiny’ is the Sgt. Pepper’s of the 21st Century. They are the walrus.”

The Icons were Tom Dyer’s Seattle rock band in the ’80s,”  a thinly disguised entry posted by ‘anonymous’ on discogs.com says:  “They liked to rock, but were not very popular…” The ‘anonymous’ in this case seems to have been Tom himself. The giveaway is that Tom Dyer’s press releases, bios and just about anything else he writes is self-deprecating, includes a dry sense of humor and off-kilter observations.

Tom tells me that one night when The Icons were booked to rehearse their drummer failed to show up.  The remaining members chose to get drunk and make things up. Tom says it was “Fooking Brilliant.”  This configuration would become Me-Three, a band that never gigged, but released an album in 1983 called ‘No Money…No Fun’. By this time Tom was clearly was well-established in the early alternative Seattle music community.  In 1982 Tom was ready to record his own solo album.

Truth or Consequences. 1982. Cover Art Vicki Dyer.

The resulting was ‘Truth or Consequences’.  It included an impressive list of local guest musicians, including the late Eric Erickson (The Fishsticks, The Squirrels), Kurt Bloch (The Fastbacks), Kurt’s brother Al Bloch (The Cheaters), Pat Hewitt (of the ’60s band The Disciples, and later of the Range Hoods),  Peter Barnes (The Enemy and one of Seattle’s most in-demand producer/engineers), and Steve Trettevik former keyboard player for The Icons.   Dian Wells and Dick Manley did some of the backing vocals. Tom’s wife Vicki did the artwork, which would set a precedent for her doing covers for subsequent albums.  After completing the album in 1983 Tom intended to sell it through the new label he’d formed, the aforementioned Green Monkey Records.

In the late ’70s and the ’80s starting an independent label was a common pursuit among bands and their friends. Very few of those labels lasted longer than two or three singles. Tops. Tom’s Green Monkey Records managed to keep afloat during its initial run from 1982 until 1991. The label’s output in 1990 included  The Hitmen, Swelter Caccklebush, Mad Man Nomad and another highwater mark for The Green Pajamas, Ghosts of Love.  1991 saw the releases by The Life, Charlie & The Tunas,  Joe Leonard, and anther by Mad Mad Nomad. The Green Monkeys’ cover of Leonard Cohen’s ‘Story of Issac’ was included on the compilation The 4th Adventure released by the Danish label Guiding Light Records.  Green Monkey put out its own fantastic compilation in 1991 called  ‘The Young and The Restless’.  It included Black Happy, The Mono Men, Slam Suzanne, Bam Bam, Dr. Unknown, Blind Horse, Red Skeleton as well as 13 other artists.  Oddly enough, the album’s last two tracks ‘Non-stop Pokin’ Action’ by Slobberpocket and ‘Heavin’ Tiny Sandwiches Over The Side’ by B.L.O.G. are two separate recordings by two separate bands that segue into each other and are listed as “18a” and “18b” respectively.

Running an independent label must be, above all, a labor of love.  Returns on investment are rare and Tom resolved himself to that decades earlier. I ask Tom why he started his own label and got a patently obvious answer. One that was familiar to any person who’s started a small independent label-including me.

“It was to put out my music and my friends’ music. No one else was doing it. The first two cassette releases were my own album, ‘Truth or Consequences’ in 1982 and ‘Local Product’ in 1983…and so the die was cast.” 

Local Product (Compilation) 1982. Cover Art by Tom Dyer.

 

‘Local Product’ was a compilation of bands as diverse as Mr. Epp and The Calculations, The Fastbacks, Al Bloch, The Queen Annes, Eric Erickson, along with 10 other artists. “I recorded most of it on my 4 Track,” Tom tells me. “The cover was the UPC from a twelve pack of the old (generic) Beer Beer.” Tom says he took a half-rack to Kinko’s Copiers (Now Fed Ex Office) and made a copy…” so,” he says, “that was the cover.”

The bands on ‘Local Product’ were largely unknown-and some were created as impromptu get-togethers by musicians and friends. Dawn Anderson of the local music magazine Backfire ignored the compilation when it was first released. Later she listened and practically gushed over it.

“I considered myself warned when I noticed the same names over and over for various bands (Dyer himself appears with eight of the fifteen acts featured).  Inbreeding tends to lead to tunnel vision, as well as the worst form of “us against them” snobbery-always, of course, at the expense of the music. Well, apparently not always. To my surprise and delight, I found this tape was not made up of the pretentious spazz-art I was expecting–most of this is honest-to-God pop music!  Garage pop, perhaps, but definitely pop, the kind with guts as well as hooks.”

I ask Tom another question I’d wanted to know the answer to for years.

“Why the name Green Monkey Records?

I’d done some homework, so I knew the Green Monkey (Chlorocebus sabaeus) is a social, vocal and generally territorial inhabitant of West Africa. Some also made their way to the islands of the Caribean during the time of the slave trade.  The Green Monkey’s fur does have a greenish-yellow appearance. The most dangerous (and impolite) acts they commit are males seeking dominance by fighting and showing their blue scrotums and bright red penises in order to attract females.  Researchers have studied the Green Monkey extensively because the majority of the African population carry the Simian Immunodeficiency Virus (SIV), similar to the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV)… but the SIV in the Green Monkey is not as virulent as the human form, and Green Monkeys who carry SIV do not progress to having  Simian Auto Immunodeficiency Syndrome. (SAIDS) , the equivalent of AIDS in humans.  

Research suggests African Green Monkeys’ SIV may have lost its virulence millions of years ago and Green Monkeys almost never get sick from SIV.  If SIV/SAIDS was once a monkey killer, the change in its virulence may shed light on the future course and timing of the evolution of HIV. Although it was once thought the Green Monkey had infected humans with SIV which became HIV/AIDS, it’s clear many more Green Monkeys have been infected with HIV/AIDS through research by humans than the Green Monkey passing off the virus to humans.  To paraphrase Peter Gabriel ‘Shock The Monkey, Indeed!’

Thankfully, Tom naming his label Green Monkey Records has nothing to do with showing off genitals or animal research.  In fact, it’s difficult to look at the Green Monkey logo without seeing a happy green fellow with arms raised in the air as if it’s lumbering toward the viewer to give them a big hug…sans the naughty bits.

Tom tells me that when he was a kid, his grandmother had an actual “stuffed but wise” Green Monkey in her attic. He says he acquired it around the time he launched his label.  “I had to call the label something,” he says, “so there it was. It wasn’t  particularly thought out.” He also notes that it is the very same “stuffed but wise” monkey that is pictured on the cover of the Green Monkey’s 2009 compilation ‘It Crawled From The Basement’.

“George Romansic thought it scary!” he adds.

“I used to lose money on the label every year, but the amount I lost was tolerable,” according to Tom. “Over a year I’d lose about a thousand or two thousand dollars,”  He says that loss was low enough that he was willing to fund the label. “I set very low expectations for people from the gitgo. I’ll do some stuff and presume this is just not going to be any big seller.  If I’m wrong, I’ll be happy.” 

 Those low expectations were one of the things Tom says he started anticipating from the beginning of Green Monkey.  “ I really didn’t want to have to deal with people that thought I was an asshole when I was trying to help them,” Tom tells me.  I’ve always set the expectations really appropriately. At the end of the day they may still think I’m an asshole, because I am, probably…or I could have done more, but I make it clear from the beginning what I’m going to do.” 

“Most bands want indie labels to do extra things for them,” Tom bemoans. “They want you to be their manager, their booking agent or errand-runner,” Tom says “That’s all the shit I don’t want to do. It’s way too much. I managed The Green Pajamas way back when, but I haven’t done it in a long time.  Jeff has wanted me to manage The Green Pajamas again.  I have no problem telling him “No, I don’t’ want to do that.’  I say ‘I’ll put your records out…I’m happy to put your records out.’  Management is just doing all the shit that’s no fun. If you’re doing it, and it’s a job you’re making money, maybe it’s OK, but it’s such a pain in the ass.  Who needs it?

DJ Steve Rabow. 1982

Tom found more allies in 1982 when Seattle radio station KZAM played punk, new wave and post-punk under the moniker ‘Rock of The ‘80s’.  Steve Rabow, a DJ at the station, promised to play one song from any cassette sent to him by a separate band on-air for what would become his first ‘Local Tape Extravaganza’.  The Rocket magazine (Seattle’s premiere music journal)  hopped on-board, providing free promotion for Steve’s project. With the wider promotion, hundreds of tapes got sent Rabow’s way. He played a song from each one of the tapes, as promised, in a four-hour marathon. In 2009 Green Monkey Records released a ‘Best of The 1982 Local Tape Extravaganza’.

One of those tapes was sent by Mr. Epp and The Calculations, an as-yet theoretical band named after their math teacher at Bellevue Christian High School, Mr. Larry Epp, The ‘cassette’ sent to Rabow was (like others)  presumably taped on a consumer cassette player with a condenser microphone.  Rabow did indeed play the ‘song’ on-air and then pronounced Mr. Epp and The Calculations to be “the worst band in the world”. 

Despite the title-or probably because of it-Mr Epp began to play live gigs in all-ages clubs and halls, partly because they were all minors, but also because they knew who their natural audience was.

Mr. Epp. Pravda Records. 1982 Cover by Todd Why & Mark Arm

In February 1982 John Rogers of the band Student Nurse produced the first and only vinyl single by Mr. Epp and The Calculations’.  The result was a 7” EP called ‘Of Course I’m Happy. Why? released on Seattle’s Pravda Records. The lead song from the EP, ‘Mohawk Man’.unexpectedly rose to number one on Rodney Bingenheimer’s influential ‘Rodney on The ROQ’ show out of Los Angeles station KROQ.  College radio around the country followed Bingenheimer’s lead. Despite being truly devoid of musicality the band created enough excitement and chaos to make up for their lack of mastery.  Within a year they became one of alternative Seattle’s biggest draws, especially among under-aged kids. The Eppsters knew who their natural audience was, and their audience loved them for it.

Musically they had nothing to do with what would eventually become known as “grunge” despite the insistence of clueless writers, historians, and even some fans to name Mr. Epp as Seattle’s first “grunge” band. It’s well-known lore that the term “grunge“ as applied to Seattle bands, came from simple self-mockery by one of Mr. Epp’s members.  A letter published in the July 22, 1981 issue of Seattle alternative journal Desperate Times called Mr. Epp “Pure grunge! Pure noise! Pure Shit!” 

It was Mark Arm (Mark Thomas McLaughlin) of Mr. Epp that wrote the sarcastic letter before the band had even played live. Ironically, Mark later became a member of Green River and Mudhoney, both of whom were two of the earliest ‘legitimate’ ‘grunge’ bands…inasmuch as the term “grunge” really means anything.  A few years after the letter to Desperate Times Bruce Pavitt and Megan Jasper of Sub-Pop Records used the term jokingly to writers who were noticing the rise of Seattle’s music scene. It was an inside joke, but it stuck.

In 1983 Tom produced Mr. Epp’s song ‘Out of Control’ at Jack Weaver’s Triangle Studios-later to become Jack Endino’s Reciprocal Recording. The track was slated for inclusion on the Engram Records compilation Seattle Syndrome II before the track was even recorded.  Tom says “That’s when the Mr. Epp guys were ‘Bellevue Brats’, Bellevue being an upscale suburb of Seattle.   I offer no objections because it is, for the most part, true.

Mr. Epp. The Metropolis Feb. 3, 1994

The band members had the kind of smarmy disrespect and distrust of all the ‘adults’ surrounding them that most teenage boys have. Their attitude at the time didn’t reflect teenage rebellion as much as it did smart-ass teenage sarcasm.  It didn’t seem to occur to them that all the ‘adults’ they were working with were only 6-7 years older and had created the template from which they would benefit.  This had been the attitude of those same ‘adults’ 6-7 years older..Later, they came to see that more clearly.

“I didn’t get credited as the producer on ‘Out of Control’…but no big deal,” Tom says. “The Mr. Epp guys hated that track,” Tom says. “They hated Jack Weaver,” Triangle’s Studios‘ owner who engineered the song. “They stayed back in the recording room while Jack gave the instructions, Tom recalls.  “I went back and forth and conveyed messages. It was pretty funny. Jack had a high opinion of himself.”

Aside from the John Rogers produced 7” EP and the later fiasco with Jack Weaver, Tom tells me “I recorded everything else Mr. Epp did. “I recorded most of the stuff on Four-Track.”  The irony is that Tom knew how to record Mr. Epp but none of their tracks were initially released on Green Monkey Records aside from ‘Falling‘ on the ‘Local Product’ compilation. Most of what Tom recorded for them was released on various members’ own small labels. Tom would later release their music on compilations or as re-issues.

Recently Joe Smitty (Jeff Smith) of Mr. Epp said:
“Tom Dyer is great.  He was a wonderful producer for Mr. Epp. He listened and helped us do what we wanted to do which was super rare in the 80s. Most tech folks wished they were working for Van Halen, not us!

Green Monkey was slowly building its early catalog. 1983 saw another solo release by Tom Dyer called ‘I Lived Three Lives”,  the previously unreleased recording of Me Three called ‘No Money…No Fun’ ‘and ‘Fight Back’ by the Bombardiers; a band led by one of Tom’s old friends, Al Bloch. 1984 saw releases by Prudence Dredge, Liquid Generation, The Elements and what would become Green Monkey Records’ flagship artist, The Green Pajamas.

In the summer of 1984, Tom discovered a self-released cassette at one of the many record stores that once were scattered along Seattle’s University Way (commonly known as ‘The Ave.’). The tape was ‘Summer of Lust’ by Seattle trio Joe Ross on bass, Jeff Kelly as the guitarist and lead singer, and Karl Wilhelm on drums.  They called themselves The Green Pajamas.

Summer of Lust. Cassette 1984. Cover Art by Joe Ross

On a whim, Tom bought the tape, brought it home and had a listen. He liked the cassette so much that he wrote a review of it for OP Magazine, then published by John Foster (another TESC alum) and the Lost Music Network out of Olympia. OP had become an internationally-known journal dedicated to alternative music and cassette culture. Later the magazine was sold to Scott Becker and well-known music and pop culture author Richie Unterberger. After relocating to Los Angeles OP relaunched itself as Option magazine and despite being a meticulously-designed glossy magazine it kept its credibility among readers.  A mention in OP or Option assured exposure to a very wide audience of independent music insiders, College DJ’s and forward-looking music fans.  The review was a great move for The Green Pajamas, for Dyer, and for Green Monkey Records.

Tom says he wanted to work with The Green Pajamas from the moment he heard their tape, but no contact information was on the cassette or its cover. He was finally was able to track them down through the shop that duplicated the tape.  They put him in touch with band-member Joe Ross. This connection would lead to the association of The Green Pajamas, it’s members, Tom Dyer and Green Monkey Records for 35 years and counting.

After connecting with the band’s members Tom invited them to come over and look at his studio. “Years later,” Jeff Kelly says, “Tom told me he said to himself, ‘I don’t know about this Jeff guy.’ He thought I didn’t seem very friendly when we came over and looked at the studio. I don’t know… I was slightly apprehensive because it was just such a little space and I’d already been in a bigger studio. Maybe I was a little…well, maybe he thought I was aloof, but I probably was just being kind of shy and a little guarded. We ended up recording and it and it was really fun.”

Summer of Lust LP. Ubik Records 1989 Cover Photo: Kari Dunn

Tom’s first move was to re-release ‘Summer of Lust’ on the Green Monkey label with a couple of additional songs-’Stephanie Barber’ and ‘Mike Brown’. “I was amused by the fact that Jeff Kelly would write songs about people using their real names,” Tom says. “When we licensed ‘Summer of Lust’ to the British label Ubik Records in 1989 and the Spanish label ViNiLiSSSiMO in 2014 ‘Mike Brown’ made it to the vinyl versions but ‘Stephanie Barber’ didn’t.

On other occasions, Tom and the band had their own fun preparing albums for overseas release. Tracks were changed around, sometimes there were additions and other times they included alternate takes of the version that appeared on the Green Monkey version.  Whether this was a conscious effort to make certain releases more ‘collectible’ there are plenty of Green Pajamas completist collectors who will track down even the most obscure variation. Although Green Monkey has always been a modest operation, the label and The Green Pajamas who practically never played outside Seattle both have a very dedicated worldwide cult following.

In the liner notes for the 2009 compilation ‘It Crawled From The Basement’  Tom wrote about the shift the entire label experienced once The Green Pajamas climbed on board:

The Green Pajamas. L.to R. Laura Weller Eric Lichter, Jeff Kelly, Scott Vanderpool, Joe Ross

I didn’t know my life was about to become Pajama-fied. Of the label’s remaining thirty-five releases (between 1982 and 1999)  fifteen of them would be by The Green Pajamas or one of their members; usually the brilliant Jeff Kelly. The Pajamas were one of only two bands I ever had a real contract with (The Life was the other). The Pajamas deal was that I paid for everything. I was going to be a real record company, just like Warner Brothers or CBS, honestly! Besides that, I was managing them, I was their producer, their recording engineer, I was booking their shows, I was their publisher.  It was fundamentally a conflict of interest situation, but no one else wanted to do it and it needed to be done. I was even Jeff’s best man at his wedding. Green Monkey to a large extent shifted from being the “Tom label” and became the “Jeff label”.

“When Green Monkey started we were releasing cassettes only. It wasn’t just because they were trendy. We just didn’t have the money,” Tom tells me. This was at the height of ‘cassette culture’-the first time in history artists had the ability to record themselves, then copy and distribute their work at an affordable price.  Major labels were releasing far more cassettes than LP’s at the time, and small labels and consumers relied on the cassette to get the music they liked spread more widely.

It was the golden age of the ‘mixtape’-a collection of people’s favorite songs, recorded from the original source that was kept for later play, given as gifts, or traded among friends. The wide availability of the cassette tape also freed up artists and small labels from having to manufacture large, set quantities of vinyl records that must be produced and most of them sold to break even.  If a person or label had the right equipment, cassettes could be released in modest or relatively large numbers. If the label copied either 30 or 300 cassettes, and they sold out, the label could go back and make more copies. There was a lot less risk of sitting on unsold merchandise.  Rapid cassette duplicating shops, who could copy dozens of tapes at a time, popped up all over the nation.

“I think the first 7” vinyl single Green Monkey released was ‘I Love You’ b/w ‘1/4 To Zen‘ by Liquid Generation in 1985. The first 12” vinyl release was another Green Monkey compilation called ‘Monkey Business’ that was released in 1986,” Tom says. “The Fastbacks, The Green Pajamas, Prudence Dredge, The Walkabouts, The Icons, Al Bloch and Arms Akimbo were among the contributors to the album.”

Monkey Business (Compilation) 1986

“The ‘Monkey Business’ compilation, which was actually released on the cusp of 1986, took everything up another notch,” Tom says. “My non-music life had been problematic, to say the least. I had a little construction business with a partner that I did not know was a cocaine freak. ‘Whoops! There went the money!’ I spent six months completing people’s kitchen remodels on my own. As I was getting to the end of all that bad voodoo, I wanted to bust out. ‘Monkey Business’ was the way I did it,” Tom tells me, adding “It was a serious piece of work to show what I could do. Unlike ‘Local Product’, this was mostly bands you could go somewhere and see”.

“It’s the compilation of emerging grunge bands called ‘Deep Six’ that everybody remembers from 1986,” Tom tells me… “but The Rocket gaveMonkey Business’ the prize for the best compilation that year. It did even better than those shitty old ‘Deep Six’ and Pop Llama Records12” Combo Deluxe’ compilations,” Tom says with a good-natured laugh. ‘Deep Six’ had included Green River, Malfunkshun, Mudhoney, The Melvins, Soundgarden, The U-Men and Skinyard -bands that would emerge during Seattle’s “grunge” era. Pop Llama Records’ ‘12” Combo Deluxe’ featured The Young Fresh Fellows, Red Dress, The Fastbacks, Moving Parts. Rob Morgan’s New Age Urban Squirrels and Jimmy Silva among others.

“Back in 1986, when ‘Monkey Business’, ‘Deep Six and ’12” Combo Deluxe’ were released, Seattle was Compilation City,” Tom says.

Green Monkey Records upped its pace in 1985 by releasing The Queen Annes, The Fall-Outs, Keith Livingston and both Icons albums ‘Masters of Disaster’ and ‘Live At The Hall of Fame’.

Although The Green Pajamas recorded a new single in 1985 it’s release was put on hold until May 1986. According to Tom, he kept the singles hidden in a closet and told everyone in the band except Jeff Kelly that the records had been held up in customs at the Canadian border. We were trying to be strategic,” Tom tells me. “We wanted to release ‘Monkey Business’ first and then allow enough time for the next Green Pajamas single to take over the attention.”

Kim The Waitress. 1986

The single included a song that is probably the most important release that Green Monkey has ever put out: ‘Kim The Waitress’. It turned the fortunes of The Green Pajamas and made Green Monkey Records a player on the local label scene. The song was a modest regional hit, and was played on college stations around the country…but it would find a bigger audience later.

In ‘Loser‘, Clark Humphry excellent book about Seattle alternative music culture he notes: “(The Green Pajamas) scored a regional hit in 1986 with the dreamy love-ode ‘Kim The Waitress‘, clocking in at over six minutes of ethereal innocence.  Dyer mixed a shorter version for airplay on (radio station) KJET, whose automation equipment couldn’t play tapes longer than five minutes.”  Tom tells me he made the shorter version simply by speeding up the tape a little and editing out parts, mostly during the song’ latter portions.

According to Jeff Kelly;
“We were performing at the time, but we weren’t getting much radio support.  KCMU (predecessor of KEXP) would play a little Green Pajamas once in a while, but we were still kind of a novelty. We weren’t ‘grunge’ so our music didn’t fit into anything like that…but Jonathan Poneman (later of SubPop) would play it when he was a DJ at KCMU on one of those late-night shows. We got on there, but never became any kind of a hit. I think in that sense local radio playing our version. The 1994 Sister Psychic version got played a lot locally.

Joe Ross also tells me  ‘Kim The Waitress’ was published by Tom’s ‘Half the World Publishing’  but Tom didn’t have the publishing machine to get the song out there. “One thing Tom made sure to do was to promote the single by sending it to almost every college radio station in the U.S.  “I wasn’t in the band at the time the record came out,” Joe tells me, “I was working as the activities co-ordinator at South Seattle Community College. We got a promo copy of it. Tom sent out about hundreds of copies. Anyone involved in Material Issue (who later covered ‘Kim The Waitress’ ) was probably in college in Chicago or somewhere else at the time. College radio around the nation received it, so there was some play outside of the Seattle area.”

Material Issue covered ‘Kim The Waitress’  for their 1996 album ‘Freak City Soundtrack,’  L to R: Jim Ells, Mike Zelenko, Ted Ansari

“I thought ‘Kim The Waitress’ could have been-and should have been- a  bigger record if I’d known what I was doing… or we just got lucky, but that’s how it went,” Tom says. “Kim The Waitress’ was covered by both power-pop trio Material Issue on their ‘Freak City Soundtrack’ and a notable video was created for it. Seattle’s Sister Psychic covered it for their album ‘Surrender, You Freak.  Ironically both covers were released in the same year-1994.  Andy Davenhall of Sister Psychic even sat in with the Pajamas on the live version of ‘Kim The Waitress’ that appears on the ‘Lust Never Sleeps’ album. “It was nice getting covered but I still like the original Green Pajamas version the best,” Tom says. He’s not alone in that regard.

In retrospect, Tom may not have had a huge publishing machine, but he was doing one of the most important jobs of a publisher-to get a song heard by as many people as possible and hope someone likes it enough to cover it or use it in TV, radio or film.  It’s a tried and true formula that is even more widely used today in the world of digital music. The only real difference is that small labels and unknown bands can do their own footwork without the expense of paying someone with PR connections, the costs of the physical product and postage costs that sending those copies to labels and publishers like Tom’s had to rely on. In the end, Tom’s strategy worked.

He then gives me some of the technical details that went into the recording of ‘Kim The Waitress’:
“The song was recorded on a Tascam 38-8 8-track in my tiny basement studio, with a Soundcraft 16 channel board with an assortment of inexpensive mics – SM-57, Sennheiser MD-421, etc. I think we tracked it with drums, bass, and 2 electric guitars. Vocals were overdubbed as was the sitar, played by the late Steve Lawrence. Mixing was done with minimal outboard gear – a couple of EQs, an Ibanez AD202 Analog delay. I think some kind of reverb but I don’t remember what. I did not own any compressors or other fancy outboard processing gear.”

1986 would also see another watershed moment for both Green Monkey and The Green Pajamas.with the release of The Green Pajamas’ second album, ‘Book of Hours’.  It had been two years since ‘Summer of Lust’ and the band had taken on keyboardist Bruce Haedt and Steve Lawrence on guitar. There had been considerable expectation that this album would be as good as ‘Summer of Lust’, or the single ‘Kim The Waitress’.

Book of Hours. 1986. Cover Art by: Ursula Bolimowski

‘Book of Hours’ was practically epic in its use musicians, including a choir, a horn section as well as Carla Torgeson of The Walkabouts playing the cello.  In 2010, critic Tim Peacock reminded readers that 1987 was the year “grunge” began taking hold in Seattle.  He wrote about ‘Book of Hours’  saying, “The idea of a Seattle band laying down a fragrant, patchouli-tinged psychedelic pop masterpiece in such a climate was brave at best.”

Elsewhere Peacock wrote:
“While ‘Book of Hours’ may superficially have been drenched in  Eau de 1967, if you’re expecting an unfocused sprawl akin to The Stones’ ‘Their Satanic Majesties Request’ then forget it because there’s also a modern-day energy at work here, not to mention Jeff Kelly’s redoubtable brilliant song-writing skills, all of which conspire to ensure the ...’ Book of Hours’ is an inspired listen over two decades on”.

It’s been three decades now, Tim.

Book of Hours’  set the stage for an even closer relationship between The Green Pajamas and Tom Dyer.It also became the first Green Monkey album to find labels and distribution outside the United States. The Bouncing Corporation in Germany released ‘Book of Hours’ in 1988, and Melbourne Australia’s Au-Go-Go Records released the album in 1989. Green Monkey and The Green Pajamas would continue to have albums licensed and released on labels across the world. Later releases would be picked up by Sugarbush Records in Britain, and Camera Obscura in Australia.

Between 1982  and 1991 the Green Monkey catalog grew to include more releases by The Green Pajamas, its primary songwriter, Jeff Kelly, Capping Day, The Life, The Purdins, Slam Suzanne, Goblin Market, and The Hitmen among others. By the end of 1991 Green Monkey Records had released  43 cassettes, 7” singles, and LPs.  Tom had either produced or engineered most of them. He decided it was time to shut the operation down…at least for the time being.

It Crawled From The Basement. 2009 Cover Art: Concept, Art Chantry. Photo: Tom Dyer

“What really happened.” Tom tells me, “was that I was doing too many things, to put it mildly.  I started teaching at the Art Institute of Seattle in 1989. I had no degree of any sort.  I decided that I liked teaching and I said to myself, ‘go back to school’.  At that point, I basically shut down the label and did go back to school. When I began I had no degree at all and ended up with a doctorate.  It was a fairly large project. I went to the University of Washington for a couple of degrees then I went out to Johnson and Wales University in Providence, Rhode Island and got my doctorate…I’m not the kind of doctor you’d want operating on your leg,” Tom says jokingly.  “ I got my doctorate, headed back to Seattle and started up Green Monkey again. I’ve put out way more stuff now than I did the first time.”
Even while Green Monkey Records was ‘inactive’ the label still managed to release two solo albums by Jeff Kelly, Private Electrical Storm, mixed by Tom in 1992, and 1995’s Ash Wednesday Rain that Tom found time to master. Tom even edited and mastered The Green Pajamas ‘Carolers Song EP’ for its 2001 release on Urbana Illinois label  Hidden Agenda.  The EP would later be re-released by Green Monkey.

In 2009, after a 14-year ‘hiatus’ Green Monkey Records was relaunched with ‘It Crawled From The Basement’, a 47 song, two-CD set that included a 28-page booklet.  Tom says: It was a compilation that summarized the ‘80’s stuff. The CD was Green Monkey’s first release since Jeff Kelly’s ‘Ash Wednesday Rain’ in 1995.  It was a retrospective that marked the beginning of a new era. When ‘It Crawled From The Basement’ was released, Tom wrote: “This CD is the first of many new releases for the label, with re-releases of back catalog, various historical oddities and all-new material by GMR superstars on the way!”

Tom has kept his promise.

“Most indie labels never recoup the investment that they’ve put into their projects. That’s alright,” Tom says.  “I wanted to do ‘It Crawled From The Basement’  just so. I didn’t care how much it cost. I just wanted to make it how I wanted to make it. I spent $4000 putting out the compilation.  So I said ‘you know what? That’s really a lot of money to toss down the tube. You should recoup it’…but I didn’t come close to it”.  Tom says he didn’t really care about the loss.  He figured someone would come along and license the compilation.  Tom’s had a lot of luck licensing and distribution of his albums in the past.  He tells me he figured out how to make his product cheaply early on, and even makes a little money off his releases nowadays.  “My hourly wage is probably about 25 cents an hour,” Tom says, That’s a common wage modestly successful indie record owners usually make. “But I don’t lose money on it anymore”.




During our conversation, Tom tells me “I also do some publishing now.  I do it to help bands out but it’s really a question of what you’re going to do with it.  Most of the stuff we just get it played by people….we don’t get it covered. It’s just whatever royalties we can get from the internet.  You don’t get rich doing that! If you want to make some dough, you’ve got to get somebody famous to cover your shit. Jeff always wants people to cover shit, but I just don’t want to work that hard at it.” I say: ‘Jeff, that sounds like a fucking job to me.  I’m old now. I’m retired. I’ve worked hard.’ 

Since Green Monkey’s rise from the ashes in 2009 Tom’s friend and former bandmate Howie Wahlen has taken some of the burden off Tom’s go-it-alone work ethic.  I give Howie a call to get the lowdown:  He tells me:

“Tom and I met in the mid-‘70s. We kept in touch over the years.  He convinced me to join his band The Adults in 1980. I played with them for about six months. About two years later Tom ended up forming Green Monkey Records. After I left Peaches (the one-time national record retailer) he talked me into doing sales for Green Monkey. In about 1989 or 1990 I used to do record and tape consignments with all the record stores around Seattle. I also had my own small label at the time called ‘Other River Music. We put out two CDs; ‘Lightning Waltz’ by Like Rain in 1991 and ‘Bad Acid Comedy’ by The Malchicks in 1992.

Howie Wahlen.    Selfie by Howie Wahlen

Howie tells me he was booking some shows for The Green Pajamas around the time the ‘Ghosts of Love’ album came out in September of 1990. Besides doing consignment as well as managing the band Like Rain and his label, he says ”it was all kind of pulled together.”  He says he was also working with Terry Morgan, one of the most important independent promoters in Seattle.  “I took on booking at the New Melody Tavern in Ballard, which is now the Tractor Tavern,” Howie tells me. Terry had started an ‘unplugged’ event every Wednesday night.  I did that for a year.”

“Then I got a real job….one with a regular paycheck,“ Howie says. “That pretty much ended the consignment thing with Green Monkey. Tom shut the label down so he could study and eventually go off to Rhode Island.  When he came back to Seattle, I was a truck driver. Tom took a position as President of Argosy University, a small institution in Seattle that gives out master’s degrees.

Howie tells me that Tom called him one day after Green Monkey had been re-launched.  He says Tom asked him ‘Hey! You wanna do some stuff?’.  Howie says he was reluctant at first.  His truck driving job was really good, but it didn’t afford him a lot of time and the hours were horrendous.  “Tom asked me what I’d like to do.”  Howie says that he finally told Tom, yes, but this time he’d like to get involved in a more creative way. “I wasn’t really interested in doing sales. I didn’t I have the time or the desire to do it”

The two hashed it out and came up with Howie being in charge of video. “ It was a learning process, Howie says. “I was shooting, directing, editing, working as the videographer and doing all the production,” according to Howie.  “I happened to have archives from the late 1980s when myself and a friend had videotaped quite a few local bands. I’d forgotten about some of that stuff!” Howie tells me, he recently put together a video for the August 2019 release of  ‘The Incomplete Fabulous Stinking’ retrospective by The Chemistry Set.

“I happened to have a videotape of a show that the Chemistry Set played at The Backstage nightclub in Ballard years ago,” Howie says. “ I also had videotaped  The Life at The Backstage on a Green Monkey Night.  I’ve scaled back from the videos quite a bit, but I still help… What I do mostly is to allow Tom to pick my brain.  I’ve spent a lot of time in retail and working in warehouses, as well as booking shows.  He runs things by me and I give him my opinion. He bounces ideas off me and occasionally he’ll grab something from me and run with it.” Howie doesn’t mention that he also does a fair amount of writing both for Green Monkey and the press.  Besides video Howie was doing most of the updating of the original Green Monkey Records website and keeping content current. He usually set up the Album of the Month page with templates that Tom had already had set up.

I ask Howie how he would define his position at Green Monkey Records.  He laughs and says:
“One time Tom asked me that same question. I said ‘Gosh Tom, I’ve never been a Vice President of anything. You’re obviously the President, so can I be your Vice President?’  He said, ‘Sure! Why not?’ ”

Monkey Business III. (compilation) 2016

Since it’s relaunch Green Monkey Records has continued to release albums that had sat in the can for years.  The label has also re-released previously cassette-only tapes and long out-of-print albums. During the past decade, the label has released albums by Tom Dyer and the different configurations of bands he’s been in, The Green Pajamas, The Life, The Icons. The Goblin Market, Jim of Seattle, The Colorplates, Liquid Generation, The Queen Annes, Gary Minkler, Slam Suzanne, the late and sorely missed George Romansic,  Fur For Fairies, The Freewheelin’ Joe Ross, The Dehumanizers, AAIIEE. Amy Denio, The Chemistry Set…and that’s barely scratching the surface. Tom’s label has continued to release a total of three Monkey Business compilations, the second being in 2006 although one’s title is actually Monkey Business: Mach II released in January of 2016. It was made up of selections chosen by Howie, as was 2017’s Monkey Business III

This was obviously a great move because so many of the albums were initially put out on cassette tapes.  A newly mastered CD or a digital copy of an old tape is always attractive to fans of the original. Many of them were destroyed, lost or forgotten over the years. “I was worried about some of the older releases. I wanted them to have a public life again, Tom tells me.  I wanted to make them available so someone could find them if they wanted some really weird, obscure shit.”

“I  wrapped most of that up a couple of years ago.  There’s still a couple of little things, but I’m not much I’m worried about putting out old stuff.  I’m focusing on the new releases at this point.”

Tom Dyer at Easy St. Records with The New Pagan Gods.  Photo: Howie Wahlen

 

“I currently have a studio in my house,” Tom tells me. “I have a nice pro-tools rig but I don’t record whole bands that often. They usually don’t want to work that hard.  My own current band is ‘Tom Dyer and the True Olympians. (Tom Dyer, vocals and guitar, Joe Cason, keyboards and vocals, Gene Tveden, bass and vocals, and Tom Shoblom, drums, and percussion)  The band has been together since 2017 and has released two singles and one album and done two gigs.  “We’re working on our next album right now,” Tom tells me.
Tom’s been involved with other bands in the past couple of decades. Obviously The Icons were together when he first started Green Monkey and they held a reunion show and recorded an album in 2009 for the relaunch of the label. “
There was a 2 gig band of all improvised rock songs in 86 or 87 – New Pagan Gods – with a bunch of guys on the label, Tom says, adding “It was pretty fun”. In 1992 I put together a short-lived band called Beautimus, Tom says. They recorded 8 songs and did one gig In 2015 a different line up of New Pagan Gods recorded ‘History of NW Rock: Volume 1‘ and played two shows.  Tom adds “those shows were ‘so fun’.

I mention to Tom that I think Green Monkey Records has a very strong presence on the web.  The actual Green Monkey site is comprehensive and easy to navigate.  Aside from Green Monkey having a page for each of its bands, comments, albums of the month, direct downloads and a sales point the site also links to the websites that individual artists have put up themselves.  There are pages filled with what Tom calls his “rants” news and video. There is also a particularly fine hand-in-glove site at Bandcamp. 

 “I have fun doing it.  I do the parts that I like and if some magic thing happens and one of them gets picked up great!  If it doesn’t, that’s fine too. I like to make music that I like”.

Maggie Teachout

Tom gives it some thought and then says; “There’s stuff that I like better than others. Not every band that releases on the label are my favorite records, and I’ve put out a lot of them, you know? But I like all of them to different degrees.  I’ve been putting stuff out lately by kids. I put this record out by this 18-year-old girl from Olympia named Maggie Teachout. Tom tells me “Maggie has super-catchy pop songs. We haven’t done anything yet; I think only three shows in Olympia to promote the album. She didn’t care.  She just wanted to make a record, so I said ‘Let’s make a record!’ “It was really fun to do” Her first album, ‘Maybe I’m Still Peter’ was released on Green Monkey Records in August of 2019.”

Later I do a bit of research on Maggie and find out she grew up in Olympia around traditional American music. She was somewhat of a child prodigy who first started playing music when she was four years old and has been a songwriter since she was 13. According to her official bio “she is known in Olympia music circles for her powerful voice and moving lyrics,”  The bio also mentions Maggie’s passion for social justice, in several of her songs including ‘Waltz for my Daughter’ which features both Maggie and her younger sister, Ruby of The Bow Weevils...a teen band that plays old-time music, traditional music, fiddle tunes, and ballads. Maggie’s bio describes her first album as a mix of traditional American music with indie-pop.  That’s a near-perfect combination.

Mike Refuzor 1953-2017

Tom says he’s also got Al Bloch to record a new CD which he thinks is a great accomplishment. “I love Al Bloch’s stuff, Tom tells me,” He hadn’t done anything for ages. He’s writing new material again”.  Al played at the Crocodile Cafe on March 3, 2018, with his old band The Cheaters (more or less) for the 40th reunion of Seattle’s first punk rock club ‘The Bird’.  Along with The Cheaters, Penelope Houston of The Avengers, The Enemy and Shagnasty, “The official Ken Trader tribute band” played.  The show was fantastic but somewhat of a damper was put on it shortly after it took place.

Local punk rock legend Mike Refuzor who had started his career at ‘The Bird’ attended the reunion that night.  It was his last public outing. Three days later he was found passed out on a neighborhood sidewalk.  He was taken to Harborview Hospital and found to have had a stroke. Mike had suffered a stroke several years earlier that left him partly disabled. He was also in very poor health. Mike never regained consciousness and his family had life support removed after realizing he was not going to make it.   As Tom put it “None of us get to stay alive, so…”

Since I’m talking to Tom in mid-September he whispers and tells me in his most covert voice: “I’ve just taken over the most important job in the northwest small label-dom. I’ll be releasing the new Richard Peterson album on October 18. “Popllama producer Conrad Uno threw in the towel so Peter Barnes called me up and asked if I’d do it.  I said “Sure! Why not?!!”

Now it’s late October and Richard’s new album ‘Seven’ has indeed been released.

For those not familiar with Richard there is little more to say than ‘Richard Peterson is a Seattle legend’.  For decades Richard has been a fixture on the street and at sporting events busking by playing his trumpet (NO CANADIAN COINS!).  He is a savant who not only plays the trumpet…he’s quite a pianist as well.  Aside from the streets and sports events, Richard can be found playing at galas, parties or even on stage opening for his friend Jeff Bridges’ band, The Abiders (yes, that Jeff Bridges).

Richard Peterson. Seven. 2019 Cover Photo: Eric Johnson

Richard Peterson’s new album. ‘Seven’, is credited to ‘The Richard Peterson Orchestra, but in fact, every note on the album is his own. For decades Richard has been fascinated with the music for Lloyd Bridges’ role from 1958 to 1961 in the television drama Sea Hunt, hence his becoming friends with Lloyd Bridges’ son Jeff.  Music for Sea Hunt was credited to ZIV, en entity that was actually a production company named after Frederik Ziv.  Frederik Ziv was a radio and television producer who worked from the 1930s up until the late 1950s.  The composer of Sea Hunt’s mysterious underwater music was actually the work of David Rose along with stock music created by other composers.  Richard aspires to the same themes and moods used in the old series.  Tom tells me that the entire Richard Peterson catalog is now available as digital downloads.

A fantastic documentary about Richard Peterson called ‘Big City Dick’ is must-see watching for Seattleites as well as those not familiar with the city. It was shot in 2004 and won The Slamdance Film Festival’s ‘Sparky Award for Best Documentary Film’ that year.  It’s a touching look at Richard and his quest for fame and acceptance.  It’s even more poignant knowing that Richard is now 15 years older than he was during filming, and though he does well-enough financially, he is, as he always says “still on the streets”.  The documentary is available to watch free at the Green Monkey website….jut look for the ‘videos’ section.

Directed by Ken Harder & Scott Milam. 2004

There are few if any eccentrics left in Seattle that rise to Richard’s status. Richard’s albums have never sold well, but he has a leg up on most other musicians.  Richard is happy to stand on downtown Seattle street corners hawking his records to strangers and passers-by. The volatile but talented poet and performance artist Jesse Bernstein is gone. The Doghouse is gone. Dark fantasy author Wilum Hopfrog Pugmire (perhaps Seattle’s oldest punk)  is gone.  Pre-grunge hangouts like WREX and The Gorilla Room, and the straight-friendly Tugs, Belltown are loooooong gone.  Upchuck in his punk-dandy outfits that he wore day and night is gone. The Comet Tavern is still there, but it’s not really ‘The Comet’. Dee Dee Rainbow, who dressed just as you’d imagine is gone. So is the unfathomable painter Jay Steensma and the cheap warehouse’s artists used to rent that have been torn down to make way for a new skyscraper district in South Lake Union. The Green Pajamas, who Tom and Green Monkey Records had been so inextricably tied to has more or less disbanded, although various combinations of the members still record. 

But there are a few pockets of Seattle’s past culture that remains.  The welcoming neon and flashing-bulbed Elephant Car Wash sign still stands at Denny Way and Wall Street. Improbably in the digital age, the ‘Read All About It’ magazine and newspaper stand at First and Pike is still there. The mighty art maven/provocateur Larry Reid keeps things alive at Fantagraphics Books in Georgetown. Tom Dyer (who’s been around Seattle since 1975) is still here and so is his pre-grunge label…and no Christmas party at Peter Barnes’ Clatter and Din studios would be a real event without Richard Peterson at the ivories.

Let’s back-up a minute to Peter Barnes’ Christmas parties, and Christmas in general.  Since 2009 Green Monkey Records has released 9 charity Christmas albums (one year a charity event was held instead of releasing an album).  Each year the label puts out a Christmas download featuring Tom, his friends, his label-mates, and in some cases artists who no one seems to know anything about.  The collections are fun and as Tom wrote in 2016:

OKAY, YOU JOLLY CHRISTMATOLOGISTS!

“Welcome to another non-denominational Green Monkey Christmas!  Here at GMR, we welcome everyone who likes a little Christmas music, regardless of race, creed, color, gender identity, religion, preferred football team and/or voting record.”

Green Monkey on My Back.
GMR Christmas 6. 2015

Each year the entire proceeds from the albums go to MusicCares. 501(c)(3) organization that assists musicians in need, whether it’s chemical dependency rehab or day-to-day need for elderly and abandoned musicians. Charity Navigator has given MusicCares five stars (their highest rating).  According to the MusicCares mission statement:

MusiCares provides a safety net of critical assistance for music people in times of need. MusiCares’ services and resources cover a wide range of financial, medical and personal emergencies, and each case is treated with integrity and confidentiality. MusiCares also focuses the resources and attention of the music industry on human service issues that directly influence the health and welfare of the music community.”

This year Green Monkey will be releasing two Christmas albums.  The first is  ‘Hail the Jolly Christmas Monkey: GMR #10’. It will include Tom-n-Joe’s Holiday Agnostics (Tom & Joe from the True Olympians), Olivia Bloch (featuring Kurt and Al Bloch), Utterance Tongue, Wendy Dunlap, Rendition, Levi Fuller; Jeff Kelly & Ed Portnow, Duane Hibbard, Joe Ross, Steve Trettevik, Richard Stuverude, and Cabeza. More artists will possibly be included, among them Richard Peterson. Ben London & Stagg, Steve Fisk, and Toiling Midgets.  Tom says there will be a limited run of 100 of Hail the Jolly Christmas Monkey on vinyl this year.

The second is: ‘The Best of Christmas Boogie Woogie – 10 Years of GMR Xmas’,  Tom says “Howie is picking the “best of” songs.  So far he’s not telling.  Both albums will be available on December 1, 2019.

Nowadays Tom’s life seems more relaxed.  “I’m coming to Seattle less since I moved to Olympia,” Tom tells me. “I’ve been down here in Olympia a little over three years.  The traffic between Olympia and Seattle has gotten so fucking horrible. I still come up to see a show when the traffic isn’t so bad because it’s not so crowded when you’re driving home… but you’ve got to avoid the drunks on the way. My mom lives near Seattle’s Green Lake in a senior home so I get up to Seattle at least once a month. It just depends.  I don’t hang out in Seattle like I used to, that’s for sure,” he says.  

Green Monkey still doesn’t follow trends. It seems that Tom and Green Monkey Records will continue to release solid, unpretentious rock and pop music…just as it always has.  Some people may constantly be in search of the newest, the biggest, the most transformative thing.  At the same time, there is time to take in a bit of ‘comfort food for the ears’. Not bland, but tasty, fulfilling and made with love. Green Monkey Records delivers that ‘comfort food’.

Green Monkey‘s pace may seem to have lessened a bit lately, but since the revival of the label in 2009 Tom’s released an additional  59 CDs, 1 LP, 10 Christmas albums, 14 digital singles, 2 digital compilations, 2 digital-only album:  The Heats ‘Live at The Showbox 1979’ and ‘November’ by  The Green Pajamas. ‘November’.  In 2013 it was released as a CD.

“That comes to 131 releases by my count,” Tom says. “Today I do the parts I like. That’s the way it is.  My plan is to just keep putting music out until I’m dead.”

So, some things remain the same-like that happy “stuffed but wise” monkey with arms raised in the air as it’s lumbering towards us to give us a big hug…sans the naughty bits.

NEXT. EVERYTHING’S GONE GREEN PART TWO: THE GREEN PAJAMAS.

 

Author-Dennis R. White

Tom Dyer “interview with the author” (September 15, 2019). Howie Wahlen “interview with the author”  (September  28, 2019). Joe Ross “interview with the author” (October 3, 2019). Jeff Kelly “interview with the author” (August 30, 2019).  Eric Lichter “Interview with the author” (September 1. 2019).  Phil Hirschi “Interview with the author” (October 28, 2019) Laura Weller Vanderpool “interview with the author” (October 10, 2019).   Joe Ross “The Story of Kim The Waitress” ( https://tinyurl.com/rj76bfy  retrieved September 10, 2019). “The Green Pajamas Website” (https://thegreenpajamas.net/retrieved September 2, 2019) “Green Monkey Records” (https://greenmonkeyrecords.com/ Retrieved September 20, 2019). Michael Nelson&  Jud Cost “Q&A with The Green Pajamas” (Magnet Magazine, June 6, 2012). Art Chantry “Grunge: Just More Snotty Bratty Punk Rock” (Madame Pickwick Art Blog, September 15, 2011). Tom Dyer correspondence with the author ( September 20- October 24, 2019). Laura Weller “Laura Weller” (These Streets, June 13, 2011). Tom Dyer “Tom Dyer Artist (Tom Dyer Sound, https://tomdyersound.com/ retrieved October 3, 2019). Michael Sutton. “Capping Day Biography” (AllMusic.com,https://www.allmusic.com/artist/capping-day-mn0000539656/credits, retrieved October 12, 2019). Tom Dyer “Album of the Month: Richard Peterson and His Orchestra: Seven” (Green Monkey Records, https://greenmonkeyrecords.com/oct-2019-richard-peterson-seven/, retrieved October 10, 2019). Slim HineyTom Dyer’s New Pagan Gods- History of Northwest Rock, Volume 1” (Daggerzine, October 2019). Stephen Howell “Mr. Epp and The Calculations” (Mudhoney blog,  https://tinyurl.com/y4pbeqjz retrieved October 12, 2019).  GMR staff “The Colorplates” Green Monkey Records). GMR staff “The Colorplates”. (Green Monkey Records,  https://greenmonkeyrecords.com/artist-the-colorplates/ retrieved October 21, 2019). GMR Staff “The Icons” https://greenmonkeyrecords.com/july-2010-the-icons-masters-of-disaster/  retrieved October 20. 2019). https://greenmonkeyrecords.com/aprilmay-2011-the-icons-appointment-with-destiny/ Retrieved October 21, 2019). Lee Somerstein Recalling the Heady Days of Progressive Station KZAM  (The Seattle Times, April 1, 2005). Matthew Keller “Chlorocebus sabaeus:green monkey” (Animal Diversity Web, The University of Michigan Museum of Zoology, https://animaldiversity.org/accounts/Chlorocebus_sabaeus/retrieved October 19, 2019). Tom Dyer & Michael Cox “August 2009: “It Crawled From The Basement-The Green Monkey Records Anthology” (Green Monkey Records, December 2008, https://greenmonkeyrecords.com/aug-2009-it-crawled-from-the-basement-the-green-monkey-records-anthology/ (retrieved September 29, 2019). AllMusic“Green Monkey Credits” “https://www.allmusic.com/artist/green-monkey-records-mn0001085822). Steven Tow “The Strangest Tribe: How a Group of Seattle Rock Bands Invented Grunge” (Sasquatch Books, 2011). Howie Whalen “Interviews Tom Dyer For 1+1=?” (Green Monkey Records.com, May 30, 2019).  John Sharify “Seattle Construction Boom Bittersweet for Street Musician” (KING5 News, November 16, 2017). Peter Blecha “The Legend of Camelot Records” (Northwest Music Archives: Discography and Labelography, 2019). Clark Humphrey “Loser: The Real Seattle Music Story” [Updated Second Edition] (Misc Media, December 17, 1999).   Richard Cook & Brian Morton ‘The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings’ [9th Edition] Penguin Books, 2008). Jacob McMurray “The Metropolis: Birthplace of Grunge?” ( The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, November 19, 2009). The Newt ‘Seattle Sister Psychic Goes Against The Grain of Grunge’ ( Ear Of Newt, April 28, 2014). 1+1=? Cover Art by Tom Dyer. Jason Parham “What Haunted John Coltrane?” The Fader, Fall 2019).

THE FUGITIVES (PORTLAND 65-67)
Notes on the early Oregon rock scene and life after Almost Making It.

Over the decades there have been many bands throughout the U.S. or anywhere else in the English-speaking world calling themselves The Fugitives. The popularity-at least in the U.S.- probably goes back to the television action series, The Fugitive, that aired on the ABC network from September 1963 to August 1967. The premise of the series is that its protagonist, Dr. Richard Kimble (played by David Janssen) is a physician who has wrongly been convicted of his wife’s murder. En route to his final sentence, the death penalty, the train (the train?!!) he is riding on de-rails. He escapes and all sorts of adventurous plots ensue around Dr. Kimble searching out and playing a cat-and-mouse- game with the real killer; a one-armed man played by Bill Raisch. The one-armed man is mostly unseen but shows up in a few episodes. All the while Dr. Kimble risks revealing his identity and freedom as he does good deeds everywhere he goes. He even occasionally shows up saving the life of Lt. Philip Gerard (played by Barry Morse), the lawman who doggedly pursues him.  The Fugitive has once more become a staple of cable TV.

The Fugitive-Dr. Richard Kimble

As someone who has not seen the movie based on the television series I have no idea if the film follows the same conceit, but I’m almost certain it’s not as fascinating to a seven to ten-year-old kid like me who would try just about anything in the book to stay up Tuesday nights to see the show that didn’t air until 10:00 PM. This really was must-see TV…a Quinn Martin Production in glorious, full-spectrum black and white…until color came along.

The mid-60s group The Fugitives from Portland OR may not have become as prominent as others, but they do have the distinction of having the band’s name on their first and only single misspelled as “The Fugatives”. The record pressing plant misprinted the name and obviously, no one connected with the band did a press check. Although it was mislabeled on the record, Portland kids already knew who they were, and probably didn’t even notice the mistake. Another distinction is that the band took out a regional copyright for the name The Fugitives; an unusual move at the time, but it stopped other NW bands from using the name. However, the copyright didn’t extend into Canada, where over half a dozen bands named The Fugitives were found, during the 1960s in Lower British Columbia alone….and the regional copyright the band took out expired many years ago. Even in the 21st century, The Fugitives is still a fairly popular band name.

The Fugitives were popular on the Portland music scene from early 1965 until late 1967 and it seemed they were on their way to national prominence. Today they are barely a footnote alongside the great bands that are associated with Portland during the ’60s, the most famous being The Kingsmen and Paul Revere and The RaidersThe Fugitives were and are every bit as good as any garage band working in the Pacific Northwest at the time, but life doesn’t always work the way we wish it would. Not all the stars are aligned at the exact moment that our destiny’s fortune depends upon. Life gets in the way of most young people’s dreams…but the dreams can be fantastic if they are fulfilled for even a short year or two.

While the center of the early ’60s Northwest Sound hovered above Tacoma and Seattle, Portland was pumping out their own share of great teen dance bands. The R&B and garage rock elements were there, but they seemed to hang on a bit longer in Portland than many other Northwest music scenes. Portland bands were also a bit slower to branch out into the mid-’60s folk-rock and psychedelic blues sounds than Seattle and Tacoma; this was not a bad thing.

More eyes were on Seattle and Tacoma, but Portland and Eugene were also overflowing with talent. There were plenty of venues to play from Portland’s Crystal Ballroom and The Chase and The Headless Horseman to Pacific City’s beachside ballroom The Dunes and The Tork Club in Eugene. There was a string of armories, fraternal halls, nightclubs, high school gymnasiums and all-ages ballrooms that ran from Washington/Canadian border to at least Eugene. The fans were there to support local and touring bands. The major pitfall was that while Portland and Eugene had an extraordinary amount of talented bands and dedicated fans, travel was slow. There was the same a string of armories, fraternal halls, high school gymnasiums, and dance clubs up and down along what was US Route 99 until 1964 when the main route became the new interstate freeway. I-5.

The new freeway ran from the US-Mexico border to the US-Canada border where it connected to a direct route to Vancouver BC. Both I-5 and US Route 99 allowed bands to tour (by vehicle) up and down the west coast but there didn’t seem to be much reason for small northwest regional bands and their teenager fans to travel further south than Eugene OR. Driving to Eugene was a long-haul even by I-5 and when the main artery was US 99 the road did not bypass city centers. A drive from Seattle or Portland down the coast to Los Angeles could take days. Even the trip from Portland to the Oregon Coast could take hours upon hours. Most regional bands-especially garage bands-did did not travel by plane back then. Beyond Eugene, gigs were few and far between until the San Francisco Bay area and a few dance halls that dotted California’s Central Valley…places like Fresno, Stockton, Modesto and of course waaaay further south, the home of a new brand of country music, Bakersfield.

Robert Lindahl at his Northwestern Inc. Motion Picture and Recording Studios

As the 40s, 50s ’60s rolled in there were a handful of capable sound engineers that began to come to the fore; legends like Portland’s Robert “Bob” M. Lindahl who had been deferred with a medical waiver from service during WWII. Instead of military service, he began a career that lasted more than four decades as Portland’s top sound engineer.  He bought out John Keating’s Portland studio (Keating had another in Seattle) and re-named it Northwestern Inc., Motion Picture and Recording Studios.  It was one of the most sophisticated recording facilities on the west coast and future stars like Johnny Ray and Jimmie Rogers cut their breakthrough hits there…The Little White Cloud That Cried and Honeycomb, respectively.

It wasn’t until 1957 that Seattle’s J. F. “Joe” Boles built a basement studio in his new home (at 3550 Admiral Way) and began making Seattle recording history. A hobbyist since about 1951, Boles had a good ear and deft expertise with his Ampex recorders These traits brought him early clients like Seattle’s lounge singer, Pat Suzuki, and folk masters The Brothers Four. Boles was also responsible in part for The Fleetwoods phenomenal success with the national number one hit, ‘Come Softly To Me’ and the follow-up ‘Mr. Blue’ released as the first single on ‘Bonnie Guitar’ Buckingham and Bob Reisdorf’s Dolphin Records in 1959 (The label’s name was changed to Dolton in 1960). Boles, along with his cross-town compatriot, Kearney Barton, the owner of Northwest Recorders and later Audio Recorders Inc. managed to record, produce or engineer just about every important northwest artist of the day.  The Frantics, The Wailers, Little Bill and The Bluenotes, The Ventures, The Sonics, The Kingsmen, Dave Lewis, The Dynamics, and Merilee Rush; the list barely scratches the surface.

Aside from a handful of other less modest successes, Seattle and Tacoma put out regional hit after regional hit, but it was two Portland bands of the day that set the template for national success.  In retrospect we can see the tremendous contributions to rock that Tacoma’s The Fabulous Wailers or The Sonics have made; but their initial releases usually stalled somewhat high in the national charts, if even that far. It was Portland’s The Kingsmen and Paul Revere and the Raiders (with their roots in Caldwell Idaho) who made the biggest commercial splash.

Both bands recorded renditions of the song ‘Louie Louie’ that led them to the national spotlight, even though Rockin’ Robin (actually The Wailers) and Little Bill had done earlier versions.  By the time The Raiders recorded ‘Louie Louie’ they had already seen interest from Columbia Records on the strength of an earlier, instrumental, boogie-woogie influenced release on Gardena Records called ‘Like, Long Hair’‘Like, Long Hair’ reached number 38 on the Billboard Charts.  Although the initial pressing of Paul Revere and The Raiders’ version of Louie Louie first appeared on the Sandé label, the band was signed to Columbia right away and their version of ‘Louie Louie’ was released on Columbia Records.

The Kingsmen’s version of ‘Louie Louie’ had originally been released in a pressing of 1000 copies on Seattle’s Jerden Records. The band members were pretty much left to their own devices, selling copies to friends, members of their audiences and hawking them to club and radio disc jockeys. The Kingsmen version languished behind the Paul Revere and The Raiders version for several months before success came via Boston radio DJ Arnie “Woo-Woo” Ginsburg. It was his nightly exposure of The Kingsmen’s version-ironically voted nightly for weeks as the day’s ‘worst song’, while it was actually the day’s most requested.  Fans of the song continued to vote it the ‘worst’ just to hear it nightly.

Wand Records, run out of New York City, was a subsidiary of the very successful Scepter label and had the power to make The Kingsmen’s version a number one hit that far outsold the Raiders version.  Paul Revere and The Raiders went on to produce a string of hits during the 1960s (Kicks, Hungry, Indian Reservation, etc.) and garnered a regular TV spot on Dick Clark’s week-day ‘Where The Action Is’ program in 1965 and 1966. The Kingsmen never again dented the national charts the way they had with ‘Louie Louie’ but their definitive version of the song has outperformed all of the songs of Paul Revere and The Raiders…and that’s saying a lot since The Raiders put out some pretty good garage and pop singles.

The local Portland dance music scene had already been popular in the very early 60s but it practically exploded after the success of The Kingsmen and Paul Revere and The Raiders.  Musicians in Portland, Eugene, Corvallis, Salem and other towns and cities around Oregon realized how potent the music coming out of the state could be.  It’s said that by 1965 there were roughly 300 working bands in the Portland area alone.  Hundreds-perhaps thousands- of bands arose around Oregon, as well as long-ignored southwest Washington because of this virtual youthquakeThe Redcoats, The Moguls, The Gamblers, The Montells, and hundreds more kept the teen dance circuit well-fed. Some found local fame, others found regional success, some individuals went on to careers as sidemen, but most bands simply faded away as their members began to marry, have kids, and move on to careers that actually made money.  Of course, the draft and the war in Viet Nam caused many young bands to dissolve…a threat that simply does not hang over the heads of young people today.  Whatever the reason, there were many ‘could have beens’ if it weren’t for the randomness of history. The Fugitives are one of those ‘could have beens’...and in fact, they reached ‘were’ or ‘are’ for a short time.

PEPSI ENDORSEMENT
Rhonda Anderson,, Ray Walker, Larry Burton, Mike Walker. Steve Evans, Bob Bentz,, Ann Scott-Jenkins

The Fugitives was founded by brothers Mike and Ray Walker during their days at Portland’s Jefferson High School. Mike, the oldest, born on September 25th, 1948 was almost exactly one year older than Ray who was born on Sept 22nd, 1949.  Perhaps the nearness of their age and having birthdays so close together were two of the reasons the brothers became so close as teenagers. Both had picked up the guitar during their early teens and both had started songwriting together and separately almost from the beginning. They honed their guitar skills off one another and played in local C&W bands for a few years. Finally, they decided to start their own band and get out there and play. Ray became the lead vocalist and lead guitarist.  Mike also did some of the vocals and played rhythm guitar.  Former schoolmate Steve Evans was recruited to play bass and drummer Larry Burton, who’s father had been an in-demand big-band drummer came in playing sticks.  They began to practice covers of current hits, but mostly focused on their own songs. By the time three months had passed, they did their first professional gig. The Fugitives had arrived.

Their success on the Portland and the nearby Cannon Beach and Seaside OR teen dance circuit came quickly. One fan wrote;

“Band members can play anything from 4-4, hard rock to western and jazz, to formal dances. They prefer ballad rock. They have written much of their own material

The Fugitives may have been adept at all the above genres and more, but it’s clear they were flat-out best at rock and roll and what we now call garage-rock.  Like most of the other bands of the day, they had also been heavily influenced by the Beatles, and the British Invasion. The Fugitives were especially influenced by The Kinks and early Small Faces, but they also relied on the typical northwest -based sound. In fact, soon after forming they brought in organist and saxophonist Bob Bentz. R&B-based organ and raunchy sax were essential to many young northwest bands in the 50s and the early to mid-60s, and the formula popped up all across the nation.

By the time The Fugitives started finding local success they met John Hillsbury, who offered to manage them. Hillsbury was a prominent figure in Portland’s arts and theater community. His association with acting went back to the days of WWII when he began entertaining with the USO. After leaving the military Hillsbury landed in New York City, where he crafted his trade and became an accomplished actor, director and costume designer. He returned to Portland in 1957 and joined the film department of a local television studio, KPTV,  even though he spent most of his spare time as an actor and somewhat of an impresario.

The Fugitives with Ann and Rhonda. Manager John Hillsbury in front.

“He was a wonderful actor,” according to Peggy West, a longtime friend, and fellow performer. “He had a wonderful background in New York City, but he also did a lot of theater in Portland”.  Hillsbury was the founder and president of The Portland Playhouse, which opened in 1962 in the ballroom of the old Beaver Hotel on Northwest Glisan Street.  According to West. “The Portland Playhouse’ put on some very good shows” she added. “He also did a lot of acting and directing for the Portland Civic Theatre.” Later Hillsbury founded Theatre A la Carte, a troupe that toured the northwest as a dinner theater. During the last decade of his life, John Hillsbury served as a clerk at the Arlington Club, a very exclusive gentlemen’s club that didn’t allow women as members until 1991. It was the kind of stuffy atmosphere one used to conjure up in the mind when the phrase ‘gentlemen’s club’ comes up.  It was before the phrase evoked exotic dancers and a front for prostitution, but where important pillars of the community could hide-out from their wives, drink to excess, smoke cigars and fall asleep in huge chairs while reading the daily newspaper.

Hillsbury was also a Portland institution for his playing Santa Claus his grandniece Tracy Duerst of Silverton pointed out after his death from bladder cancer in 1998.  “It was at Meier & Frank’s, the top department store in Portland where Hillsbury played Santa from the early 1970s to the 1990s, that he touched the most lives,” Duerst said.

John Hillsbury’s arts and civic connections, along with sheer hard work on the part of the band was a good mix. Hillsbury was an astute showman himself and he took every advantage he could to book or The Fugitives on the bills of Battles of The Bands across the northwest, important opening slots as well as sending the band up and down the West Coast and  Canada. He also kept the band in the public eye through endorsements, whether they be local radio stations, the local Pepsi Cola bottler or appearances on local television and radio. For one brief year or two, The Fugitives were the most well-known band in the Portland area.

In 1965 Ray Walker had composed a song, ‘We Gotta Run’ as a proposed theme for a Portland-area television show. The show failed to materialize, but eventually, the band pressed up copies of We Gotta Run b/w ‘Don’t Pretend, a ballad written by Mike Walker.  They released it on their own label-Trophy Records.  The single (especially ‘We Gotta Run’) got attention from regional radio, especially on Portland’s KISN and KGAR, just across the Columbia River in Vancouver WA. Even though the pressing plant had misspelled the band’s name as ‘The Fugatives’ listeners. deejays and buyers hardly raised an eyebrow.

The Fugitives, 1966.
Clockwise from bottom Larry Burton, Ray Walker, Mike Walker, Annie Scott-Jenkins, Steve Evans, Rhonda Anderson. Bob Bentz would join the band after this photo was taken.

Ann Scott-Jenkins and Rhonda Anderson joined The Fugitives as dancers in June of 1966. Fans distinguished the two as “The Brunette” Rhonda Anderson, and Ann Scott-Jenkins as “The Blonde Bombshell”.  In the summer of 1967, Ann and Rhonda were regulars on Portland local television station KOIN-TV’s ‘Battle of the Beat, a rock-music talent contest telecast on Channel 6.  It only furthered their and The Fugitives exposure.  After Ann and Rhonda joined The Fugitives they were considered full-time members of the band. The idea was to add a bit more spectacle to the live shows with costume changes and choreographed synchronized go-go dancing. The band members themselves switched between their kitschy jailhouse/convict stripes and some very sharp, well-tailored anglo-styled suits. Crude lighting and staging (by today’s standards) were provided by Dann Egan. Everything may not have been as slick as rock audiences expect today, but at the time it was miles ahead of other bands. It was around the same time Bob Bentz, the organist and sax player was brought on board, rounding out what would be the classic line-up of the live band.

Annie and Rhonda meeting up with The Fugitives was almost a Hollywood fantasy….in fact, Hollywood, in its own way did play a part.

The actress Jane Russell (Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, The Outlaw, etc.) was in Portland doing a series of charity shows for her WAIF (World Adoption International Fund) organization at the city’s glamorous art-deco Hoyt Hotel.  Russell had founded WAIF in 1955.  Jane herself was the adoptive mother of three children and worked tirelessly during the 1950s ’60s, ’70s and beyond to help Americans adopt unwanted children from overseas.  She and WAIF were instrumental in the passage of laws that made it easier and more efficient for potential American parents to adopt unwanted children whose governments, astoundingly, would not allow them to be removed from the country of their birth. She was an all-around advocate of adoption and spent many years as a tireless proponent.

In 1981 Russell told the Washington Post:

“In the past several years, state and federal governments have been spending $800 million on foster care. We’ve got a bill that would do the same job for $163 million. How? By getting kids into adoptive homes. A lot of the kids are handicapped, and for years social workers have been keeping them in the closet. Take them out, and people fall in love with them.”

The Hoyt Hotel, built in 1912, was one of Portland’s architectural landmarks and sat directly across from the city’s Romanesque Revival Union Station. The Hotel later had the reputation of a “fleabag hotel”, but in 1962 the former “fleabag” had a very expensive, luxurious renovation, courtesy of  Harvey Dick, who had owned the building since 1941.  Two lounges were added- The Barbary Coast and The Roaring 20s Room.  Suddenly The Hoyt was the place to be seen and attracted both the city’s social set and out-of-town celebrities like  Anne Francis, Johnny Carson, Duke Ellington, and of course, Jane Russell.

THE FUGITIVES at Portland’s Oriental Theater, November 1966.

It was no surprise that Russell, as producer, chose the glamorous Hoyt Hotel to hold her charity shows, that she called ‘Cabaret Goo Goo’ Jane had requested a “Beatles-type” band to fill a slot in her nightly show. ‘The Fugitives’ were chosen to play.  Before long they were doing two sets a night for ‘Cabaret Goo Goo’ and soon were put into the feature spot of the show.  One night after Jane Russell became aware of two aspiring dancers, Ann Scott and Rhonda Anderson, were in the house, she urged them to join the band onstage for one set. In 2007 Ann wrote “Everyone loved it and the group became “The Fugitives with Ann & Rhonda”. We traveled throughout Oregon, Washington, California and British Columbia”… sometimes as ‘The Fugitives with The Jet Set Girls’.

During the stint with Jane Russell’s WAIF benefits the annual Rose Festival was in progress.  Several years earlier the Rose Festival had started hosting an annual ‘Teen-Age Fair’. It’s estimated that in 1966 over 100,000 people attended the event which was held over 10 days.   Each year the event culminated with a ‘Battle of The Bands’ at Portland’s  Memorial Coliseum.   Each of the 96 bands involved that year had gone through three preliminaries.  ‘The Fugitives’ were one of those bands and ended up in the final three.  On a night in June 1965, in front of 21,00 people The Fugitives played their set and were awarded as the overall winners.

The Fugitives were not a typical four or five-piece combo along with a couple of girl dancers. They were determined to put on a great visual show to please a variety of audiences.  Actor/designer/manager  John Hillsbury was largely responsible for helping them reach that goal. Despite being proficient at many genres it’s undeniable their stock in trade was rock. It’s also reported they were partial to ballads, most of them written by themselves. Their songwriting was a bit more sophisticated than most other garage bands, but a particular weakness was found in some of the ballads’ vocals.  Their recording of the song ‘Don’t Pretend’ is slightly marred by vocals that are too nasal sounding, and there’s no doubt the performance could have been improved on had the recording not been a ‘one-take’ which was common in those days. As cheap as it seems today it was plenty of money for a bunch of teenagers to record.  It’s rumored that the total studio bill for The Kingsmen’s recording of Louie Louie was $36…and band members had to pony up to pay since their manager brought no money with him.

The Fugitives’ lead guitar work by Ray Walker more than makes up for ‘any shortfalling on ‘Don’t Pretend’. His playing (mostly single note picking) may not match the players we’ve become used to, but for an early 60s regional band it was impressive. Ray was distinctly headed down the road of becoming an adept, fast and energetic picker. What was intended to be the B side of the single ‘We Gotta Run’ was far more lively and rooted in rock and roll. It inevitably became the more popular side. The song still sounds great as a regional example of regional garage-rock; lyrics that aren’t particularly deep, a great hook and above all, fun. Recorded in the days before gating, and compression the single-take recording is fun in itself, just to hear Ray stepping a couple of steps back momentarily from the microphone during an exciting section. That kind of glitch (which isn’t really noticeable unless I’d told you and you were paying attention} is exactly what garage rock is and was all about.

After winning regional success with a great single, tours up and down the west coast and hordes of fans it seemed that The Fugitives were about to make a huge breakthrough,  following earlier Portland successes.  There’s no doubt everything was in place.  Mid-1966 had brought them a surprising amount of attention, and the attention carried over well into the summer and fall of 1967. “That’s when”, said one observer said, “they really hit their stride.” With all the hoopla that was surrounding them, the band signed a five-year contract with Eugene’s Tork Club Records.  The band announced they had up to ten songs ready to record.

The label, Tork Club Records, was meant to be the centerpiece of a syndicate of 74,000 members of various fan clubs that would assist bands across the nation in bookings and recordings.  The proposed syndicate was to be initially run from Eugene’s popular teen dancehall, The Tork Club; variously known as ‘The Torq’ or ‘The Torque’ all of which were shortened from the club’s original name, ‘The Torquilstone’.  Fans of faux-medieval lore, Robin of Locksley or Robin Hood will recognize this as the name of the massive castle and home of the villainous  Reginald Front-de-Boeuf that Sir Walter Scott writes about in his novel Ivanhoe.

The Tork Club project never really got off the ground, and no studio tapes by The Fugitives have been found.  The Eugene Tork Club label seems to have shortened its name to Tork Records, and ended up releasing only one single….Round Randy b/w Another Day by Eugene garage rockers The Moguls.  The single, by the way, is excellent.

Then, as quickly as they rose above other Portland bands, The Fugitives disappeared.





Late 1967 would be the turning point for The Fugitives. Mike Walker enlisted in the U.S. Army. He also married his first wife, Carlotta Stiger on December 23rd. The marriage was brief, and the couple divorced on March 5th, 1971. Not long after his marriage and enlistment, Mike was sent to Germany where he became a Military Police Officer. After his three year enlistment, he returned to Portland to attend Portland Community College, getting an Associate degree in Criminal Justice. He then moved to Seattle to attend the University of Washington. To help finance his studies Mike took a position with the U of W Campus Police and attended their in-house academy. In his spare time, he attended graduate school at Seattle University.

In 1975 Mike decided to become a Seattle Police Officer and attended the Seattle Police Department’s Police Academy. He tied for number one in his class.

After four years as a beat cop, Mike joined the SPD Vice Squad. He stayed four years before being assigned to the North Seattle precinct, where he met his second wife, with whom he had two children.  That marriage also didn’t survive…nor did the next two.  Finally, Mike married his fifth wife, Katherine.  In 2004, after 32 years on the force, Mike had to retire for health reasons.

Ray Walker did not fare as well as his brother. He enlisted in the Army in January of 1968. Almost immediately he was sent to Viet Nam and found himself directly in the middle of the conflict. His brother Mike had called him “the patriotic sort” so it wasn’t surprising that he signed up for a second tour of duty in the combat zone. Unfortunately, Ray, like many other vets, returned to the United States cynical, broken, disillusioned, an outcast, and with a full-blown addiction to black tar heroin, which seemed to alleviate those problems…at least for a while.  According to a family member, when Ray had fulfilled his service he wore his dress uniform on his flight from Viet Nam back to the United States. After the plane landed on the U.S. mainland he went to the nearest bathroom in the airport, took off his uniform and threw it into the garbage. He’d brought along civilian clothes to change into.  What followed were years of addiction and uncertainty that led to complete estrangement from most of his family.

Ray drifted for several years and finally married Karen Silvis on October 3rd, 1980. The couple had two children, Raeline and Kris. Unfortunately, the marriage was also short-lived. The couple divorced in 1985. After Ray died of cancer in September 2004, his brother Mike gave the eulogy at his memorial. At his brother’s insistence, Ray had spent the last five months of his life being cared for by his brother and sister-in-law. In his eulogy, Mike extolled his younger brother’s virtues of loyalty, generosity, kindness and caring, but also added a comment on Ray’s unfulfilled life and his relationship with his ex-wife and his children.

“Sadly the barriers of life created too many obstacles for their young love to overcome,” Mike said of Ray and Karen. “Ray was unable to fulfill his obligation as a husband and father and was tormented continually thereafter by that reality” In a bittersweet moment Mike added “Days before his death Ray happily reunited with his children whom by their sincere expressions of love and understanding brought him peace and contentment to the emptiness he had previously felt deep within his heart

After their marriage, Mike and Kathleen had moved to a ranch in Arlington WA. He and Kathleen remained married for 22 years while he lived out his life helping friends with home projects, getting involved in animal rescue and building a 3,000 square foot log home. He died of cancer on his 67th birthday, September 25, 2015

Ann Scott (who now prefers to be called ‘Annie’) says that she lost track of the group after moving to Los Angeles in 1969. She continued with her dance career and went on to become one of the members of Dean Martin’s Las Vegas-style backup dancers and singers The Golddiggers.  The popular Dean Martin Show ran from 1965 to 1974 on the NBC network.  Aside from working with Martin on television, ‘The Golddiggers’ performed alongside him at nightclubs and toured with Bob Hope on his worldwide USO tours.  The ‘Golddiggers’ even cut three of their own albums. The first two, on the Metromedia label, were ‘The Golddiggers’ in 1969, and later that year ‘The Golddiggers; We Need a Little Christmas’.  In 1971 RCA released their third album ‘The Golddiggers…Today’.

Annie, who now lives near Seattle, tells me she also hyphenates her last name to Scott-Jenkins, using both her maiden and her married names so old friends and the professionals she’s worked with over the years had an easier time finding her.

“After leaving Portland I was in Los Angeles for a number of years, dancing, and then our show had a hiatus…a Christmas vacation kind of thing  I went to San Francisco and stayed with a girlfriend for the holidays. I was on a cable car one night and a sailor jumped on and took my breath away, so I married him.  He was from Texas, so we moved to Texas for a couple of years.  He was working for some record companies back there and then they moved him out to Los Angeles. We had a daughter in May of ’74 and L.A. was getting too crowded.  There was too much violence and smog.  My parents lived in Seattle.  They had moved from Portland to Seattle after I’d moved out, so we thought ‘Why don’t we move to Seattle? It’s a pretty nice place and we’ll be near grandparents who could be babysitters. ’ Our daughter was their only grandchild, so that’s how we got up here”.

Although Annie had lost all contact with the former Fugitives she did have a later encounter with one of them.

The Fugitives Hand-drawn poster for their 1967 Summer tour of Canada

“I was working in a bank in downtown Seattle in the mid-’80s. On a Monday morning our security man, who was an off-duty police officer, came in and said: “I was at a party Saturday night and I saw your picture on a poster”.

I thought “WHAT?!!”

He said “Do you know Mike Walker?” and I said, “I sure do!”  Then the security officer told her “He’s got your picture hanging in his living room!”

“About a week later Mike came walking into the lobby of the bank.” Annie says, “I hugged him and asked ‘what do you know about the other guys?’ He didn’t know much and said that Ray had gone into the military, but he said they didn’t talk with each other very much”.

“Later, I knew that Steve Evans had passed away,” Annie tells me. “ A woman who had known him sent me some pictures of Steve later in life.  I would never have recognized him.  He was so tall and thin when I knew him”.

Annie adds “They were a bunch of great guys.  They were always gentlemen.  They treated me like a little sister and made sure I was okay and I was protected from the crowds”.

Annie lamented that while attending her 50th-year reunion last September at Portland’s Wilson High School she was saddened to hear how many of her classmates were gone.  “It’s amazing how many passed away in the last 50 years,” she says, then adds “I was thinking of posting on my facebook page to find out what happened to (former Fugitives) Larry Burton and Bob Bentz’. Annie followed through with her plan and almost immediately heard back from Bob Bent. who now uses his real first name, Robert.  Annie herself sounds fit when I speak with her on the phone, though she tells me “I had hip-replacement surgery last May, so my dancing has caught up with me.  My body’s fighting back now!” she says with a laugh

Ann and Rhonda both took part in the beauty pageants that were so prevalent in the 1960s and 1970s.  Rhonda was originally from Long Beach CA and had already won a Miss Teen Talent contest by the time she connected with The Fugitives.  In 1967 Ann was crowned Miss Teenage Portland and then went on the National Miss Teenage America Pageant held in Dallas later that year. She came in third. “We both were in talent shows,” Annie says of her and Rhonda Anderson.  “Rhonda went on to become Rose Festival Queen in 1969 and was crowned Miss Portland in 1971”.

Rhonda attended Lewis and Clark College, studying psychology and began developing an interest in mime. Later she toured Europe with three other performers in the prestigious Oregon Mime Troupe. After returning to the U. S. she moved to Chicago and said she also lost touch with her fellow bandmates. Rhonda went into the commercial real estate business and did well for 20 years. Beginning in the early 1990s Rhonda started to develop the signs of Multiple Sclerosis, and ultimately became physically unable to keep up with her career in real estate. She returned to Portland and lived out her life until passing away on March 26, 2007.

Steve Evans continued his musical career in and around Portland. He played bass guitar, bongo, trumpet, trombone and occasionally sang with various bands around town. Eventually, he became a member of the popular act ‘The Action Unlimited Show Band’ The combo became the house band at Portland’s long-gone establishment The Longhorn (no relation to the current national chain).  After The Longhorn closed (and was later demolished), the band was a regular feature for several years at Taylor’s Viewpoint during its time as a bar and dance club.  In the mid-’80s Steve married and had two children, Chad and Emily.  He went into retail and became a long-time employee of the Mervyns store in Portland’s Gateway Shopping Center.  Steve died at home from cancer on  March 9, 2012.

Sadly, The Hoyt Hotel and it’s Barbary Coast nightclub and Roaring 20s Room closed in 1972 due to lack of business.  The hotel itself was demolished in 1977.  The entire block on which the hotel stood has been unoccupied since 1988.  It is now a pile of rubble in severe need of toxic clean-up.  According to the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality:

“The site has been vacant since 1988.  Portions of the site were developed as early as 1889 (blacksmith, paint shop).  At least three dry-cleaning sites and two service stations were present at the site from as early as the mid-1920s to the 1960s.  Hotel Victoria (1931-1960) and the Hoyt Hotel (1911-1977) also operated at the site.  A Pacific Trailways bus depot operated on-site between 1980-1985.  Underground storage tanks were expected to be associated with the service stations and possibly the hotels. PDC acquired the property from Hood Stages Inc., doing business as Trailways, Inc. in October 1977.”

The report goes on to say “A risk screening indicated that arsenic and a number of PAHs in soil, and arsenic, lead, and benzo(a)pyrene in groundwater, are contaminants of potential concern.”

It’s hard to say if and when this prime parcel of historic downtown Portland will be cleaned up and developed.

As of this writing, it’s unknown to me what Larry Burton did after the dissolving of The Fugitives. One can only hope he’s still alive, happy, healthy and prosperous. If you have any information regarding him, please leave a message in the comments section below.  Like all the others associated with The Fugitives, it’s hoped his time in the band enriched his life. Despite mysteriously never reaching the heights they could have achieved, they are, individually and collectively the typical, yet extraordinary products of all young persons’ desire to find fame even though very few make it to the top.

As we know, Portland eventually joined the ranks of Seattle, Tacoma, Athens GA, Austin TX and other mid-sized cities throughout the US as meccas for commercial and underground music. This time around the success and respect would be wider and more profound than the ’60s. There had been massive success for The Kingsmen and Paul Revere and The Raiders and modest regional success for others in Oregon’s early ’60s, but for the most part the garage rockers of the day returned to what we may think are mundane lives (they are not). As the decades rolled on bands like The Wipers, Dead Moon, Everclear, Blitzen Trapper, Poison Idea, The Dandy Warhols, Hazy, Chris Newman and dozens of others have attained national critical and/or commercial success.

Somewhere out there, whether it’s in Lincoln Nebraska, Portsmouth, New Hampshire, or some other out-of-the-way suburb there are a bunch of kids banging out music that could make them the best band in the country…maybe the best band in the world. They may never be heard by anyone but a handful of their friends. There’s a very small chance they’ll rise to the top…as I’ve said, so many stars must be aligned, but more likely they will find a fair bit of attention for a short while and then get on with life as we know it. This is the legacy of The Fugitives and thousands of other bands in garages and basements everywhere.  The truth is that ‘could have been’ is far more satisfying than ‘never was’.

 

-Author; Dennis R. White.  All images courtesy of Debbi Mullins except where noted. The Fugitive photo: Courtesy Quinn-Martin Productions. Deborah Kay Mullins ‘Interviews and Notes on Family History’ ( December 14, 16, 20, 2018) Tom Vogt ‘Paul Revere’s Vancouver-based Manager Pays Tribute’ (The Columbian, October 9, 2014). Ann Scott-Jenkins ‘The Fugitives’ (PNW Bands. May 2007). Sharie Gallup ‘The Fugitives’ (PNW Bands, July 2012). Stephen Haag ‘ Arnie ‘Woo Woo Ginsburg’ (November 11, 2003 ). Randy Hill  ‘Louie Louie: The Rest of The Story’(Pamplin Media, November 11, 2003). Deb McManman ‘Flashback To The Nostalgic 60s; a Fond Reminiscence of Innocence and Rock and Roll (lanemusichistory.com, retrieved December 18. 2018). Jim Scheppke ‘The Kingsmen’ (The Oregon Encyclopedia; A Project of Portland State University and The Oregon Historical Society, March 17, 2018). ‘Last Ring. Mike M. Walker #3987′ (Retired Seattle Police Officers’ Association, 2015, retrieved December 26, 2018). Author Unknown ‘Band of The Month: The Fugitives with Ann and Rhonda'(Date Unknown). Ruth Ryon  ‘Her Kind of House; Actress Jane Russell’s rich, varied life is reflected in her Santa Barbara estate’ (Los Angeles Times, October 10, 1999).  Christian Williams ‘Jane Russell’s WAIFs &’ (The Washington Post, March 12, 1981). Michael Walker ‘Eulogy For Raymond Walker’ (Sep 9, 2004, Kelso WA). Obituary, ‘Anderson, Rhonda Marie 1951-2007’ (The Portland Oregonian,  April 8, 2007). ‘Obituary, Raymond Wayne Walker’ (The Longview Daily News, September 24, 2004). Peter Blecha ‘Recording Studios of the Pacific Northwest (1940s-1960s)’ July 26, 2009 (HistoryLink.org, essay 8946). Author Unknown ‘New Club to Cater to Young Clientele’ The Eugene Register-Guard, April 5. 1965).   Niki McDonough, ‘Interview and conversation’ (January 8, 2019). John Chilson ‘The Barbary Coast at The Hoyt Hotel’ (Lost Oregon, September 9, 2008). State of Oregon: Department of Environmental Quality ‘Environmental Cleanup Site Information (ECSI) Database Site Summary Report – Details for Site ID 3103, PDC Block R’ (January 17, 2019).  Annie Scott-Jenkins ‘interview’ (January 14, 2019). Author unknown ‘N & W’s Jack Burton, Son Larry Spark Top Rock ‘n Rollers’ (Traffic Manager Magazine [Portland OR]  November 1966). Obituary, Steve Edward (JC) Evans’ (The Oregonian [Portland OR] Mar. 18, 2012). Special Thanks to  Sharie Gallup, Nikki McDonaugh, Debbi Mullins and Anne Scott-Jenkins

 

 

 

THE HEATS

“The band almost didn’t happen” Ken Deans, former drummer for The HeatersThe Heats tells me.  I’m on the phone with him as he’s perched in his office above the Empire Polo Grounds in Indio California; the site of the most important multi-day music festival in the United States; The Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival…or simply “Coachella” as it’s commonly referred to.  Ken, who is now the “Logistics Manager” for Goldenvoice Entertainment  tells me he’s been up for about 90 days, but just as Coachella is being dismantled.

He still has a several  more events to work on. The Bonnaroo Festival held in Manchester Tennessee and then  for the annual Stagecoach Festival, (back at the Empire Polo Grounds in Indio)  which is becoming the largest gathering of C&W artists and fans in the country.  In fact, Ken and Goldenvoice works with almost every major outdoor music festival in the United States. They also book top-notch concerts and events.  I’m surprised he’s carved out time for me to talk with him, but he doesn’t rush, he’s full of anecdotes and stories that I don’t need to prompt him to answer.  He’s surprisingly relaxed for a man with  so much to do.

It’s been a long slog from The Heats to where he’s gotten, but he admits he wouldn’t have come so far except for starting out in The Heaters/The Heats a band that was once Seattle’s presumed contender for attaining fame and fortune.

“It was an accident” he says. “Keith Lilly and I were scheming to put  a band together and find a female front singer to go to Alaska to make money.  That’s all we were thinking about.  So, it was Keith myself Steve Pearson, Gordon (“Rothberger…Rosman?… or maybe Craig Roper”) playing bass.  We asked this woman named Kim to come and jam.  It was awful. It was truly painful.  We were trying to be like Burgundy Express; complete lounge bullshit”.

The band at the time consisted of Deans on drums, Steve Pearson on guitar, Keith Lilly on guitar (he’d later become bassist)

Ken remembers;
“Steve Pearson says to me;
‘Hey!” I have no desire to do this but I like playing with you and I met this guy and we’ve been talking about jamming,   Maybe the four of us could jam some night”

The guy Steve was talking about was Don Short, who (with Steve) went on to be an integral part of the band as a writer, player and singer.

Erik Lacitis, was the Seattle Times feature writer who helped make The Heaters/The Heats  a household name. He wrote in one of his early articles championing the band that Don Short and Steve Pearson first met at a Jack-In-The-Box somewhere in the suburbs of Seattle in 1975.  It was late at night and only the drive-thru window was open so Don asked some kids in a car if he could join them to put in his order.  Steve Pearson was one of the passengers in the car.  Soon the chance meeting turned to a discussion on rock and roll between Short and Pearson…a subject both young men were drawn to.  Both Steve and Tom found out they’d been playing in garage bands and had favorite bands in common.

Lacitis wrote:
“The two exchanged  phone numbers and stayed in touch, even getting together a couple of times to jam. The young men found they had the same tastes in music,  They both looked for guidance to the back-to-basics just being released by British rockers. They both despised the bland, formula ‘album oriented’ pap and disco that dominated the airwaves at the time.”
A few days after talking to Ken I’m on the phone with Steve Pearson. He’s heard that some guy in Seattle has been trying to get in touch with him.  He tells me;
“I’m a luddite. I don’t have a cell phone, I don’t do anything but our drummer does all the social media (for his band, British Racing Green).  I don’t know if we have a website or a facebook page. He’ll pass on “call this guy” or “this person said this” or whatever. He sent me a message and said “call this guy” So I called and originally when I called you I didn’t even know why I was calling….if you wanted me to work on your car or whatever (he laughs) I didn’t know”

“When I began playing it was all these “Glorious Seattle Bands”, from ‘Bighorn’ on down’ says Pearson. ‘They were cover bands, They had semi’s full of gear.  They had five road crew.  They pretended they were the bands they emulated. Some of the guys were really good players and wonderful people, but the bands themselves were the antithesis of what you’d think of a rock and roll band”  Ironically The Heats drummer Ken Deans had formerly played in one of the “Glorious Seattle Bands that both The Heaters and Pearson despised.

Deans good-naturedly admits before The Heaters he belonged to a group called Goliath.  

“I had come from being in a glam/metal band and playing the midwest circuit.  We had a Zeppelin tribute. We had a Jethro Tull tribute and we did a bunch of UFO, but at the core of it it was kinda fun because we would also do a bunch of Yardbirds stuff”.

Steve had played a bit with Jim Basnight, Keith Lilly had been in a band called The Daily Planet and Don had just returned from a year living in London. At one time Keith and Ken had been in a band together called ‘Money’.

Although the new band’s first jam was a total failure, their second session went far better.  On Thanksgiving Eve, 1978 Steve Pearson, Ken Deans, Keith Lilly and Don Short met at a rehearsal space below a convenience store in Kenmore called The Night And Day.  The band started to rehearse at 9 PM, playing everything from the Stones to Chuck Berry to what Ken calls “all the usual jam stuff and blues stuff”

After warming up with covers and jams someone said  ‘Hey! let’s learn a song!’ and all of a sudden Don said ‘I’ve got one, wanna fool around with it ?’  Before they knew it it was 10 AM the next morning and they’d come up with six or seven new songs. Deans also remembers all of them looking at each other and saying “Well, fuck, this is kinda weird”

“I don’t think I’ve ever felt anything so natural before in my life” says Ken.“It seemed all of a sudden overnight we’d known each other forever.  In the case of Keith and Steve and I, we kinda had known each other, (they’d all gone to Inglemoor High School) but we didn’t know Don from anywhere before he came into the room that night.  It was really an amazing night so we decided to keep going.  We made a conscious effort to only play the songs we wanted to play,…no matter if it happened to be on KZAM or KCMU we’d do it because we liked the song.”

The rehearsal space also helped the band come up with a name.  Working overnight in a basement in late November made one thing almost more important than anything else; a heater.  The band dubbed themselves The Heaters

The band found gigs fairly soon,  Usually playing to small audiences; but it gave them a chance to work on their own material, and fill it out by playing songs by some of the then up-and-coming artists that had been coming out of England,.  Seattle fans weren’t familiar with most of these songs, and The Heaters never set out to fool their audience but it was clear the kinds of songs they were covering were exciting, took on a whole new approach and were extremely danceable.

“We were very young and very naive”, says Pearson, “but also highly opinionated as far as what we wanted; what we like and didn’t like I might say. And it was great! We followed the vision of Don Short and me. We had a very narrow-minded approach to what we liked,  and what we didn’t like. Anything that felt like The Rolling Stones and The Beatles from the 1960s we liked,  Anything that felt like ‘Arena Rock’ we hated.”





At the time The Heaters came on the scene it was bar bands and cover bands that ruled the clubs and taverns of the northwest.  Another new and alternative scene had begun to coalesce around bands like The Telepaths (later The Blackouts), Jim Basnight’s The Moberly’s and The Meyce, Student Nurse,The Look and scores of others writing their own material….some of whom fled to San Francisco or Los Angeles to be more appreciated and find labels (The Mentors, The Screamers,The Lewd and The Avengers all took this approach)  It was a phenomenon Neil Hubbard would call “The Seattle Syndrome” for his groundbreaking 1981 collection of Seattle’s alternative music bands; Become too big to stay in Seattle and move to another city in hopes of becoming bigger, but in fact becoming a small fish in a new pond. But these were bands had relatively small fan bases in Seattle and the rest of the country at the time.  It’s clear they would help inspire what became known as the Seattle Sound (or “grunge”) two decades later, but local radio and the majority of music fans at the time were ignoring them in favor of “good time” cover bands, industry-fed top 40 music and Heavy Metal.

It’s hard to say why Seattle suddenly burnt out as a hotbed for mainstream talent by the early 1970s.  Seattle and northwest in general had been a hotbed of talent in the late 50s until the mid 60s, Of course Jimi Hendrix had become a worldwide phenomenon, but he was dead by 1970;  but there was one band that would come to be a bigger success than all Seattle bands before it, excepting Jimi Hendrix,  Heart, a band that wasn’t even initially associated with Seattle. seemed explosive when they first hit the big time.  Ironically, on paper they were practically what the The Heaters despise most about “Arena Rock”.  But Heart was distinct in it’s two very talented sisters out front proving that they could do it just as well…and better…than the boys. Besides, as Pearson told me. “They were groundbreaking, Ann’s voice cannot be denied”. The Wilson sisters too, were trying to kick down some doors.

The band that would become Heart was formed in the same suburbs as The Heaters; Kenmore and Bothell Washington, just a few miles north of Seattle. In 1967 bassist Steve Fossen. guitarist Roger Fisher, drummer Ray Schaefer and Don Wilhelm on guitar, keyboards and lead vocals formed a band the called The Army. The band would go through many various line-ups and different names over the years but were first re-named ‘White Hart’. The word ‘Hart’ is an old English term for what Americans call a ‘stag’; specifically a red deer stag more than five years old. The name of the book referenced Arthur C. Clarke’s ‘Tales from the White Hart’, a collection of short stories named after a thinly veiled London pub called The White Horse.  During the 1950s the actual  White Horse (The White Hart in Clarke’s compendium)  was the center of the universe for British science-fiction writers and fans. The premise of the collection ‘Tales from the White Hart’ was that tellers of tall-tales met regularly at the fictional ‘White Hart’ pub, and the storied they spun were re-told for the reader by the fictional character Charles Willis, who is in reality Arthur C.Clarke himself.  The tales Charles Willis re-told were actually Clarke’s original stories.

The name White Hart was intended as the name for another local band, but The Army got permission from the band’s leader Toby Cyr, to use the name.  The band originally to be called White Hart became Raisin’Cain instead.  Having secured the name, the band previously called The Army decided to add an “e” making the name White Heart. By the early ‘70s more line-up changes would take place, one of which was the addition of Ann Wilson (the exact year is unclear) resulting in another name change to Hocus Pocus.  In 1973 Ann’s sister Nancy Wilson joined the band and after a few months the band reverted to the name White Heart and eventually to Heart.

Roger Fisher’s brother Mike was about to be drafted when he decided to flee to Canada.  On one of his trips sneaking back across the border to visit friends and family in Seattle, Mike attended a show featuring his brothers’ band Heart  It was here that Mike Fisher and Ann Wilson met and fell in love.  Ann was determined to follow Mike back to Canada so soon she joined him in Vancouver B.C.. Steve Fossen also decided to move to Canada in late 1972, and Roger soon followed. Shortly after the move both Brian Johnstone (keyboards) and John Hannah (drums) showed up in Canada. It was during this period that Roger Fisher and Nancy Wilson (while they were still in Seattle) became involved.  Roger and Nancy joined the rest of the band in Vancouver British Columbia.  When Nancy Wilson came on board as a guitarist the band was complete..,  Johnstone and Hannah would shortly return to the United States, but replacements would show up soon enough.

In 1975 Heart made demo’s with producer Mike Flicker-who would go on to be their long-time producer over the course of the 70s and early 80s.   Howard Leese was brought in as a session player, filling out the demo with guitar and keyboards formerly played by Johnstone and Hannah.  Leese soon became a full-time member of the band.   Producer Mike Flicker also brought in drummers Duris Maxwell, Dave Wilson, Kat Hendrikse as well as Mike Derosier. A host of session players became part of the album. By 1975 Mike Derosier had become Heart’s full-time drummer.

The band’s demo’s made the rounds but no major label was ready to bite.  Still determined to make a splash the band went into Can-Base Studios in Vancouver, again with producer Mike Flicker at the helm.  Without Heart having a label or distribution the Canadian investors who had backed Can-Base Studios decided to take on and release an album on their own independent Mushroom Records, then managed by Shelley Siegel. The album which became Dreamboat Annie was only released in Canada over its first few months,  It’s airplay and sales were helped along by a  particular Canadian law meant to protect Canadian television,the arts and musicians. The Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) controlled and enforced the Broadcasting Act of Canada. The Broadcasting Act (at the time) demanded at least 25% of Canadian content must be of Canadian origin. Regulations concerning broadcast quotas have become practically un-enforceable in the 21st century because of the advent of online content, cable networks and NAFTA  but at the time Dreamboat Annie was released it was a very important tool for Canadian artists of all sorts. The band and the band’s producer were not Canadian, but Mushroom Records was a Canadian label and the album was recorded in Canada, thus making it eligible for heightened airplay on Canadian radio.  This exposure initially caused the sale of  about 30,000 copies in Canada, Not numbers like major American acts, but more than many Canadian artists.  The music industry sat up and paid attention.

Many northwesterners knew a bit of the history of Heart as a local band, and sales of imports were fair in the region, but most Americans assumed Heart was a Canadian band because of their first brush with success was there.  After their Canadian success Mushroom Records opened a US subsidiary and originally released Dreamboat Annie in the Seattle area on February 14, (Valentine’s Day) 1976,  Dreamboat Annie sold approximately 25,000 more copies in the northwest alone.

Mushroom Records knew it had a potential hit on its hands and began a wide release in the U,S, with a successful city-by-city roll out.  It was time-consuming but Mushroom Records’ Shelley Siegal knew it was the right strategy. The album was propelled by two of the most iconic rock songs of the early 1970s. ‘Crazy on You’ and ‘Magic Man’. ‘Crazy on You’ made it number 35 on the US Billboard charts, and later ‘Magic Man’ made it to number nine.  The album Dreamboat Annie peaked at number seven on the Billboard charts, and eventually recieved platinum status in the United States (over one million units sold) in 1976, and double platinum (400,000 units total) in Canada in 1979.  It has been claimed by some that Heart’s initial success was that Mushroom Records head, Shelley Siegel ended up convincing “the guys that filled jukeboxes” to put ‘Magic Man’ into the slot that was meant for The Rolling Stones “Brown Sugar”.  It’s only rumor and speculation, but if it’s true it was one more fantastically successful move by Mushroom and Siegel

Inevitably success brings lawsuits.  Mushroom claimed they had a two-record deal and demanded another with the band instead of selling their contract on to a major label.   Mike Flicker, who had signed on to be the band’s designated producer quit the label leaving Heart without a contracted producer at Mushroom. This created a Catch 22; No producer, no record. Things were further inflamed when Mushroom released advertising suggesting the Wilson sisters were lesbian lovers. The members of Heart were furious and felt the label itself had broken the contract with them.

Mushroom then released a throwaway album called Magazine filled with unfinished tracks and a couple of live performances (recorded at The Aquarius in Seattle). The band distanced themselves from Magazine as being an unauthorized release.  Lawsuits were filed.  A court ordered Mushroom Records to pull the album from the racks and allow the band to remix it and add new vocals.  The revamped album was re-released in 1978 and made it to number 17 on the US Billboard charts, with a single, Heartless, that made it to number 24 on the US Billboard charts. Eventually Magazine went platinum in the US and Canada.  It’s not a very good album, but today it is somewhat of a collectible since the album was originally printed with a colored vinyl design. After the dust settled Heart signed a multi-album deal with Portrait Records, a sub-label of Epic Records, and later Columbia.

So what does all this have to do with The Heaters?  Well, both bands would soon share the same management, (Albatross) The Wilson sisters became vocal champions of the band.  Ann Wilson produced a demo and a video for them and was instrumental in the release of The Heats album ‘Have An Idea ’on their management’s Albatross Records. The album was produced by Heart’s Howard Leese. Members of the original band ‘The Army’ had also attended the same high school as Heaters members. The Heats would continue issuing singles on Albatross Records and tour with Heart. The Heaters involvement with Heart was unequivocal…and they had an additional tie-in…
Ken Deans says;   

I clearly remember the day I wanted to be a rock guy. The Army (pre-Heart) was playing down in the Kenmore shopping mall in front of Olsen’s drug store. This was probably 1967 and I said “that’s what I wanna do!”

Heart’s story also provided a cautionary tale to The Heaters, and foreshadowed in some ways the struggle The Heaters/Heats were about to wade into.
https://youtu.be/1pgGw1FY5fY

In 1979 The Heaters were playing the ‘Old Mill Tavern’, ‘The Town Pump’ and then got Doug Boad at Farwest Entertainment to book them into the ‘Central Tavern’,‘The Alki Tavern’ and ‘The Shire’-across from the Admiral Theater in West Seattle-the place the band later broke out of. Soon they were introduced to Norm Caldwell and his business partner Don Kellman who were running and managing The Edmonds Theater.  Their formula was to book up-and-coming bands with classic cult films.

In a September 1979 article, Seattle Times rock critic Patrick MacDonald asked the question;

“A movie theater with a dance floor? 

He went on to say “That’s the Edmonds, probably the only one of it’s kind in the world.  For the past few months the old but handsomely refurbished neighborhood theater on Main Street in downtown Edmonds (about 15 miles north of Seattle) has been featuring rock ‘n roll movies with live bands as a second feature,  The concept has been so successful that the theater has been racking up record days at the ticket booth”.

MacDonald pointed out that several of the northwest’s best new rock bands-including The Heaters, The Moberlys, The Cowboys, Red Dress, The Girls, The Jitters and others-had their popularity  boosted by appearances at the Edmonds Theater.

The Heaters first performance at The Edmonds Theater shared billing with the the 1956 film The Girl Can’t Help It, starring Jayne Mansfield in a va-va-va-voom, over the top performance and a soundtrack featuring Gene Vincent, Little Richard, Eddie Cochran, Teddy Randazzo and Fats Domino among others,  The film was and still is a high point in bringing rock and roll to a mass theater audience, as well as being terrifically funny in it’s own right.

“That’s where everything started for us” says Steve Pearson. Ken Deans agrees, adding That’s probably the best gig we ever did in our lives”

Norm Caldwell who was doing the bookings at The Edmonds Theater told MacDonald:

“The bands love to play here as an alternative to playing the bar circuit.  They get to play on a stage to a younger audience that pays attention to them.  Bands turn down higher paying jobs to play here because they like it so much”.

MacDonald, who could sometimes fall into the trap of hyperbole, was spot-on in his assessment of the Edmonds Theater, and Norm Caldwell was not simply saying whatever he could in order to bring in warm bodies.  What both of them claimed was absolutely true.  Kids from all over the region (including Seattle) would make the trek to Edmonds to see these shows.

The Edmonds Theater 415 Main St, Edmonds, WA

According to Caldwell at the time some of the other upcoming pairings would included Nicholas Rogue’s Performance (starring Mick Jagger) with Red Dress, and the film Stardust (starring David Essex) would be paired with the band Citizen Sane.  Later The Heaters would have another prime gig at The Edmonds Theater, playing for the NW premier of The Ramones’ Rock and Roll High School.  

There’s no doubt the Edmonds Theater’s brief period of pairing new music with cult classics helped develop the latest northwest “scene” that was rising in the region’ but sadly very little of what happened at the Edmonds Theater was documented.  Very few photos and no videos of the performances have come to light.  The Edmonds Theater is now The Edmonds Center for the Arts, and hosts a great line-up of exhibits, music and dance.  It also shows first run films at reasonable prices….perhaps the only small, independent theater to do so left in the state.

Soon after The Heaters performance there Ken Deans remembers;
“We were doing this gig playing at ‘The Shire’ in West Seattle.  Wednesday through Saturday for $400 and there were usually twelve people in the room. We were making $100 each a week. So, (after their appearance at The Edmonds Theater) we’re sitting down with northwest rock writers and all of a sudden these guys start deciding what they’re going to do. I thought “this is weird, we’ve got the guy from the Seattle P-I, The guy from the Seattle Times and we’re discussing columnist Erik Lacitis who wanted to do a series, so they said “Erik you do the series”  Erik says ‘I’m gonna need a photographer, we’re gonna shoot some pictures.  Be here tomorrow at 3:00’. So we were “uh..uh..OK” 

Lacitis says he doesn’t remember this meeting with the other writers,  He says only he and his good friend George Arthur (another columnist) saw The Heaters at The Edmonds Theater the night in question.  He says he was inspired to write about The Heaters on his own because “they blew me away”,  There was no convening between writers, although it’s possible they did gather among themselves later and talked about the band.

Nonetheless. Deans recalls the unquestioned truth;

“So we go down there and sit around and talk with Erik for awhile, and the photographer had brought in ladders.  He’s climbing up ladders and taking these shots and doing all sorts of stuff and we’re going ‘yeah, OK’.  Then Erik says ‘I think it’s going to run in Saturday’s paper’.  We’re thinking  ‘Wow.Cool’ but we really didn’t know what that meant at the time. 

“Quite frankly we didn’t know who Erik Lacitis was because we weren’t a bunch of front section newspaper reading people yet.  Then the next Saturday night Keith and I were driving home pretty early in the morning.  We were still living with our parents at the time; over in ‘Arrowhead’ in Kenmore.  So Keith says ‘Hey!  I bet the Saturday morning paper is out.  Let’s stop by the 7-11 and see if it’s there yet’. So I run in and grab a paper, I threw the first two sections away and start going through the entertainment section, and I go ‘Ha! there’s nothing,  I think we got cut’. And then Keith looks at me and goes ‘y’know I think Erik Lacitis wrties ‘real’ articles.  He might even be in the front section’.  I look at Keith and said ‘OH YEAH?’

“So I start flipping the pages.  At the time ‘The Seattle Times’ had a section  called ‘The Page’. I flip the paper over and above the fold is all picture of ‘The Heaters’ and below the fold it’s all an article on us.  Nothing else.  I thought ‘Holy Fuck! How did this happen?’ So we went back to the store and bought every copy we could. Then I called Steve and Don and said ‘Hey guys, have you seen the paper?’ All we knew at that time was that this was amazing”.

“Everybody in Seattle’s going to see this because back then newspapers were still NEWSPAPERS. So the next night Keith and I got back in our car and drove back to West Seattle, to ‘The Shire’ We pulled into the back parking lot. There was only one space open so we thought ‘maybe it’s going to be a good night’. When we opened the back door of the club and it was packed. We walked in and people started cheering  and outside there was a line down the street”.

Steve Pearson remembers something similar.  He says;
“We played at this club down in West Seattle called ‘The Shire’, and nobody came in. We would play to an empty house.and gradually the local musicians started coming in. Then Erik Lacitis, (because of the Edmonds Theater gig) came out and took some pictures of us and wrote an article about us in ‘The Seattle Times’. The next night I was walking in the back door of ‘The Shire’ and people started applauding. I turned around to see what famous person they might be applauding for. I’m not making this up. This is as factual as anything in my life. I had no idea…the club was jam-packed with musicians…people…everybody from Seattle wanted to see this new band called ‘The Heats’ or ‘The Heaters’ back then. And we tore it up. You would think we’d be awed by that-and in a way I was awed by it-but we saw that as our chance to kill. And we did. We were absolutely seize-the-moment teenagers and we never even had to talk about it. We just walked out and said to ourselves “this is gonna happen” and then made it happen.

Around this time The Heaters became acquainted with Buck Ormsby, one of the original Fabulous Wailers.  Buck was a producer and worked occasionally with the reformed Sonics as well as The Wailers.   He had co-founded and run the local label Etiquette that had released The Sonics, The Galaxies, Gail Harris, Rockin’ Robin Roberts, and The Wailers themselves. Ormsby became a mentor to The Heaters, a friend and their first de facto manager/producer.  At the time Ormsby’s label  Etiquette was in hiatus, but Ormsby would go on to revive the label around 1980. It’s no surprise that most of his life Buck spent in the northwest music scene in one capacity or another.  He was also one of its’ biggest and most revered figures.

Steve Pearson tells me his thoughts on Buck;
“Buck Ormsby was great. But most of the the biggest thing we got from Buck Ormsby is that he was basically an overgrown teenager that had picked up an instrument and went out and rocked, just like us. He didn’t go to Berklee School of Music. He didn’t have pretentions. He wasn’t anything more than a cool northwest rock and roll guy.  He thought we were that, and we thought he was that. It’s pretty much as simple as that”.

Ken Deans says;

“You know Buck Ormsby’s ‘Etiquette’ was a label for 60 years, Buck was smart from the beginning,  He started a revolution. He reminded me of the days of The Wailers and The Sonics, Don and The Good Times The Washingtons and the whole slew of  bands that came out of the northwest. We were emulating those guys.  We used to go to ‘Bandstand Music’ in Bellevue just because guys from The Sonics worked there.  I was buying drum sticks from the guy who wrote “The Witch” (Gerry Roslie)  Author Charles R. Cross had called Roslie ‘the Howard Hughes of punk rock’ because of his reticence in speaking to the press.

“When Buck first  came and sat  down with us” Deans says “ he really worked with us. He introduced us to George Peckham from who we took lessons, and Buck spent time with us in rehearsals,  It was at Bob Lang’s studiom before it was famous.  Lang’s studio was a subterranean garage built into a hillside..,”

At the time The Heaters rehearsed there, the studio was notorious because both bands and their equipment had to enter the recording studio by crawling under the control panel.  Since The Heaters practiced theren  Since then Lang’s studio has had clients ranging from Nirvana, Soundgarden, Pearl Jam and The Foo Fighters to Peter Frampton. It should be noted by the time big acts began recording at Bob Lang Studios they no longer had to crawl under the counsel!

“At the time we were there, Lang had was still excavating the garage/studio.  It’s a mystery how he got the city to sign off on his project, It was crazy” says Ken Deans “but he had the money-Bob has never had to worry about money-but you had to crawl under that counsel to get in. It was like a barn red garage.  But you know it was pretty amazing, and it was as garageband as you got”.

Deans recalls that he started playing drums  to become a rock star from an early age;
“My parents were friends with the mother of ‘The Sonics’ drummer” says Ken (it’s unclear if he means Bob Bennett or Dusty Wilson who replaced Bennett in 1972). “They bought me a Premiere drum set…the drum set Rob Van den Akker bought from my drum teacher Bruce Ford who had it given to him by Buddy Rich years before,  Of course I traded it in for a new lovely set But the point of it was Buck came out and saw us at the ‘Central Tavern and I think we were as enamoured of him as he was with us because we weren’t looking up to ‘Bighorn’ we were looking up to ‘The Sonics’ and ‘The Wailers’ and all those bands, The original northwest punk bands”.

“I went and saw ‘The Sonics’ at The Roxy in Los Angeles a couple of years ago (Says Deans who lives in southern California these days), Freddie Dennis has done an incredible job in carrying that torch”. In 1992 Freddie Dennis (formerly of Freddie and the Screamers and The Kingsmen) joined the Sonics as bassist and vocalist.  He had a series of strokes in 2017, sidelining him from the Sonics, but he says he’s recovering quite nicely at this time.

Ken says:

“It was nice because Buck was there and he was putting out a new ‘Sonics’ record.  Buck and I had a very nice conversation.  Buck had wanted to sign ‘The Heaters’ to ‘Etiquette’ but we had higher hopes, although they never really came to fruition.

Buck Ormsby died on Oct. 29, 2016 (his 75th birthday) from complications of lung cancer,  He was in Tepic, Mexico, where he was seeking alternative treatment, The Heats wrote on their facebook page;

“37 years ago we met our first mentor in Buck Ormsby. He believed in us, practiced with us, took us to vocal lessons with George Peckham, and when he thought we were ready took us into the garage, literally, at Lang Studios. It was a one car garage built into the hillside at Bob Lang’s house. You had to crawl under the desk to get into the recording room. We spent a week there working on how to arrange, record, get the basics right and finally mix what became our first record. We owe a lot to Buck as does almost the entire Northwest music scene. His contributions are innumerable and his legacy will be forever embossed in all musicians, whether they know of him or not. We Thank you Buck. Our hearts and Thoughts go out to all your family and friends. Godspeed and may your next tour be one of the best ever”.

When it came time for The Heaters to find management they were torn between Ivy Bauer at Concerts West and Ken Kinnear at Albatross. They even spoke to Erik Lacitis, telling him they were conflicted about who should represent them. Lacitis told them; “it’s not about who you like the most, it’s who you think that will do a better job. Today Ken Deans says ‘hindsight is always 20/20’ but in retrospect I think we went with Albatross because of Heart more than anything else.  Steve Fossen and Roger Fisher were still in the band at the time and they were Kenmore musicians.

After The Heaters signed onto the Albatross roster, most of the day to day duties were handed over to Jon Kertzer.  Kertzer had formerly worked in several radio and promotions capacities including being a music director for Seattle’s KZAM radio and as a promotions manager for CBS Records. Jon admits people are often surprised to hear he was involved in rock and roll during the 1970s.  Today he’s known as a teacher, speaker and explorer in the world of ethnomusicology. From 1984 until 1998  he hosted a radio program on radio station KCMU and it’s later incarnation KEXP, called The Best Ambiance.  Note the spelling here.  Ambience (with an e) has more to do with environment, and Ambiance (with an a) is usually-but not always-descriptive of art, culture or design skill.  Jon didn’t and still doesn’t present the popular “world music” that popular jazz and pop artists have been interested in for the past two or three decades.  He’s  more interested in presenting authentic examples of traditional music, especially that of Africa and Asia, and the organic rise of modern music among artists in those geographic areas.

From 1979 until 1981 Jon handled the day to day operations of keeping The Heaters afloat.  He acted as a tour manager, sold their merchandise at gigs and sometimes ran the lights or sound. He set up small tours, and showcase events.  He was also the one who initially went from one major label to another trying to get enough interest to get the band signed. Jon helped set up a west coast tour with The Knack, and The Heaters (under various names) played the southwest and west coast with them.  The Heaters.Heats also did thirty dates opening for Heart.  Kertzer tells me that although the Heats were able to play New York’s Radio City Music Hall twice with Heart, many of the dates with Heart and The Knack didn’t always present the band at their best due to problems with sound and staging.  He adds that the band was far too pop with some audiences and not pop enough for others.  He remembers the tour with The Knack as being terrible, and uncharacteristically calls  Doug Fieger (the lead singer and guitarist for The Knack) “an asshole”.  He (and The Heats) have much kinder words for Heart, who truly wanted them to succeed, and did their best to help them by taking the band on tour with them, and mentoring them-especially Ann and Nancy.

Just as they were becoming to be called Seattle’s “Next Big Thing” The Heaters faced a couple of missteps in being paired with two bands at two different shows at The Paramount Theater.  One was opening for Alvin Lee, the former leader of Ten Years After on June 27, 1979,  Lee and his band had been totally dedicated to the electric blues and were one of the biggest hits at Woodstock a decade earlier.  Alvin Lee was known as one of the best blues/rock players to come out of an abundance of incredible British blues guitarists in 1960s Britain.  In the early ‘70s Alvin Lee and Ten Years After had found commercial success worldwide through two much more mainstream albums; A Space in Time in 1971 and Rock & Roll Music To The World in 1972.  By 1973 Alvin Lee had disbanded Ten Years After because their American label  (Columbia) had tried to push the band into even more commercial pop territory.  Both A Space In Time and Rock and Roll Music to The World are excellent albums, but the were only meant as diversions from Lee’s ultimate goal of playing pure electric blues.  Alvin Lee ended up working solo, later putting together a highly respected group of blues musicians to record a live album at The Rainbow in London (the double record In Flight) and took part in numerous solo projects and collaborations.  By the time The Heaters opened for Lee he had reverted to his former shred-based blues with the band Ten Years Later.  Most of his fans were keen followers, so The Heaters was not a good choice to warm up for Lee and the crowd responded in kind. They booed them mercilessly.  The Heaters considered it the most difficult show they’d ever done.

They told rock music critic Pat MacDonald;
“After that nothing can faze us”

The band (and their fans) showed themselves in a much better light when they opened for The Kinks at Seattle’s  Paramount Theater on October 29, 1979.  This pairing made far more sense than the Alvin Lee show.

Seattle Times music critic Pat MacDonald wrote:
“The Heaters’ redeemed themselves. This time they were cheered, and for good reason. The sound was much better, the set was tighter, the tunes were well-chosen and well played and the guys were a lot more animated.”

And why shouldn’t they have done better?  The Kinks crowd were exactly the kind of fans that The Heaters could connect with.  The Kinks were also the kind of 1960s band that would be among their influences.

Another less than admirable pairing took place on February 7, 1981 when a local radio station tried to boost The Heats profile just after the release of their album Have an Idea.  They shared a bill with Alberta Canada’s Loverboy.  The Heats, Loverboy and Johnny and the Distractions were doing shows in Vancouver, Seattle and Portland.  Each band was headlining their hometowns. By this time time Loverboy had made Vancouver their base of operations.  U.S. abd Canadian radio programmers were trying to attract more interest in Loverboy who had recently been signed to Columbia Records and were pushing their latest single ‘Turn Me Loose’ from their debut album. It was doing very well, so many of the audience in each city had come to see Loverboy rather than The Heats or Johnny and the Distractions.  Later that year Loverboy (who had based themselves in Vancouver) would have their biggest hit from the band’s follow-up album, Get Lucky, released in October 1981 when they were on tour with Journey. The song was Working For The Weekend and it became a huge radio hit.  Loverboy was getting a great deal of international attention at this point in their career. The Heaters were finding less attention, although still a huge local draw on the Seattle club scene. The Loverboy crowd simply weren’t The Heaters natural crowd.  Loverboy was more in the mold of bands The Heats had disliked so much at the beginning of their career.  And in fact Loverboy did become a major arena draw on the same tour The Heaters played with them on.

But The Heaters also made some clever moves.  They did a free concert at Golden Gardens on Sunday July 8, 1979 and later at the Seattle Center.They broadcast a live concert from the Showbox Theater on Thanksgiving Day 1979; exactly one year from the day of their first rehearsal.  The performance went out over the airwaves and was captured on tape but not released until June 26, 2011 by Tom Dyer’s Green Monkey Records. Tom has spent a lot of time researching, compiling, tracking down and releasing a steady mix of CD’s and digital downloads of past regional underground bands. Green Monkey has done a better job than any other to carry the torch of Seattle’s music of the 1980s,  The Heats and Tom agreed that all proceeds from the recording of the 1979 live performance go to Ronald McDonald House, the fast food giant’s charity devoted to (in their own words) “Keeping families with sick children together and near the care and resources they need”.  Ronald McDonald House has been hailed as on the nations best charities.  Even people who would not patronize the fast food chain recognize this. This act of charity by Green Monkey Records and The Heats is admirable and in keeping with the generosity of both parties.

Shortly before their tour with The Knack, The Heaters became aware of a better-known Los Angeles band using the same name; The Heaters.  The band scrambled at the last minute for a different name to tour under, and ended up calling themselves The Gears.  During tour the newly-christened band,The Gears, found out that that name was also being used.  They re-named themselves The Torpedoes, and just as before, found the name had already been taken. In the meantime Albatross had bought an expensive ad explaining the change in name. The confusion of a series of names could not have helped establish their career in the power-pop world; and it must have been a thankless job opening for The Knack. The Heaters/Gears/Torpedo’s  played their set while fans of The Knack waited impatiently to hear the latest HUGE hit, My Sharona”, must have been excruciating.  It’s unclear if The Heaters evengained fans during these tours.  Some crowds found them a nuisance between themselves and hearing one of the biggest international hits of the 70s and 80s.  During the tour The Heaters should have been the height of their career when they opened  for The Knack at the Seattle Center Coliseum.  Local fans loved them, but how far they’d strayed from the original intentions  The Knack may have been labelled power-pop, but they were actually not much more than a bombastic outfit with mediocre (but catchy) songs.  Their follow-up single follow-up single “Good Girls Don’t” peaked at No. 11 in the US, and reached No. 1 in Canada’s chart but it was not nearly the international hit their debut single was. .It’s no wonder they faded from view just as quickly as they’d made a dent in the billboard and radio charts; especially since The Knack were doing a very distinct American version of power-pop that soon fell out of favor.  It should be noted here that American power-pop bands (like Cheap Trick) have continued to be popular so many years after their founding simply because their songs were better played, do not rely on enforced happiness and they have continuously put out a repertoire of well-written songs that are/were far more entertaining and clever than anything The Knack or The Romantics ever released. It seems the staying power was with bands like The Ramones or Blondie rather than flavor-of-the-moment phenoms.  It’s sad that the Heats were unable to be identified more as a smart power-pop band than simply another clone of what was then in favor.

Finally, the band that had started out as The Heaters chose what should have been obvious to them and their management from the beginning.  They simply dropped the last syllable of their original name and called themselves The Heats.  That’s the name that the band was  referred to from that time until now.  

In 1980 The Heats recorded their first single at Kaye-Smith Studios in Seattle.  The  record was “I Don’t Like Your Face b/w “Ordinary Girls”  Buck Ormsby produced. Steve Boyce was listed as “Associate Producer’ and the engineer for the project was Rick Fisher (now the owner and principal talent at RFI Mastering in Seattle). The single was released on the bands own HRRR label and ended up selling between 14,000 and 18,000 copies depending who you ask.. It only got modest airplay on the big Seattle radio stations, It was too “pop” for KCMU, the reigning college radio station in the area, but they did not ignore it altogether.  The single found much better reception at KJET who was making a concerted effort to become Seattle’s “new wave” station.

This was The Heats beginning to reach their high point.  The were constantly gigging at local taverns and clubs, and hundreds of fans would show up every time.  Now more than ever they became Seattle’s presumed “Next Big Thing”.  The word kept spreading.
Steve Pearson says;   I think our audience liked us first off because they were ‘told’ that they should like us. Somehow the word got passed down ‘this is a cool band’ and they would go out and see us and the guys would see the girls and the girls would see the guys and everybody would seem to be having fun. Then maybe they thought about other things, I don’t really know, Over the years alot of people have told what they got from us, almost with this juvenile honesty, about how we loved rock and roll.  We loooved the music we were playing, We loooved performing that music for people, and I think they responded to it”

The Heats fans weren’t exclusively “the guys who would see the girls, and the girls would see the guys”
“The Heaters was playing a big club in Vancouver B.C.” Ken Deans tells me. “Joey Shithead came backstage and said ‘I love your fucking band”. Ken says to him “You’re in D.O.A. and you LIKE US?”  Joey replied  ‘I think you guys are awesome, can I jam?’ So the band did the next set with Joey,  Then there was The Dils. Steve got to be friends with them when they became Rank and File. He also got to be friends with Dave Alvin who founded The Blasters and went on to do time in X and The Knitters. Steve had been going to Los Angeles and jamming from time to time.
It seems there were other fans among the hardcore punk scene.  The late Mike Refuzor was a fan and spent time talking to Ken Deans about the state of popular music, it’s direction toward the new, rather than relying on the tried and true. Deans says he always enjoyed talking with Mike and saw The Refuzors on a couple of occasions.

Finally things had started to open up”. Says Ken. “When you go back and listen to those D.O.A., Rank and File and The Dils records the musicianship is really fucking good. A Lot of people told me ‘yeah, those are punk guys.  They’re people that play what they play  because they’re not any better’. I can’t tell you how many arguments I’ve had with music snobs who say things like ‘Keith Richards is a crappy guitar player’ and they’re like, from ‘Julliard’.  They say ‘I can play that stuff in my sleep’. And I tell them ‘yeah but you didn’t invent it, and no you can’t play it in your sleep”.

“They tell me ‘I know how to dial all those tones into my XV-15’.  I tell them ‘Richards plugs into a fucking  AV30 and turns all the knobs up…and good fucking  luck finding out all his tunings’. Then they tell me, ‘that’s just because he’s not a good guitar player’

It’s clearly an attitude Deans despises after years of being surrounded by musicians of all sorts and all genres.

In early 1981 Jon Kertzer abruptly left Albatross (and his duties with The Heats).  He tells me a story that he says The Heats themselves probably have never known;

Each year the Seattle music industry holds a holiday party where people from all walks of life in the northwest music business gather, share stories, and generally network and talk about new artists. In 1980 the party was held on December 8, the same day John Lennon was shot and killed by Mark David Chapman outside Lennon’s  NYC home.

Kertzer says he was deeply affected by Lennon’s death.  He was shocked that the holiday party was not cancelled or postponed.  He remembers he couldn’t believe the nonchalant attitude the music industry took.  He says the attendees “acted like they were shoe sales people”. Obviously Lennon’s murder was on everyone’s mind, but still schmoozing was the primary goal of the event.   It completely soured Kertzer to his involvement in rock music, and he soon left Albatross to continue his interest in ethnomusicology.  In 1984 he became station director for KCMU radio.  Since then he’s also been Audio Manager for Microsoft, Director of Social Media and Special Projects for The Experience Music Project (EMP) in Seattle, Director of Smithsonian Global Sounds, Head of Microsoft’s Zune project, Moved from radio KCMU to KEXP as the producer and host of The Best Ambiance (which lasted 24 years on-air) and partnered with Sub Pop records as the A&R director of their “Best Ambiance” imprint that handles “ethnic” rather than rock music.  

In 1997 and 1998 Kertzer attended the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS ) at the University of London and received his Masters degree in Ethnomusicology.  In short, he’s done much better after moving on from the world of rock and roll.

.In 1981 Seattle Times critic Pat MacDonald opined on what he believed made The Heats so popular by explaining;
“Coming after the dark days of punk rock movement-which took itself terribly seriously-the Heats were a breath of fresh air. They brought fun back into Seattle rock and the fans loved it”
.

Perhaps Pat never got the memo;  Punk rock enthusiasts were in a distinct minority among music fans both in Seattle and across the nation.  Punk rock was not played on local radio except maybe the occasional spin on college station.  Most venue owners across the country would simply not allow punk bands to play in their premises. Many punk bands had to rent halls and self-promote their own shows where 100 people would have been seen as a great success.  The only punk club that had ever opened in Seattle before 1980 was the all-ages The Bird and even that lasted only about three months.

The Heaters were formed just at the time punk and new wave were establishing roots in the United States.  In 1978 most Americans were still listening to top 40 radio on stations that wouldn’t even play Nick Lowe. They also tended to favor bland AOR (Album Oriented Rock) or Heavy Metal blather instead of the healthy barrage of singles US and UK power pop/punk-pop rock singles that were independently released-or the few on larger labels that were often sold-out within a week.

Pat must not have realized that The Ramones, Blondie, Television and The Talking Heads came directly out of the same branch of the new D.I.Y. movement as The Heaters.  The Heaters  had found success almost from the beginning.  They were born into an era that had never been eclipsed by the“deep dark days of punk” in the first place…and those “deep dark days” never existed in the first place.

In fact the same winds that blew The Heaters in had also blown in other power-pop bands that had a desire to get back to basic rock and “fun” music.  The Jam, XTC, The Plimsouls, The Ramones, Blondie, The Records, Eddie and the Hot Rods, Devo and The Modern Lovers;   None of these bands were “deep dark punk” but all of them rose from the genre, not as antidotes to it but as artists that shared the same rejection of Arena Oriented Rock (AOR) and FM radio excess.  In many ways what became “new wave” or “power-pop” or “punk” had the same affinity for tearing down walls and kicking doors open as The Heats. It’s absurd that the “deep dark days of punk” had resulted in bands that “took themselves terribly seriously” It was the AOR bands with massive audiences that were so self-important.

It was not “the dark days of punk” that had darkened the doors of Seattle music fans. It wasn’t punk music that “took itself terribly seriously” and killed any fun left in local music.  It was the taverns and dancehall that would only hire cover bands playing the same songs over and over to keep people dancing and buying beer. It was the radio stations that stuck to tight genres and programmers too afraid to let anything new and exciting on their playlists.  It was the music industry as a whole prohibiting individuality and their turning their backs on anything that wasn’t already tried and true.

Mostly It was the incessant background sounds of Foreigner, Supertramp, Boston, Styx, Kansas, and their ilk that killed all the fun. They squeezed every bit of the joy out of music and served up music“which took itself terribly seriously” The music had nothing to do with basic three-chord rock and roll that was not only fun,but danceable. The sounds they made were pseudo-intellectual ballads and milquetoast arrangements rather than the booty-shaking abandon of “the devil’s music”.

It’s ridiculous to claim bands like Devo, Blondie,The B-52’s or The Ramones took themselves “terribly seriously”  Even Iggy Pop-often referred to as the “godfather of punk”- didn’t take himself “terribly seriously”,  He’s admitted time and time again that his primary goal has always been to entertain audiences.  If anyone took themselves “terribly seriously” it was the arena bands of the day were AOR bands and those The Heats rejected.

All of this is especially ironic knowing that 10-15 years before The Heats came together the northwest had been a hotbed of regional talent.  The Wailers.The Frantics. Dave Lewis. The Ventures. Little Bill and The Bluenotes.  All of them reigned in the early 1960s…and they weren’t alone. There were literally scores of bands that could fill teen dance halls. By the mid-60s musicians from some of those bands morphed into psychedelic bands like The Daily Flash, Crome Syrcus, Springfield Rifle, Magic Fern or Moby Grape as well as more mainstream hitmakers like Bonnie Guitar, Paul Revere and The Raiders, Gary Puckett and Merrilee Rush.

The Heats had been dubbed Seattle’s best chance of breaking out as a power-pop band….but maybe it would be more appropriate to name them as beneficiaries of Britain’s pub rock movement; another back-to-basics attempt to return to the roots of rock, rockabilly and cleverly written pop…which unashamedly included power pop, but not the overblown flavor the Americans were serving up. Members of the movement included Nick Lowe, Elvis Costello, Graham Parker. Wreckless Eric, Kilbourne and the High Roads (who became Ian Dury and the Blockheads) Dave Edmunds, Eddie and the Hotrods, the 101’ers  (an early band of Joe Strummer’s) as well as a slew of others.  These were all artists who relied on carefully crafted songs rather than carefully crafted images….or at least images that didn’t make them seem distant from their audiences. They were also accessible even to the point of attending each others small gigs, rubbing shoulders with fans.  Most of the venues they favored were in and around London. The Elgin in Ladbroke Grove, The Nashville in West Kensington and probably the most well-known pub rock venue in the world, The Hope and Anchor at  207 Upper St. in Islington. These bands’ attitude fit hand in glove with The Heats.  They were well-respected but not deemed “commercial” enough by the record industry.  Because of that they relied on small venues (hence the label pub rock) and turned to independent labels like Chiswick, Albion or the best of all the then-current indie labels, Stiff Records who’s early motto was “If it ain’t Stiff, it ain’t worth a fuck” These were the bands The Heaters would have fallen in with.

Even The Sex Pistols had started out in the pubs. It could be argued that behind the cynical but clever lyrics of The Sex Pistols lay one of England’s most potent power-pop bands; at least during Glen Matlock’s involvement as a member and player on the only actual studio album the band ever released, ‘Never Mind The Bollocks, Here’s The Sex Pistols’.  The band would have denied it at the time but remove vocals of “Pretty Vacant” or “God Save The Queen” and what you’ll find is tight, well crafted power-pop created by three accomplished musicians that happened to have an anti-hero out front.  Glen Matlock had written or co-written all but one of the original songs on Never Mind The Bollocks…” Later a sad, messed-up Sid Vicious replaced Matlock and provided a musically inept freak show.  Sid’s encouragement by fans and music industry-types who encouraged his own self-destruction is something John Lydon still resents to this day.  It’s almost unbelievable that an album that affected so many people in the U.S.,Never Mind The Bollocks… it did not reach Gold Record status (500,000 units sold) until December of 1987…over ten years since it’s initial release on on 28 October 1977.  If less than expected sales figures means anything than The Heats were in good company.

Many talented punk bands would fully develop into power pop-based outfits…some even began as power-pop disguised as punk bands.  In Britain Siouxsie and The Banshees, X-Ray Spex, The Undertones, The Buzzcocks, The Rezillos, Bram Tchaikovsky,The Records all had strong power-pop threads running through them.  Listen to Siouxsie and the Banshees  first single -Hong Kong Garden-then explain why it shouldn’t be considered “power-pop.

The British pub rock  aspect of The Heaters becomes even more evident knowing that just before joining the band, Don Short and his girlfriend Caroline had spent a year living in London,  They came back after being exposed to Nick Lowe, Dave Edmunds, Dr. Feelgood,  Elvis Costello, and Rockpile etc.  These were artists that the majority of Seattle music fans had never heard of. The Heaters started including many of their songs into their set.

“In the beginning audiences thought those were our songs”. says Steve Pearson “We’d intersperse our original songs and the unknown covers in between a Dave Clark Five or a Who or Chris Spedding song.  We really worked  to make those songs fit so people would ask “what’s that weird song?” We’d say “Oh! It’s not a weird song, it’s cool!” and that was a natural thing that happened.

“We were the quintessential ‘get-together-in-a-basement-write-some-songs band.  We’d play to our limitations, go out and shove it down people’s throats, And that’s what I believe rock and roll is all about. In that respect we were absolutely that band that every teenage boy says “I’m gonna grow up and be in a band like that. We were that band”.

Finally The Heats went back into Kaye-Smith studios to record their debut album Have an Idea.  This time Howard Leese of Heart produced and The Heats were given a co-producing credit as well.  The album was released on their management’s Albatross Records which was largely due to Heart’s Ann Wilson’s support for the band and their bad luck finding a major label deal.

“We were already at the point where we didn’t want to be known just as the novelty band that did ‘I Don’t Like Your Face’ says Ken Deans. “We wanted to be more known for ‘Ordinary Girls’ and ‘Remember Me’ and ‘When You’re Mine’ and some of the other songs that were-I don’t want to say ‘better crafted’– but less tongue-in-cheek.  And then we did ‘Have An Idea’ and they said ‘you’re going to come out with the same kind of thing we said NO and that’s when we did ‘When You’re Mine’ and ‘Sorry Girls’

They did, in fact, re-record ‘I Don’t Like Your Face’  and it’s original flipside ‘Ordinary Girls’ but most of the album was filled with newer, well-written and captivating pop songs.  In 1981 the songs Ken mentions (‘When You’re Mine’ and ‘Sorry Girls’) were released as a single, but as with all of The Heats releases radio mostly ignored both the album and the single.  Have An Idea was a commendable effort that probably gets as much love today as it did when it was released, even though it’s said to have initially sold only 15,000 copies…but it’s probable most of those sales were strictly regional. In 1996 John Borack compiled a list for Goldmine magazine calling ‘Have An Idea’ as ‘one of the most essential US Power-Pop albums’ of all time.  On a side note Jim Basnight’s 1993 cassette-only release of ‘Retro’ was also included on the list.

Steve Pearson remembers someone from Goldmine looking for a comment about ‘Have An Idea’ being listed among The 50 most essential US power pop albums.

“He called me and asked me if I would give him a quote. He said ‘think it over and call me back’. I said ‘I don’t have to think it over, here it is; “The Heats got to live every high school boy’s dream. But the best part is we never got so famous that we had to see our pictures in the check-out line as we were buying groceries”.

Ken Deans says a stranger approached him a few years ago at a Phish Festival;

“Some gal came up to my desk and said ‘Your Kenny Deans. THE Kenny Deans, OMG!  Your record is me and my boyfriend’s favorite record of all time!”

She was 23 years old.
“Funny how things went through a time-warp in Seattle. The Cowboys and half a dozen other bands were part of it; we just happen to be the ones that got the most notoriety.  I don’t mean to be egotistical-but I think rightfully so.”





In 1998 Mike Stein and his Chuckie Boy Records re-released ‘Have an Idea’ on CD with several bonus tracks under the title “Smoke”,  It sold another 10,000 copies.  Erik Lacitis tells me he’s not surprised.  He believes there are still plenty of followers of The Heats out there.

 

“I think some of the people who originally saw them STILL follow them. When Steve Pearson is playing (in his band British Racing Green) I think Heats fans show up and I think Steve might even do one or two of The Heats songs”.

Pearson readily admits to having The Heats songs in the repertoire of his band ‘British Racing Green’.  Pearson says he doesn’t play them for any nostalgic value.  He plays them simply because they’re great songs.

For a couple of years The Heats had definitely been over-exposed in Seattle. They had done as many local live gigs as they could fit in.  There were ongoing updates from writer Erik Lacitis and reviews from Pat MacDonald in The Seattle Times, as well as occasional reviews and mentions by local music critics in various other journals. They’d opened high-profile concerts, toured and released their album and three singles in less than three years….perhaps not as much exposure a better known band could expect, but for a small back-to-basics rock band from Seattle, all of it was a big deal. They had also garnered two covers on The Rocket magazine-the most important regional music magazine of it’s day in the northwest.  Both covers of the Rocket featured major stories, one of which Ken Deans remembers in a self-deprecating way.  He says;
I think the author called us “consistent” I think the reference was “you always know that you get a cheeseburger at McDonalds and you always know exactly what it is”.

Soon after the release of ‘Have An Idea’ bassist Keith Lilly left the band.  The parting was said to have been “less than amicable” at the time, but that rift seems to have been repaired long ago, since Keith takes part in The Heats reunions. In 1981 The Heats released the single Count On Me b/w Rivals that featured Wayne Clacker-the bassist that had replaced Keith Lilly.  The single was produced by northwest music veteran Pat Hewitt at Triangle Studios in Seattle.  Later, in 1986 Triangle Studios would change hands from producer/engineers Jack Weaver and Bill Stuber to Chris Hanzsek and Jack Endino. Endino acted as in-house producer. It was here that Nirvana’s album Bleach as well as Green River’s Dry as a Bone, Soundgarden’s Screaming Life, Mark Lanegan’s The Winding Sheet and dozens of other ‘grunge’ recordings that the studio and Jack Endino would become famous for.

Eventually graffiti was spotted around town saying “Kill The Heats” partially because of their high profile, but also because there had always been a sense of unease between those following local alternative music and those following local pop or cover bands. Of course there were a few exceptions, but The Heats had wrongly become associated with only the successful cover bands that played a particular circuit of clubs around Seattle.  Alternative music fans had their own original scene and it was rare when any member of one group stepped onto the others’ turf.  The fans of alternative music despised the patrons of certain clubs and the band’s they supported because they believed they were arrogant fraternity boys looking to pick up drunk sorority girls (in some cases that was true).  The patrons of the more mainstream clubs were suspicious of the alternative crowd that hung out in their own clubs because it was assumed they were all punks looking for trouble….or worse, out and out queers (in fact many were!).  It sounds amazing today that such a wide and profound gulf existed between these groups, but it seemed to be the natural order of things in early 1980s Seattle.  A punk was just as unlikely and unwelcome to step into a bar like Pioneer Square’s Hibble and Hyde’s as it was unlikely and unwelcome for a Hibble and Hyde’s patron to enter a place like WREX  or The Gorilla Room only two or three blocks away.

After Lilly’s departure Ken Deans was also getting antsy.  Although his relationship with the other band members had not broken down, it became frustrating to be part of “The Next Big Thing” when nothing was actually happening.  When Ken finally left the group it was for better prospects in management, promotions and productions and booking.  He was replaced by Rick Bourgoin.

In July of 2016 Deans told Seattle journalist Feliks Banel he “felt really bad leaving The Heats”.  He added that “It was one of those experiences in life where you had just spent the last three years of your life pouring your blood and guts out on the floor with these guys, and then you weren’t…That was the hardest point in my life because it was like, ‘Wow, I got to be part of this experience that I know was amazing, but we couldn’t quite grasp the brass ring”.

Bourgoin says he hadn’t really seen or heard The Heats music while he was playing in a band called The Impacts;

“We were a little punk power-pop band” says Bourgoin” We did things like ‘The Ramones’…you know, super fast, We were playing a lot of gigs. So one night ‘The Impacts’ were set to open for ‘The Heats’ at ‘Astor Park’ (a club on 5th Avenue uptown). ‘The Heats’ planned go onstage to do their soundcheck and then we’d put ourselves on the stage and do our soundcheck, so everybody was ready to play…this was probably in late summer of 1981.  Everybody was waiting around for Ken who wasn’t there. We’re waiting and waiting and my band was getting frustrated because we were running out of time to get our sound check. I said ‘I’ll just get up and play the drums so you can go through your soundcheck and then we can get our stuff up there’. So they said ‘OK’ and I did it.  I’d heard enough about some of their tunes so I just plowed through their stuff and then got my band’s stuff up onstage did our soundcheck and we played the the gig that night”

“A couple of months later I got a call from Don who told me they were maybe going to look for another drummer. We talked on the phone for quite awhile and then he got back in touch with me a little bit after that, and asked if I wanted to come out and sit in and play some songs at a rehearsal place…kind of an audition. I said ‘sure’ so I listened to their record a little bit to familiarize myself with the songsm and then went and played with them and had a great time. I think Wayne Clack had a drummer buddy from San Francisco…I think he came up, and they listened to him, and I’m not sure how many else, but I ended up getting the gig from the beginning of 1982 to the end of 1983”

Bourgoin remembers Ann and Nancy Wilson sitting in on at least one of his own auditions.

After Jon Kertzer had left Albatross in 1981 Jeff Trisler (now of ‘Live Nation’) became responsible for The Heats day to day management.  The band became less and less involved with Ken Kinnear because of Kinnear’s frustration that the band hadn’t been signed and a slight rift was developing between Don and Steve about staying in Seattle or moving to Los Angeles.

Ann Wilson tried to get major label interest in the band but had little success.  She finally got a chance with David Geffen at his namesake Geffen Records. Geffen paid for a three song demo that Ann produced at Kaye Smith Studios.  The sessions included participation from other Heart members. Afterward Ann provided Geffen with the demo but never heard back.

One of the demo songs ended up being shot as a video-again, produced by Ann Wilson-intended for broadcast on MTV.  The video of “In Your Town” got a bit of airplay, but not enough to create much interest beyond The Heats own fan base.

The band continued to play gig after gig and recorded what would be their second album, a live performance they did at Astor Park  entitled ‘The Heats: Burnin’ Live.  It was released in 1983 on Sushi Records. It was released in an edition of 1000 vinyl copies.  Reports are that the pressing was very poor,  but later when it was re-mastered for CD it proved to sound much better.
But even a new album couldn’t help the band from an eventual crisis.

‘It was Don’s decision to leave the band” Rick Bourgoin says,” In fact now that I think about it ‘The Heats’ were doing a gig in Vancouver BC…I think the club was called “Outlaws”,  it might have been the New Years Eve  prior to the one when we broke up.  Steve and I had gotten into a little heated discussion about something up in the dressing room between sets and I think some words flew as they do. I went back up to the stage and was standing on the side of the stage,  grumbling. Don came up and at that point he said “If I wanted to leave and start something different would you come and be my drummer? And I said “sure”, That was a year before it actually happened so I think he probably had thought about it a long time before he came to the band and said “I’m gonna go”


In the fall of 1983 Don Short did tell the rest of the band it was time for him to move on. Short told the band he would finish out the rest of their booked performances which included a final New Year’s Eve appearance at Astor Park. Pearson felt shocked and betrayed, vowing to never speak to Don Short again. At the time he said;
“I would think after five years-after our careers being so tied together for five years-that I would be entitled to something more than just walking in and saying ‘I’m leaving”

Don Short told Erik Lacitis;
“I agonized over the decision. The last thing I wanted to do was to have it become personal.  It was a musical decision.  All I want to do in these last shows is go out with a bang.  I don’t want to sound patronizing but I want to say thanks to all the fans because you made us. I don’t want to dwell on all the other crap. I want people to remember we were a good rocking club band.  We wrote and played good tunes”

A few years later Steve Pearson told Lacitis;
“I don’t expect anything I ever do to be as big a thing in Seattle as The Heats were. The Heats was perfect. We were a unique group.  We were honest.  People could see that rock and roll spirit in us.

During my phone call with Steve he says;
“For all our naïveté we were very ballsy and confident. Part of that is that we admired the other members of the band. For instance I would look over at Ken and say to myself (if not to him) “Wow! Ken is great, Ken is really really a good drummer and he really is in tune with these songs”. Then I’d look over at Don Short and I’d say “I can count on Don every single night to play his parts and be right there and he will sing in tune, He’ll play his bits. He’ll play them better than I will cuz I was always the flakey crazy guy in the band. We all knew that we respected and counted on each other….We believed in each other and we believed in the concept of the band.

Then he adds:

The other factor, the one that is integral is you gotta have songs. You can be the greatest band in the world but if you don’t have songs no one will respond. (Before The Heaters)  I had been writing songs for a year and a half, two years maybe, and Don had some songs. I brought my songs to practice and said this is what we’re going to base the band around. Songs. Original songs. I don’t want to do a really good version of “Carry On My Wayward Son”. I don’t give a fuck about Kansas. To this day I believe that if you want to make your mark in the world you’ve got to do it by writing a song. That is the advantage we had over most (local) bands”

After the disintegration of The Heats Pearson joined up with Pat Hewitt, Tony Lease and Don Kammerer (The Pins) to form The Rangehoods.  The Rangehoods turned out to be a decent draw around Seattle, and in 1985 put out one of the era’s best EPs, titled Rough Town.  In 1991 they released the album, Long Way Home.  Michael Wansley played bass and sang with the band from 1985 onward.  Today most people know Wansley as “The Wanz’ who’s featured in Macklemore & Ryan Lewis’s  number one hit Thrift Shop.  Pearson also appeared in various outfits over the years, but now shares guitar and vocal duties with his wife Lucette, Frank Johnson on Bass and Jon Newton on drums and vocals.Steve Pearson Guitar and Vocals.  They’re based in Cashmere Washington, but do shows in the Seattle area as well as Eastern Washington. You can find more information at https://britishracinggreen.weebly.com/

Keith Lilly eventually went on to form The Elementaries.  Sadly his wife, Krys died of cancer August 16, 2014.  Keith plays with The Heats when they do occassional reunions. He can be found on facebook.


Wayne Clack joined Maurice and The Clichés, a synth-pop band originally from Vancouver BC.  Before Clack joining they’d had a minor hit with a song called Softcore and one album, C’est la Vie.  Although they never charted after Clack joined they are said to have put on interesting performances and had enough popularity to have a compilation of their recordings re-released in 2007 as ‘Flogging A Dead Horse”  Wayne has returned to his home state, California.  He’s also on facebook.

Don Short and Rick Bourgoin spent about two years rehearsing and writing for their band Avalon.  Rick says they were trying to take a direction similar to The Fix or Simple Minds.  Atlantic Records took an interest in the band and paid for 18 songs recorded at London Bridge Studios.  “But then….crickets” says Rick.  A couple of years later the band was pared down and became ‘Luna Park’.  In 1991 Bourgoin left for Los Angeles and Don continued under the name ‘Living Out Loud’.  That incarnation only lasted a couple of gigs and Don Short removed himself, mostly, from the music business.

In 2006 Mark Mosholder (who had been in Avalon and Luna Park) convinced Don to start playing again.  Rick, Mark and Don got together and formed the band Random Manors.  The band released a self-titled EP in 2008 and began work on a full length album. The trio’s friend, Tom Pfaeffle, who was their engineer and owner of The Tank where they had been finishing up basic tracks was shot and killed in July 2009. ‘It took us two years to finish the tracks at our rehearsal studio at Don’s’ says Rick Bourgoin.  We played our last gig (although we didn’t know it at the time) at St. Michelle Winery in September 2014, opening for Boston. There are videos on YouTube”.

Rick Bourgoin still plays around the northwest.  One of his projects is ‘Two Sheds Jackson’ (named after an old Monty Python skit) The band includes Charlie Morgan, Steve Boyce and Pat Gossan.  They play occasional gigs around the northwest.

Don Short now works at an Eastside lumber store.  He gets recognized by old friends and fans from time to time… say hello if you see him.

Jon Kertzer-who was so critical to The Heats early success, has just started a new show on the low-powered KVRU radio station in Rainier Valley. He’s interviewing and playing the music of many of the bands covered here.  Jon’s currently working on number 17 and 18 of his series, but since the station is still new, his program has only been on the air for a short time, so he has a backlog of shows taped.
He tells me;
“I’m covering everything pre-1985 basically. It’s not focused on any one genre, Yesterday I interviewed Jim Valley. I was at his house all day. I’ve done shows on ‘60s rock and I did shows recently on ‘The Visible Targets’ and ‘The Crazy Eights’ from Portland. The first show I did was on ‘The Daily Flash’ and Jerry Miller from ‘Moby Grape’. The furthest I’ve gone back to the 1940s, I did a show about the Al Smith photo exhibit at MOHAI.

I also interviewed Pat Wright, the gospel singer who did a show with Overton Barry, She just did a show with LeRoy Bell from Bell and James (The thread here is that LeRoy Bell’s bass player/manager Terry Morgan was the long-time bass player for Pat Wright’s ‘Total Experience Gospel Choir’.

“My interviews contain a lot of music” Kertzer tells me. “I mean it’s a two hour show.  I play about an hour that is interview and an hour that is music”.

Jon’s show is on Saturdays and Sundays at 6pm on KVRU at 105.7 but the signal is very weak. This upcoming September the station intends to start streaming online

So do we need a post-mortem?  Probably not, but I’ll include a few opinions anyway.  

What made The Heats “The Next Big Thing” into “Could Have Beens”?

In 2016 Jon Kertzer was asked what went wrong by Feliks Banel.
“That’s the $64,000 question,” Kertzer said. “I mean, I worked really hard to try to make that happen. That was my job as manager to try and get them national attention and we did have several national tours. When we went to places like New York, I would take their music around to all the record labels, and talk to them about getting signed. And they came pretty close.

Our timing was a bit off,” he continued. “By the time we were talking seriously to labels, it was just a little late, and the rage for power pop sound had passed.”

Later, Jon tells me
“The Heats came across better in a club rather than arena rock sorts of venues. They came from a similar DIY background- they certainly were never a punk band, but really not that far away from The Ramones in their attitude and energy on stage. really they were more a throwback to Beatles/Stones British invasion bands, crossed the 70’s British pub-rock like Dr. Feelgood, Elvis Costello, Nick Lowe and similar bands”,

In a letter former Rocket owner/editor (and now a three time NYT best seller list alumni) Charles R. Cross says;

“At The Rocket, we were boosters, but our coverage only helped them become the biggest local band. In the end the Heats had poor timing — they were too late for the era when a regional band could break out a top 40 hit without a major label behind them, and too early for the Seattle wave that would come a few years later. Seattle was just too far away from the center of culture in that day for them to find a wider audience than our tavern circuit. But that was true for every band from the northwest in that period. The next Seattle act to make it big was, surprisingly from an entirely different genre: Kenny G.”.

Erik Lacitis tells me:

“I still listen to the music, I’ve done a number of rock and roll groups and I remember talking to one guy…it could have been one of the Wailers..one of the early ‘60s northwest groups that had regional success but not national, and he explained to me ‘You know…you can have great music but you’re on a merry-go-round. It goes around and then you happen to get the ring, but most of the time you don’t’ and it’s absolutely true. I think that they had everything but there’s lots of groups that for whatever reason, it just didn’t happen. It don’t mean they didn’t have the talent, but it didn’t mean anything. It just didn’t happen, That’s just the way it is. The other thing is they weren’t getting the radio play that they should have because at that time they were British-type power-pop and that’s not what Seattle rock radio was playing, It just didn’t register. Radio was playing more anthem Heavy Metal stuff and it didn’t register to them.  For some reason radio just couldn’t understand it. They couldn’t understand someone like Elvis Costello or anybody like that…they just couldn’t. At that time radio was so powerful, and you needed that, If you had a bunch of guys…and they were all guys…I don’t think there were any women in radio then…if it didn’t register with them because it was alien the band didn’t get the airplay. It just didn’t register with the radio programmers, so that’s the way it was.

Ken Deans is understandably upbeat about his taking part in ‘The Heats’.  He says;
.I’ve had a very fortunate life all the way around and it all started with ‘The Heats’. It propelled me into a career that I could have only dreamed about. I’ve gotten to do so many things and really I can tie a lot of it back to ‘The Heats’

I used to say ‘come see the Heats: You could come see The Heats and and forget about anything else going on in your life’.  That was really important to me. Part of what we were about was ‘you can come see The Heats and go on vacation.  Forget about your job.  Forget about your fucked-up romance; whatever it is.  Just come out here and have fun. That was really important to us”

Steve Pearson says
Overall I’m very very proud and honored to ever have been in that band and basically 35 years later I’m still reaping the rewards of being in ‘The Heats’. I don’t know how the other guys think about it; I’ve never even talked to them about it. I just know that I’ve been treated special and given a place in the musical world that I probably don’t deserve since I was 24 years old. In a way I look at it as a bit of a responsibility. I still feel like I have to pay respect to what I was part of and would never say anything against that whole time; the audience, the band members, the songs; I would never ever do anything but say “wow. that was friggin’ great and I got to be there, and I loved every minute of it”.

I feel a bit odd making my own assessment here  because my job is to report, not to give my opinion; but I’ve been in or around the music business all my adult life and have seen how random things can be.  Sometime it comes down to ‘who you know’, and sometimes it’s purely arbitrary.  It could even have to do with how screwed-up a day the A&R rep has had when they come see you.
Then I think about reading something somewhere that Steve Pearson said;

“These record company guys are real weird guys. They don’t like telling you whether you are or aren’t a hot commodity. I guess it’s part of their image that they’re supposed to be very cool so they act real cool. I’ve met four or five of these guys.  People just say to me ‘this is so-and-so and he’s from a record company.  I say ‘oh great!’ and they go drink a Coke”.

 

Steve Pearson and Steve Aliment will be doing a show

Thursday, July 12 at 6:30 PM – 9 PM at

McMenamins Anderson School

18607 Bothell Way NE, Bothell, Washington 98011

Please feel free to correct or add information in the comments section below.

-Dennis R. White.  Sources; Feliks Banel “Before Grunge and Macklemore, The Heats rocked the Northwest” (My Northwest (July 13, 2016): Krys Lilly “The Heaters” (pnwbands.com, retrieved June 7, 2018);  Richard Rossi “Live At The Showbox, 1979” (Power Pop News.com, retrieved June 1, 2018); Heather Frye “A Wiser Man Takes a Look Back; Singer Songwriter is Happier Leaving His 1980s Rock Star Life Behind Him” (Lewiston Tribune, June 27, 2003); Erik Lacitis “Hire A Sitter And Get Cookin’ With The Heaters” (The Seattle Times, Friday August 6, 1999); Northwest Underground Rock 1980 – 2021“June 2011-The Heats: Have an Idea (www.greenmonkeyrecords.com, retrieved June 1, 2018); Michael Sutton “The Heats” www.allmusic.com, retrieved June 2, 2018); Tim M. Otto “ Could The Second Beatles Have Existed In Seattle In The Early 80’s?” (A Short Story About The Heats” (No Depression, February 19, 2013); Peter Blecha “ Sonic Boom: The  History of Northwest Rock from “Louie Louie” to “Smells Like Teen Spirit” (Backbeat Books, 2009); Beverly Paterson “Forgotten series: The Heats – Smoke (1998)” (Something Else!, March 8, 2012);  Ken Deans “interview with author” (May 20, 2018);  Steve Pearson “interview with author” (June 1, 2018); Rick Bourgoin “interview with author” (June 4, 2018); Erik Lacitis “interview with author” (June 9, 2018); Patrick MacDonald “The Edmonds Contributed to Rise of Bands” (The Seattle Times, September 14,1979); Erik Lacitis “Rock of Many Ages, Despite The Top 40” (Seattle Times, May 12, 1979); Erik Lacitis “The Heats: A Goodbye.  It Was Good Rock and it Lasted Five Good Years” (Seattle Times, December 29, 1983); Sandy Graham “Shelley Siegal-A Canadian Success Story Not to be Forgotten” (Cashbox Magazine [Canada] February 11. 2011); Gaye Guida-Dennis “Screamer Freddie Dennis will Rock the House again!” You Caring, https://www.youcaring.com/freddiedennis-961774, retrieved June 12, 2018);

 

NW SONGWRITERS: A STRAW POLL

James Marshall Hendrix, Paratrooper, 101st Airborne Division 1960-1961

Recently I took a straw poll of friends asking:

Who do you think is the most important songwriter to come out of the Northwest? This is not a quiz and there are no wrong answers.

Some of the responses were obvious, many were downright baffling and others were very close to what my personal belief of what a songwriter truly is.  I left my question open-ended as an experiment to find out what others might give their explanation of what and whom constitutes an important songwriter.  I made sure to tell those I polled  there were no wrong answers, allowing them to offer up names without spending too much time or offering up suggestions simply because they thought the person they chose was based on others’ (especially critics’) dubbing that artist as “most important”  Several people went on to ask what I defined as “important”.  My reply was that I did not want to define the term.  Everyone uses different criteria of what is “important”; besides I was more interested in others’ opinions, than my own.  I asked people to decide what was important to them because this was also an exercise was for me to understand what other people considered worthy.  I wanted to learn about how others saw things and challenge myself a bit in what I personally feel is important in a songwriting. I saw this as just as much a lesson for me.  It was by no means a popularity contest.

So here I’ll take my natural tendency to digress.

I am a fan of good songwriting.  I cannot put my finger on what it is exactly but I have certain criteria.  I think when a song’s lyric is written in a way that it may be interpreted universally by listeners is a good start. This is probably why so many songs deal in lyrics about the many states of love; from it’s stirrings, it’s longings, it’s attainment and it’s loss. I believe original, creative lyrics are important, but I know they are not always crucial to good songwriting.  They don’t need to be about love…but they usually speak to the human condition.  Beyond the universality of lyrics, the actual music is just as important.  I think sometimes people put more emphasis on lyrics rather than their combination with melody or arrangement. In my opinion all good songs are founded in the music.  I suppose most people at least subconsciously know that, despite the overemphasis of  lyrics alone.  But there’s no doubt a lyric can as easily set the mood as a melody.

Anyone who’s listened to the work of Frank Zappa might  point to “Peaches En Regalia”  (among others) as an example of brilliant songwriting  without the use of lyrics.  None of us can say what the song is actually about (except peaches dressed in the signs of their royal or noble status?) but there’s no doubt this song-among many other instrumentals-has been crafted, and composed in a way that each and every note seems to belongs exactly where it lies. It seems unlikely that anyone else would compose this particular song other than Frank Zappa. It contains a mix of elaborate musicianship, purposely-cheesy sounding orchestration and themes and a distinct left-of-center pop sensibility, although it’s highly influenced by jazz. For all it’s grandiosity of Peaches en Regalia uses an economy of tones and instrumentation.  It relies more on the unusual juxtaposition of sounds and an exceptional thematic device. More precisely; it’s fun to listen to.





On the other hand sometimes lyrics carry the day…a witty, unusual, or unexpected lyric might save an otherwise mediocre melody, but good songwriting rarely relies on the melody alone  The truth, to me, is that good songwriting is the result of craftspeople who devote their lives to songwriting, with little regard to who records their material….even  themselves.  This is what makes Leiber and Stoller, Carole King and Gerry Goffin, Burt Bacharach and Hal David, Lennon and McCartney (together or separately) soar above the rest.  Songwriting is a craft unto itself to these writers  It goes beyond the performance of others, though there certainly are a large number of songwriters that are best suited to record their own material.  All of this congealed during the mid-19th century “Tin Pan Alley” an actual place in Manhattan on West 28th Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues,  “Tin Pan Alley” later became a collective term for the musicians, songwritersand publishers who dominated New Yorks’ popular music up until the mid-20th century.   If you ever visit New York City you will find a  comerrative plaque on the sidewalk on 28th Street between Sixth St. and Broadway.  Later, as songwriters drifted into the early days of rock and pop The Brill Building (1619 Broadway)  was considered their spiritual home.  The building had previously been a hotbed of activity for songwriting and publishing of music for the “big bands” like those of Benny Goodman or  The Dorsey brothers.  In the 1950s and the early 1960s  songwriters like Neil Diamond, Ellie Greenwich, Johnny Mercer, Billy Rose, Bobby Darin and Neil Sedaka Goffin and King, Leiber and Stoller emerged from The Brill building.  It proved to be a very successful time for songwriters pumping out well-crafted songs for teen idols, budding pop-stars and “girl groups”.  During the mid-60s “Tin Pan Alley” and The Brill Building became somewhat outdated.  By this time bands, individuals and those who would become singer/songwriters emerged, as well as the pop music charts becoming extremely influenced by “The British Invasion” The British had styled their s roots in the American blues rather than American popular music in general.  Soon the center of the music world shifted to the west coast even though many New York City-based songwriters were still able to create a hit or two.

 

In many cases the craftsmanship of songwriting is enhanced by the writers’ own renditions of their work..  This is the case with the aforementioned Elvis Costello or the collective work of a band like XTC.  Although I’d say there have been successful interpretations of Elvis Costello songs, it’s Elvis that usually supplies the definitive version.  In the case of XTC, it’s hard to imagine anyone else properly interpreting their work.

Other times we can actually hear and imagine the songwriter’s “voice” when a particular song is covered.  A case in point is The Monkee’s version of Neil Diamond’s “I’m a Believer”…really, who else could have written this song besides Neil?  Even though Diamond released his own version of it (about a year after The Monkee’s hit version) The song attributed to The Monkees is the one that counts and it should be!  The performance was actually recorded by guitarists Al Gorgoni and Sal Ditroia, Buddy Saltzman on drums, Carol Kaye on bass,  Artie Butler on the Vox Continental organ and the song’s producer, Jeff Barry, adding piano and tambourine.





It is Micky Dolenz’ vocals that add the typical Monkees sound, but the craftsmanship of Neil Diamond is the real star, no matter who played on the recording.  Aside from being a huge hit for The Monkees, Diamond once again shows his prowess as a songwriter because the song has also successfully interpreted by other artists-from The Four Tops to Robert Wyatt (his first recording after the June 1973 accident that left him a paraplegic).  It’s also famously been recorded by Smash Mouth for the film Shrek in 2001 but not quite as inventive or successful as other versions.

Another case may be made for the song “Theme from The Valley of The Dolls” as interpreted by Dionne Warwick.  The song itself was written by André and Dory Previn, instead of Dionne’s usual writers throughout her career, Hal David and Burt Bacharach.  Despite the mighty trio of Warwick, David and Bacharach, The Theme From The Valley of The Dolls remains as powerful an interpretation as anything else she has sung.  Of course it is Dionne’s incredible reading of the song that makes it so heart-tugging and melancholy as well as hopeful.  Another example of an interpretation of brilliant songwriting by another artist is Elvis Costello’s rendition of  “(What’s So Funny ‘bout) Peace Love and Understanding?”  I know I’m treading on thin ice here, but I’d say Costello’s rendition of an excellent song written by the gifted Nick Lowe is the definitive version of the song.  I believe this not only a sign of a great interpreter of another’s song, but also the sign of Lowe’s ability to write a near-perfect, unforgettable anthem.

My point (and I know I’ve been exhaustive about it) is that there is an animal called “the songwriter” whose first duty is to write solid, universal themes that combine well thought out lyrics and original, innovative  musical themes. This is a craft that takes hard work….much harder than merely performing the song, although a good song always deserves a good interpreter..  A good songwriter sculpts the song like Michelangelo, who claimed the end product was already within the stone.  It was his job to chip away enough to reveal what was already there.

Getting back to my straw poll, none of the writers’ work included writers included in the “Great American Songbook”. Although Spokane’s Al and Charles Rinker are considered among the talents of the era,  The more famous can be said to emerge out of the Northwest from that era is not someone we’d think or as a songwriter; it is the singer; Bing Crosby. In the late 1920s Bing  joined his Spokane friend Al Rinker  and pianist/singer Harry Barris to form The Rhythm Boys, who were featured as part of Paul Whiteman’s Orchestra. They had phenomenal success with both Rinker and Harris’s compositions as well as others’ writing.  The song below was written by Bing Crosby and Harry Barris. The song isn’t the most memorable of their output, but I’ve included it as an example of Bing Crosby’s early crack as a writer.





Al Rinker’s  brother Charles  wrote twenty-seven songs with Gene de Paul (who’d also written with Johnny Mercer) including “Your Name is Love”, which has been recorded by George Shearing and Nancy Wilson as well as other songs written by himself that have been recorded  by Frankie Lane, Red McKenzie, Shearing, Nancy Wilson, and Alan Dawson. Although both Al and Charles Rinker were capable songwriters who  crafted their music it’s hard to think of them as “important” since they are all but forgotten today.

I admit (once again) that I believe one of the hallmarks of an important songwriter is their ability to affect interpretations and long-term influence.  This can be somewhat confounding, because a composer’s work may be forgotten today, but at some time in the future re-discovered and influence unborn generations.  For my purposes I will only reflect on writers that we consider estimable from any time in the past up to the current era.  We cannot look into the future, nor can we anticipate a great songwriter’s work ever coming to light.

So let’s return to the original question:

Who do you think is the most important songwriter to come out of the Northwest?  

This was the question I asked in my straw poll, but I also invite YOU to ponder this messy question.  After all, the Northwest has a history of producing “important” songwriters, keeping in mind that the question in itself is based not only opinion, but personal taste and perhaps even a history of songwriting on your own part; and as I pointed out, there are no wrong answers

It shouldn’t come as a prize that the most often songwriter mentioned (according to my unscientific poll). was Kurt Cobain.  There’s absolutely no doubt he could write an excellent pop song, and partially wrap it up as something that could be defined loosely as “punk”.  I will refrain from the title “grunge” because I find it a useless and intellectually lazy…Any group of artists who’s output includes songs as diverse as Pearl Jam’s “Even Flow”, Seven Year Bitch’s M.I.A. or Nirvana’s cover of  David Bowie’s “The Man Who Sold The World” does not define a genre.  It might mark a period of successful Northwest bands, but the term itself denies the individuality of the bands who fall under this nonsensical term.  We can’t even compare it to the thread that ran through the 1960’s “San Francisco Sound” which largely relied on one similar electric guitar sound.

So, we know the place Kurt Cobain many people attribute to him. I believe most of Kurt’s talent was in listening intently to what had come before him, whether it was The Beatles or one of his particular favorites, Sonic Youth. He was able to distill everything from metal to punk to Americana and pop in crafting his songs.  The only question we can ask is, had he lived longer would his output have been as high-quality as what he left us?  We’ll never know.





The second most mentioned songwriter was Jimi Hendrix.  This seemed perplexing to me since I have always considered him an innovator and a performer rather than a songwriter; but looking a bit closer I can see brilliance in his writing, even though his output is far less than I’d have liked to see. I’d always seen his real strength as innovating the sound of the electric guitar and his incredible showmanship.   It was possible for him to “ramble” along a riff, playing guitar, with no discernable song structure, and still overwhelm and amaze his listeners.  I will admit I thought  that the core of his guitar pyrotechnics was strong, but were birthed by somewhat derivative standard blues riffs. Looking back this was a common practice among his contemporaries, especially among the British where he spent a lot of his later years.

His strong suit was exploding and expanding from his riff.  Even though I am a huge fan of his playing and performance I consider a handful of his songs contain signs of great songwriting in them.  For instance“The Wind Cries Mary”, “If Six Were Nine” and my personal favorite “Angel”. It’s fairly well-known that “Amgel” was written about a dream Jimi had of his mother coming to him after her death.  The song is considered by many (myself included) as the best song Jimi Hendrix ever wrote.  Again, I understand I may be walking on thin ice here; but the theme, it’s lyrics and it’s lovely melody is so universal that it can mean something special, for many reasons to its listeners.  It’s also telling that Hendrix spent about two years perfecting the song and how he wanted to record it. One other aspect we might consider is near the time of his death, Jimi was contemplating an entirely different approach to his music.





Some folk writers were mentioned, but to be fair I think some of the best folk writers near the Pacific Northwest happen to be Canadian. If Ian Tyson (of “Ian and Sylvia” and “The Great Speckled Bird”) had been born 20 miles south of his hometown of Victoria B.C. he’d  be one of my top candidates for important Norhtwest songwriters.  However, due to the constraints placed on my own choice of covering only the history of NW music of the U.S. I thought it unfair to include anything outside Washington, Oregon and Idaho.  Ian Tyson has written an incredible song book including “Someday Soon” and “Four Strong Winds” His songs have been covered by Neil Young,  Moe Bandy, Johnny Cash, Hank Snow, Bob Dylan,The Kingston Trio  Marianne Faithfull, John Denver, Trini Lopez, Waylon Jennings, Joan Baez, Glen Yarborough, Bobby Bare, Harry Belafonte, Tanya Tucker, Suzy Bogguss, Lynn Anderson and countless others.  Although Canadians could reasonably disagree, perhaps the most popular (and most definitive version outside of Tyson’s) is “Someday Soon”sung by the Seattle-born Judy Collins. But Tyson is a near-mythic figure in Canada, and will always be considered as one of the most important songwriters in Canadian history no matter if we include British Columbia as part of the Pacific Northwest or not.  He is identified and rightly claimed as a purely Canadian artist.

Loretta Lynn was mentioned; an excellent choice.  But Loretta will always be “A Coal Miner’s Daughter” and though she lived in Washington, and her career was kickstarted here with the help of Buck Owens, Kentucky has always been her real home in her heart, and it’s there and Nashville that she’s written the bulk of her output.

Local heroes like Scott MacCaughey, Rusty Willoughby. Alice Stewart, Gary Minkler, Pete Pendras, Jon Auer, Ken Stringfellow, Eric Apoe and Ben Gibbard were were all mentioned as “important” songwriters..  There’s no doubt these artists deserve respect for their work…I’d only add that Gary Minkler, over the past five decades,  is also one of the most dynamic performers the Northwest has ever produced.

Ann and Nancy Wilson of Heart got lots of recognition.  Although Heart put out some spectacular music, not all of it was written by the Wilson sisters collectively or apart.  Very early on the two of them brought in the very talented songwriter abnd collaborator, Sue Ennis, to work with them.  Sue would eventually go on to be one of the members of the Wilson’s post-Heart projects; The Love Mongers. We can’t dismiss the Wilson sisters’ work, but Sue Ennis may be the least-known of great Northwest songwriters.  Her work  with the Wilsons helped mere rock songs and ballads become great songs and ballads.

Quincy Jones is another good example of a writer whose output will always be considered genius even though his writing seems secondary to other facets of his career. He isn’t particularly known for his songwriting simply because it is overshadowed by his career as an excellent jazz performer, and later as one of the world’s most renowned producers and arrangers.

Ray Charles was mentioned several times for his R&B contributions.  Although there’s no doubt he was a dedicated and talented performer, he’s often assumed to have written many songs he did not actually write.  The best examples of this are the songs “Georgia On My Mind”, his definitive version of a song written by Hoagy Carmichael and Stuart Gorrell in 1930. Another of Ray Charles’ signature tunes is “Hit The Road Jack”. The song was written by a friend of Ray Charles, Percy Mayfield. Mayfield initially recorded a demo of the song for Art Rupe, a producer and one of the most influential figures in the US music industry at the time.  Rupe was running  Specialty Records, and “Hit The Road Jack” found it’s way to Ray Charles rather than be fully recorded by Percy Mayfield.  This may be evidence that Charles himself was not as important a songwriter as others, but there’s little doubt he is one of the most influential artists in American music. No legitmate list of the most imortant American artists would be complete without him.

Mia Zapata was also mentioned by many people; a songwriter that left us too early to provide the much larger body of work she otherwise might have given us; still  she certainly inspired one of the most powerful, angry and cathartic songs of 90s Seattle music- M.I.A – a song by Seven Year Bitch that I’ve already mentioned.





It had to be pointed out more than once that there were actual women songwriters who need to be mentioned.  Perhaps it is the male domination of rock fans that prevents more talented women their due.  Aside from the aforementioned Wilson sisters, Mia Zapata and Alice Stewart there is a plethora of women writers that deserve to be mentioned: Carrie Acre, Amy Denio Kathleen Hanna, Corin Tucker and Carrie Brownstein, Jean Grey, Kimya Dawson, Neko Case all deserve recognition, and I’m certain there are far more that I’m failing to mention.  What’s more, these women should not be consigned to a ghetto of being “women” or “girls”  Their output is just as important-sometimes more important-than their male counterparts and a good songwriter does not rely on sex

Surprisingly it also had to be pointed out that Portland and the rest of Oregon are part of the Northwest too.  The prolific Chris Newman, Fred Cole, Greg Sage among others got mention.  Eastern Washington seemed to be under-represented too.  Folk singer and songwriter Danny O’Keefe (Wenatchee) got a single mention.  The late jazz great Larry Coryell, who learned his guitar chops in Richland, Washington before moving to Seattle and then on to jazz fusion history around the world only got a single mention.  Jazz players and writers did not make much impact on the list…surprisingly Chehalis, Washington born Ralph Towner (of both the bands Oregon and The Paul Winter Consort) wasn’t  mentioned at all.  Nor was

I had promised not to mention names but I’m going to make an exception.  Penelope Houston (who is a Northwesterner despite being mostly associated with San Francisco). Replied to my question with  a simple “phew”; I assume because it’s so hard to begin listing the “important” songwriters that have come out of the Northwest.  Of course she was too modest to name herself among those important songwriters. Houston’s writing in general deserves mention since her importance can never be overestimated.  But it would be important based simply as a co-author of what may be the single greatest American punk anthem of all time: “The American In Me”  The rest of her output stands above most others during the first wave of west coast punk as well.

As I’ve said there were a few artists named that baffled me. Perhaps it’s because I’m not familiar with their work or that they are in fact not from the Northwest.  One of the artists named in this category was Bruce Hornsby.  I agree that Hornsby is a terriffic songwriter but his bio states he was born in Williamsburg Virginia, and I could find no Northwest ties.  If he does have ties in the Northwest, please contact me with the information.  Another mention was of the Canadian musician and social justice activist Bill Bourne. Bill was closely associated with Scottish traditionalists The Tannahill Weavers during the 1980s.  They were originally based in Paisley Scotland, but considered a world-renowned ensemble. Bill has also worked with various other world-roots and traditionalist artists including ex-Tannahill Weaver Alan MacLeodm, Shannon Johnson, Lester Quitzau,, Aysha Wills, Eivør Pálsdóttir, Wyckham Porteous, Madagascar Slim and Jasmine Ohlhauser. Bill was born in Red Deer Alberta, and grew up in   Besides Alberta, Bill also spent time on the road worldwide, and for a short time in TorontoBill Bourne is certainly worthy of mention, as he’s won the Canadian Juno award several times.  But I know of no Northwest connection outside of  recording with vocalist Hans Stamer and Vancouver, B.C. guitarist Andreas Schuld on the album No Special Rider, released in 1997.  Once again, if you know of ties to the Northwest, please leave them in the comments section.




A less baffling recommendation was  saxophone great Skerik.  I personally am not familiar with Skerik’s output as a songwriter, but definitely familiar with his (often improvised) brilliant performances. Perhaps I am underestimating his output, but I am certainly not underestimating his importance as a player or as an innovator.  Please set the record straight as far as Skerik as a songwriter.  He’s consistently been one of my favorite Northwest artists.

I suspect others were mentioned because they are important figures that deserves all of our respect.  The most notable of these songwriters is Richard Peterson, who is practically a living treasure of Seattle. I was happy to see Anthony Ray (Sir-Mix-a-Lot) mentioned.  The submitter rightly pointed out that Mix-a-Lot has undoubtedly influenced and outsold many of the indie and/or famous Seattle bands of the 1990s.  So often people of color are left out of anything to do with “rock” no matter how much pull they have. Besides Mix-a-Lot, Ishmael Butler and Thee Satisfaction were mentioned because they are probably better known nationally and world-wide than many of the others on this list.

https://youtu.be/4lyUp_Z3t4w

Finally we reach what I consider the pinnacle of “songwriters’ songwriters”  These are the best of the best in my opinion.  I know I have overlooked many great NW songwriters; but I consider these craftsmen to represent the high-water mark (so far) of not only Northwest writers, but among the entirety of ALL American songwriters.  This  list includes Ellensburg, Washington-born Mark Lanegan, Ellliott Smith (who was born in Texas but grew up and first found fame in Portland Oregon), Eugene Oregon native Tim Hardin, and a guy from Shreveport Louisiana who moved to Bremerton, Washington at an early age, the late Ron Davies.  It was satisfying to see each ot these get multiple mentions.

I recognize that everyone has their favorite songwriter, and usually that person writes within at least one of the individual’s musical tastes.  Keep in mind  I said there are no wrong answers in this unscientific quiz or its overview. In fact I hate the Rolling Stone type lists of “bests”.  Many of us know they are B.S. and some publications concoct these kinds of lists to drive circulation and advertising sales.  If that’s not the case they’re often put together by elitist critics and celebrities.  I believe everyone has a right to their personal favorites.  I admit at one time I too was a snotty elitist who looked down on other people’s choices…but for many years now I have looked at music in a far more ecumenical way, and my musical horizons have expanded because of it.




If you have a favorite Northwest artist that you believe deserves recognition as an important songwriter post it in the comments section below. Your opinion is always valid no matter what others think and any additions to this list may well open whole new musical worlds to other people.  I’ve also made a list of every songwriter submitted, since I have left so many talented people out of this story..  You may or may not agree if they’re worthy-but someone else does.

In the sidebar is a list of everyone voted for that I left out in the above article. It’s in no particular order of importance:  Feel free to add your choice in the comments section below.

 

-Dennis R. White

THE BIRD

Writing the history of a band or a venue can be a daunting task; especially when the author knows far less on the subject than many of his or her readers.  It’s with this trepidation that I approach writing about The Bird.  In most cases the music histories I write rely on research, articles, written or oral histories and scholarly reports..  One-on-one interviews and original documentation also helps; but in the case of The Bird, there is not much documentation or  written histories.  Online blogs and books that mention The Bird often repeat the same exact entries word-for-word. This, in my view is a very poor practice and plagiarism.  However this is the internet age where people recycle all kinds of information they don’t need to be accountable for.

There are at least two authors I know that have done independent research on The Bird There are also others who have kept the memory of The Bird alive in their own individual ways.  I did not arrive in Seattle until 1979; almost a year after The Bird had ceased to exist.  Many of the musicians who had played at The Bird had left Seattle for greener pastures even before the advent of The Bird including The Mentors, The Lewd, The Screamers, Penelope Houston who would front The Avengers.  All were no longer on the scene by the time I’d arrived. Still, many of the fantastic friends I would make in Seattle had been involved or regulars of The Bird.

Many of us have foggy memories of our past, and very little ephemera to document The Bird exists, so I have had to rely on incomplete information and small bits I have learned from friends about The Bird over the years. It is in this spirit that I ask you read this story, keeping in mind that what I am trying is to build a history of The Bird…a history that has been seriously overlooked.  I hope what I write here is accurate, but I know I cannot live up to that hope throughout this story.  This is meant to be the basic outline of a realistic, accurate and detailed portrait of one of Seattle’s most important cultural touchstones.  I welcome corrections, additions, suggestions, photos, posters and most of all, memories.  As I’ve said, the history of The Bird has never been properly recorded..  What I have to write is incomplete without as much input form those who were there.  If you have anything to add, please leave comments in the space provided below. This will help me build a more accurate and complete history.

There’s plenty of points of departure that we could begin the story of The Bird.  It came along after punk had established itself in many other cities in the U.S, Canada, Britain and Australia.  We could discuss the dissatisfaction of young people with their future prospects, the D.I.Y. ethic, or what had led up to the need for an all-ages punk club in Seattle or youth culture in general,  But that would take an entire dissertation…which this already nearly is.   Let’s leave it at the well-known impetus that the gay troupe Ze Whiz Kidz who had broken down the door for punk to make headway in Seattle. Let’s  also point to the T.M.T. show, (The Telepaths, The Meyce and The Tupperwares) which wasn’t exactly “punk” but also opened the gateway of the new, alternative and music and a kick-start for the local scene.  There are the early practitioners and promoters of punk rock or new wave; consider that in the late ‘70s the terms were interchangeable.  These would include Jim Basnight, Neil Hubbard, Lee Lumsden, Mike Vraney and dozens of others including Sheli Story, Eldon Hoke,Upchuck, Ralph and Judy Becker who’s store Kitchy Koo catered to the hoards of Roosevelt High School students that would dominate the early Seattle punk scene.  As far as helping to outfit the new “look” it would only be proper to mention the influence (and gear) of Danny Eskinazi’s store, Dreamland, then located in the University District.

But let’s start with two individuals; Damon Titus and George Gleason,  Although they went to separate high schools and lived in different parts of the city they were thrown together as members of the Unitarian Church’s  Liberal Religious Youth (LRY), around 1969 or 1970. According to George Gleason, within a short time after meeting Damon he joined his band Fuzzy Peach.  At the time they were a folk-rock trio  trio with two sisters from George’s high school, Lisa and Chrissie MacPhaden. Once they became a quartet they spent a year or two on the coffee house and all-ages circuit.

By 1972 Damon moved to Olympia WA to study at The Evergreen State College (TESC).  George also moved to Olympia with an eye to starting a more rock-oriented band.  Don Harper, a friend of George’s from high school, would became their road manager. Roger Husbands, an older guy Damon and George knew through the LRY was hired as manager.  The two thought Roger seemed to know his way around business and theater, but in truth, he had little experience in management. Fellow Evergreeners Suzanne Grant, who’d been a jazz singer was recruited as vocalist and Alan Mundial came in on drums. Mundial would later be replaced by Peter Barnes when the band decided to move to Seattle and Alan chose to continue his studies at TESC. John  Adams was the original bassist and later replaced by Sal Paradise. (Walter Szalwinski)  Along with Damon and George they became The Fruitland Famine Band who deserve their own entry here at a later date,  The band was successful doing gigs in and around Olympia and Seattle and eventually moved to a large, old Mansion on the corner of Union and Minor on Seattle’s First Hill.  The band had a fair amount of success playing cover songs in  bars around the Olympia and Seattle area.  Later they moved further afield to play the greater Northwest and Western Canada.  The band did a few originals, but were mostly playing bar patrons’ favorites…slightly FMish music, some popular covers, and venturing into country and boogie classics  They were not the “average” Top 40 band, but they were a cover band nonetheless.

The Mansion at Minor and Union was across the street from the The Summit Alternative High School.  It was through these students, who used the Minor Mansion’s  garage as their unofficial smoking lounge that the the members of the Fruitland Famine Band started to become familiar with the stirrings of punk rock.  George claims that everything changed when the band heard the albums The Runaways, The Ramones and the bootlegged Ramones Live at CBGB’s. “Finally we were hearing new music that was song-based, and infused with manic humor” says George.

Their act began to reflect those influences, and it was not entirely welcome by the bar crowd they playing to.  The band told manager Roger Husbands they were fed up with being a cover band and fed up with playing bars.  So The Fruitland Famine Band joined the now near-forgotten, and always underrated Uncle Cookie (featuring Ernie Sapiro, Mark Sargent, Conrad Uno and Brock “The Rock” Wheaton as their soundman) for a concert at Capitol Hill’s Oddfellows Hall at 915 East Pine.  The Oddfellows Hall would be the location of future punk shows, and was crucial to Seattle’s nascent punk rock movement.  It had also been the venue for Seattle’s first “punk” concert known forever as “The T.M.T. Show” on May 1, 1976.

George Gleason remembers:
As a goof, we started our set dressed in slick lounge outfits,playing disco and changed into leather and jeans, playing punk in the middle of the set”.  George also reports that “This evidently made quite an impression on the delicate mind of Patrick MacDonald, music writer for The Seattle Times”
MacDonald” according to George Gleason “has never since missed an opportunity to describe us as a band that once “stripped naked” on stage.  This would, of course, be only one of MacDonald’s misinterpretations of the rock music he generally covered.  Not only did MacDonald misinterpret and misreport concerts, for years it was rumored that he commonly sent proxies to events, and he’d write his reviews based on their notes…but we’ll never know for sure, and it certainly wouldn’t have been the first time a critic cribbed others’ notes.  MacDonald retired as a local music critic years ago, but he’s still an object of derision among Seattle musicians and the fans who once read his reviews.

On Oct 30th 1977, The Fruitland Famine Band threw an all-night “Come As You Were or Will Be “ party at the Minor Mansion.  The death of the FFB was declared and the birth of The Enemy, one of the west coast’s first punk bands. At this time Sal Paradiso was let go and Paul Hood (onetime member of The Meyce and future member of The Toiling Midgets and briefly with Student Nurse) was given bass duties.  The Enemy rented space in a vacant building in downtown Seattle and began writing and practicing all-original music,

Damon Titus says
“People forget that at the time downtown Seattle was boarded up buildings. The building at First and Spring was vacant, We were in a nine story building that was vacant.  We were next to the store Warshall’s-a sporting goods store.  The only ones we ever had to worry about disturbing was Warshall’s”

However there was one problem that made the rehearsal space sub-par
“We determined that the only problem was that there were these flyng iron fire doors between the two units that made the place sound terrible.  One day we took the station wagon and went up to Capitol Hill-somewhere around St. Jo’s parish with all these nice big mansions around. We went up there as scraggly looking punk rockers going door-to-door asking for newspapers….and they gave us all these old copies of The Seattle Times-enough to fill the station wagon.  Then we opened our side of those iron doors and filled the gap with all these old newspapers.   The incredible  thing is that later when we ended up getting closed down by the Seattle Fire Department the Fire Department were completely unaware of the newspapers.  Come to think of it it probably was really dangerous!”

Damon admits that part of The Enemy’s agenda was to open punk rock to as many venues as possible.  Roger and Damon had gone to San Francisco for the last Sex Pistols show on Jan. 14, 1978.  Their old friend and ex-Seattleite Penelope Houston had formed her own band in San Francisco, The Avengers, and they had been on the Sex Pistols bill at Winterland.  During their trip  it occurred to  that Damon and Roger that they should open their own rehearsal space as a club and showcase  West Coast punk bands. They also knew that there was enough local talent to fill out bills,
Since bands like The Lewd, The Mentors, The Screamers and The Avenger’s lead singer Penelope Houston all hailed from Seattle they  knew they could create a network of like-minded bands to play at the new club they planned.




Video by Jo David, March 3, 1978

I’ve never talked to her about this” says Damon, but I’ve heard Penelope talk  about feeling she was part of a West Coast team…playing all up and down the west coast.  There were people from L.A  like The Screamers and the Dils  who wanted to bring The Mabuhay (San Francisco’s premier punk club) up here. That’s kind of what we were doing  We had a real cool rehearsal space to work with”

So the die was cast.  Seattle was about to witness the opening of its first official all-ages all-punk club.

Peter Barnes has said that starting the Bird was possible because of what he calls infrastructure.  The band had financial resources (mostly contributed by a single member) good sound and lights systems and a knowledgeable sound technician, They had a space that could hold about the right size of crowd they’d expected-even though the club was often crowded beyond it’s legal limit. They had west coast band connections and bands themselves that were eager to play Seattle.

                                      

Sheli Story Roger Husbands, Neil Hubbard, Gregor Gayden, The Bird, 1978

Despite the credit to Roger Husbands as being the impetus for opening The Bird, it was actually run as a labor of love for The Enemy and their friends.  In actuality Husbands was simply a hired-hand to manage The Enemy’s affairs….at times better than others.  But he became the “official” face of the business/management side of the venture.  He was a bit older, looked more mature and didn’t wear punk rock clothing,  He looked responsible. It was his appearance and business-like approach that got the straggly looking Fruitland Famine Band and The Enemy taken seriously among the press, booking agents and licensing officials. He had helped secure the lease for The Enemy’s rehearsal space at 107 First Avenue.

“So” says Peter Barnes: “we got a pop machine and somebody to watch the door, and then it was a club”

Despite Peter’s tongue-in-cheek remark, it took more than a coke machine and a doorman to keep the club a going concern.  Fortunately The Bird  was run primarily by Husbands and The Enemy’s one-time soundman Don Harper. Various friends and volunteers took up the slack.

According to George Gleason;

“‘I can’t remember them all, but Neil Hubbard, Shelli Story and Gregor Gayden helped Roger & Don (who would eventually marry the band’s singer Suzanne Grant).  Rob Morgan was another one involved in working at the club; often manning the door and generally spreading laughter and mayhem.  Rob would later go on to found The Pudz and later The Squirrels…both bands that lay among the all-time most original bands-even though they chose, ironically, covers as departures for unexplored territory.

Neil Hubbard’s involvement cannot be overestimated.  He had been with this project from its inception and spent a good deal of time getting the message out. Some of the only bits of ephemera left over from The Bird are the press releases he’d written and released during The Bird’s short existence.  Hubbard was a natural for working at the club..  He had pulled off a major coup in 1977 getting a gig for The Ramones at an all-ages venue in Seattle.  

Originally The Ramones were booked to play a bar in Seattle.  Neil knew that bar patrons over the age of 21 were not the core following of The Ramones and that the 21+ crowd would be less interested in seeing a punk band in a bar than their natural fans in an all-ages venue; one that would accomodate the teens and young adults who were actually fans of The Ramones.  

On the first of March Neil  began trying to make contact with The Ramones, their tour manager, their label, or the band themselves….anyone who would listen to him. Eventually he found a contact with The Ramones tour agent and desperately tried to sway him into re-bookimg The Ramones outside a barm and in an all-ages venue.  After he made his argument the tour manager said “OK, if you can find a place the show’s yours”

Hubbard and his friend Robert Bennett then made a series of frustrating calls to venues that could have staged the event and found that none of them were available on The Ramones’ Seattle date. By chance they heard that The Olympic Hotel Ballroom was available the next Sunday night when the Ramones were scheduled to play Seattle  At the time The Olympic Hotel was the grande dame of Seattle hotels.  It had been built in 1924 and retained it’s luxurious architecture and interior.  It was known as the most prestigious hotel in the entire northwest.  The Olympic catered to a well-heeled clientele and had probably never hosted a rock show within it’s confines…-let alone a punk rock show.  In booking the ballroom Bennett simply told the management that he intended to hold a dance that would include live music.
The Ramones management agreed to play, and the Olympic’s staff were left in the dark about the details until the night of the show when hoards of punk rockers in full regalia began to descend on the hotel.  According to contemporaneous  accounts between 400 and 500 Ramones fans showed up to see the band with The Meyce opening,
This was a coup that came about by circumstances, but it was also a coup in the sense that for at least one night punks had infiltrated a society that despised them.  They had won…and although it was really a case of “necessity being the mother of invention”  it was an incredibly punk rock thing to do.

With this under his belt Hubbard was looked upon by the punk rock community as somewhat of a hero and a mastermind.  It was only natural he would also make his mark by helping to manage The Bird.  It also lent a certain amount of credibility to the project.  At the time Seattle punks were suspicious of The Enemy and their past as a quasi-country cover band.  The early days of punk required (a) that you make no money, and (b) did not achieve any kind of commercial success.  Ironically the bands punks had been influenced by-The Ramones, The Sex Pistols, The Clash, The Damned and other bands, were signed to major labels and were enjoying a modest amount of financial success.

An artist and their fans would expect a band to seek widespread fame nowadays, but at the time The Enemy were looked down upon…all this despite they had opened The Bird in their own space, had provided most of the financial backing, were bringing fantastic west coast bands playing on the high quality PA in their club and providing the punk community something they’d never had before…a “real” all ages club.  Perhaps the suspicion had to do with what Barnes had called their “infrastructure”.  The fact that they were becoming adept at songwriting was either ignored or seen as just another form of crass commercialism’

In her 2016 book DesperateTimes Maire Masco explains the self-imposed dilemna the average punk rocker faced.  Maire was just a few years behind the first generation of Seattle punks, but her observation of punk life in the late 70s and early ‘80s sums it up perfectly;

“Although we fashionably hated big business, we secretly desired to be rich, to have freedom from  money and the constant worry of paying the rent or purchasing food.” (Sounds perfectly bourgeoisie to me — how did those three syllables wax syphilitic anyhow?)”

Later Damon Titus would say
“When we started the Bird I was very aware that we were bringing what I used to call….I had all sorts  of names for it…”a three band format” or a “concert band format” ..We were bringing three bands a night, and nobody in Seattle was doing that at the time…It just didn’t exist. We needed a club like The Bird.  That was always part of our mission and we opened a few clubs around town. (to punk music).  We would be the first ones to open clubs around town to that format”.

Despite their mission and their actual contributions to the community, a vaguely negative vibe would follow them throughout their career.  It was a vibe that was unwarranted.



Now there was a club, but no name for it.  According to ‘The Strangest Tribe’, Stephen Tow’s excellent 2011  book on Seattle music history he repeats a story Neil Hubbard had told him:

“Initially Hubbard and the members of The Enemy struggled to come up with the name for the club.  Hubbard then ventured outside and noticed an old sign on the building.  “I went out and looked at it” he recalls “and went ‘Well it says John L. Bird Office Supplies’ Let’s just call it ‘The Bird’. You know [as in] ‘Fuck You!’ Perfect!”

Now with a name a date was set for the grand opening of The Bird; March 4, 1978.  A pre-gala event the night before took place as an introduction for  a new band  called Clone. The band was fronted by local maverick and unapologetically gay, Upchuck. The pre-opening was by invitation-only and gathered up “anyone who was anyone” that had been associated with Seattle punk, the press as well as the gay punk and glam community who had once revolved around Ze Whiz Kidz.  It’s either fortunate (or unfortunate depending on how one looks at it) that a video record of The Bird was created that night.  Local photographer, videographer, and all-around artist Jo David set up a back-drop and invited everyone attending to pose, jump around or otherwise mug to his video camera.  Although the video wasn’t shot as a spectacle it certainly is spectacularly full of those who populated the punk community of the day.  It leaves the viewer wanting more; to see the young fresh faces and probably much more innocent people they remember from the past-and in many cases those that still remain friends.  Ralph Becker (then of Kitchy Koo) recalls;

“Photos were taken due to the presence of Friends of the Rag, the clothing art and performance group.  We were invited to show up dressed as punks.  Some of the members didn’t quite get it, but most of us were interested, and friends of many of those in attendance.  I remember someone (Gregor Gayden?) putting a fist through the door window.  Lots of slamming.  Photos by Don Leber (which I believe are lost to time, but which I would love to see).  Jo making movies of what many thought punk was like.  It was an amazing event that brought the punk movement to Seattle consciousness, but in some ways it was an event where folks could act like New Yorkers”.

CLONE featuring Upchuck March 3, 1978

The now well-known producer Gordon Raphael described that night with these observations;

“We started his band which I named “Clone”-with Jeff Gossard  (cousin of Stone Gossard) who was already playing guitar with Chuck. Mike Davidson (later of The Blackouts and X-15) played bass  and  Dave Drury on drums.  Davidson and Drury were fresh from J. Sats Beret’s, confrontational Cool band The Lewd…Chuck had just recently recorded an amazing single called ‘Jacuzzi Floozie b/w Afterthought’ with Gossard and a super-talented Seattle drummer named Drake Eubanks, whom I never heard anything about after that.  We worked up a few original songs and threw in David Bowie’s ‘Station to Station’ as an opener and a cool song by The Runaways called ‘Hollywood’ which Chuckie delivered with a startlingly sleazy and passionate vocal performance. He had a very full deep trembling voice and could really project in a powerful, emotional way.

The first gig was the “press only” party that Chuck threw before our first show at The Bird” continues Raphael,  “How very irate and pissed off were the rest of the punk rockers from the scene when our unknown band had a well publicized party that most were not invited to! Clone’s first show at The Bird was a night to remember! First off, Chuckie made me put my unfashionable long hair up into a little boat captain’s hat and then wrapped my bare chest in clear cellophane, over which I wore a white plastic boy’s jacket from Goodwill which was way too small

Aside from the music there are great  examples of what went on at The Bird during the day.  Sheli Story worked at The Bird and is still an important part of Seattle’s alternative movement recalls a story about her and the late Gregor Gayden.  Gregor was a much-loved member of the scene at the time.  He’d been the vocalist for The Telepaths and later fronted the band The Look. Sadly Gregor passed away in January of 2008.  Nonetheless he’s still remembered as an important, funny, kind and generous man who made a mark on Seattle’s 70s music scene..  
Sheli recounts this story about hum-drum life around The Bird;

“By the time The Bird had been open for a few weeks the walls were proudly covered in graffiti; most of it musically and politically based. It was an all ages punk club, it was 1978; we were fierce and edgy and full of ourselves . .. With ‘the powers that be’ constantly trying to find a way to shut us down, yet another directive was made by the landlord of the space (which was already pretty much a shithole to begin) to “CLEAN UP THE PROFANITY OR ELSE!!”

“Well fuck that!!” Says Sheli “Roger Husbands decreed that Gregor and I were going to do just that: clean up the graffiti.  Our solution was to paint the entire place black.

“The Bird by night was full of the sizzle of attitude, music, lights and personalities galore. By day The Bird was damp, dark and filthy.  Gregor and I arrived at the club and got to work. We had gallons of black paint, two rollers each – double down painting style, and our paint clothes. Gregor had snagged a pair of jeans from one of his little brothers and of course they were way too small. It was hilarious from the start. The music was blasting – I’m thinking it was The Damned but it could of been anybody . We were slinging paint everywhere. Being soooo smart, we had taped paper bags on our heads to avoid splatter and Gregor was wearing the tiny jeans and  a pair of shoes with wedges and gummy soles. As if it mattered that we would get black paint on our black clothes!!

“When Gregor threw down his rollers and went into dance mode I followed suit but not for long; Gregor was doing the pogo. Yes, the pogo. He was a big, tall man and with every leap he hit the ground with his bouncy wedgies and those little jeans inched down and down until they were bunched at his ankles. He was in tidy whities with his paper bag hat and his face a huge grin. I laughed so fucking hard my stomach hurt and Gregor was unstoppable.

“Eventually we were able to cover enough of the “profanity” and The Bird prevailed!! For another few weeks.  

“This is one of those “you had to be there” stories. Says Sheli, “It is my most precious memory of my friendship with Gregor; a man with huge love in his heart and a vital part of the birth of the music and art scene that was  punk in Seattle. On a side note: Gregor and I used to poster the town like madmen at night!! One night on Capitol Hill the police followed us and stopped us; let us off with a “warning” and made us take down our posters while slowly driving their cruiser beside us. We were back the next night. Because we were determined punks. And we hardly ever got caught”

The “official” opening night saw The Enemy headline with The Mentors and The Telepaths also on the bill.  It was a format (three bands at least) that had fulfilled Damon Titus’s mission.  Every Friday and Sunday night included Seattle bands, touring headliners and usually a capacity crowd…or more.

The Enemy. George Gleason, Suzanne Grant, Peter Barnes, Damon Titus

From the beginning the City, The Seattle Police Department and the Seattle Fire Department were no friends of the club or its clientele.  They were eager to see the club closed just for the sake of it.  Punk rock meant mayhem in the streets, the breakdown of society and the end of family values; the same accusations that have always been levelled against outsiders.  In spite of their hostility The Bird managed to stay open at the 107 First Ave. location until the building’s landlord notified Husbands that The Enemy and The Bird were to vacate the premises by June 1, 1978.  When it finally closed The Bird had lasted only seven weeks.  But those seven weeks were crucial to Seattle’s alternative music scene and resonates even to this day,

Leslie Meyer, a regular at The Bird who seemed to take on a few duties herself sums up The Bird experience in particular, and the punk rock scene in general with these memories;

“When The Bird opened, it was only natural that I would do my best to spend every weekend during its short tenure at the club. In 1978, I was 19 years old and was already adept at sneaking into bars but here was the place I could go to without being thrown out. Seattle’s punk rock scene was small but intense. At best, there were a few hundred kids and young adults but we were passionate.

Going to The Bird on a Friday or Saturday night meant getting dressed up in your finest which usually meant pair of pegged jeans, white dress shirt and a black suit coat, lots of makeup, spiky hair and equally spiky high heels. Then it meant getting on a bus from the conservative north end of Seattle and going downtown which in the 70s was blue color and gritty. The Bird was located on extremely steep hill between First and Second Avenue. Because of the elaborate makeup and spiky hair, it was not uncommon to be harassed on the bus by teenagers for whom punk rock (and its predecessor, glam rock) were anathema. If you did manage to get downtown without being harassed too much on the bus, then it was an easy walk (unless you were wearing 4 inch spike heels) down the hill to the club.

Scraping up the two or three dollar cover charge in those days was always a challenge so quite often I ended up sweeping up after a show in exchange for cover. Gregor Gayden and Sheli Story worked the door and Neil Hubbard was quite often the MC for the shows. Although there were no real rules about conduct, everyone kept an eye on everyone else to the best of their abilities and trying to keep the really young kids out of harm’s way.

We were lucky to have two excellent photographers who captured so many wonderful images. Bob Kondrak went to nearly every show with his son and photographed bands and people in the crowd. His photos showed up in rock magazines around the country. He also made several audio recordings, including the infamous recording of the plainclothes police raid on the club’s closing night. I had recently found out I was pregnant so I ended up leaving moments before the raid.

“Randy Hall was also a photographer whose work captured more intimately members of bands, people in the crowd and even yours truly. I love the  pictures Randy took of me with the late Eldon Hoke (El Duce of The Mentors) at the first Bird and with Gregor Gayden at the second location.

‘The bands we saw during those brief seven weeks downtown and subsequent shows at other locations (including a brief period on Capitol Hill) were in the avant-garde of the punk movement. The music was loud and strident and impassioned. It was filled with frustration over the ongoing political machinations of our government, social injustices and a certain “fuck everything let’s dance” attitude that quite often carried the day. 40 years later, it’s easy to see how the music helped create something new and electric in the world”.


Recently Damon Titus noted:
“It always surprises people when they find out, for all it’s impact, The Bird only lasted seven weeks. Probably about twenty  bands in those seven weeks played; bands from San Francisco, Los Angeles and Vancouver BC.  The lasting impact it made over such a short period  IS impressive!  We wanted to open up sort of a new market”  

The Bird, in spite of its short life did exactly what it was meant to do; not only provide an all-ages retreat for fans of punk, but also to kickstart musicians and non-musicians alike to form even more bands and to become an important part of Seattle’s-and the rest of the world’s-clarion that a new ethic and a new music had arrived.  This was the kind of “market” Damon seems to have been referring to.

According to Stephen Tow, the writer of The Strangest Tribe Rob Morgan told him;

“If The Enemy hadn’t talked their manager into steppin’ up and trying to milk this new scene, “God knows if anything would have happened on the level it did.

On April 14, 1978 The Dils were set to play The Bird.
Nothing seemed unusual about the mood of the crowd.  No one had predicted the outcome of that  night  A new band,  The Dimes were playing-throwing  dimes around.  Then word came like a searing hot chunk of metal. The Seattle Fire Department were across the street  They’re inspecting,  Quick everybody, put your cigarettes out!  Don’t take any chances. Don’t light that.  Keep that one out,…not one person in the place lit up.  The Marshalls made a quick inspection, pointed at something under the stage and left.  Someone said  They’re coming back back in fifteen minutes to close us down-and they did”

Only The Dimes had played. The Mentors were almost ready to go on when the announcement was made;

“Hey!  You keep all those guys in here”.

It was the Fire Marshalls.  They said we would have to stop the show NOW!  Everyone would have to leave.  The Marshall’s  excuse for closing the club was vague. Their report for closing was simply “Too many code violations to list”.  There was no doubt that the move by the city and the Fire Department was a political one; a punk rock club simply could not be tolerated in Seattle. And why was the Fire Department carrying billy clubs?

There were refunds at the door on the way out.  $2 out of $3 were handed out. “The Dils had to get some gas money’ Neil Hubbard has said  It was rumoured that the Seattle City Council had discussed The Bird a day earlier regarding the mass scale poster plastering of posters around the city. (Good job Sheli and Gregor!)  The same day the Fire Department closed the club  an envelope had arrived at The Bird addressed to the Telepaths.  The University of Washington, informed them they were to pay $15 for removal of their posters from a campus building.

The club was now was closed by the Fire Department  but at 11 PM that night a “private rehearsal party” took place “The Mentors finally took to the stage around midnight, although it took some convincing to get them on before the first keg of beer arrived. Says Neil. “Beer after beer was thrown, cocaine was blown, as the masked villains of “rape rock shat out lovable numbers like Secretary Hump,  Nuthang, Macho Package”, and “Total Crap”. After about half an hour of that abusive sort of nonsense ended Steve Clark, another Bird regular, got onstage, with some help, and .unmasked The Mentors. The band ended their set abruptly”.

The unmasking was a bit of a joke, since almost everyone in the club already knew who The Mentors were.  Many were friends of the band members.  They had originally formed in Seattle.

According to Neil “The Dils got set up for their shotgun show, during which yet another keg of stuff to soak people with was brought in…I was too far gone to even rememberwhere I was. Heaven?”

The night was supposed to be over after that, but everyone wanted more. So there was jam featuring Eldon Hoke and Eric Carlson of The Mentors, Bill Rieflin & Donald of The Telepaths, Jimmie from The Avengers (he ran away from the group while they were on their way to Vancouver B.C.), various Dils, Greg Regan of The Feelings.  Rob Morgan (later the genius behind The Pudz and The Squirrels took part  along with Rick Smith (ex-Ratt and future leader of The Girls), Lee Lumsden and Neil.

People were still not ready to leave, so a group of the party-goers (including some members of The Enemy made their way to the roof.  In 2011 Enemy drummer Peter Barnes told Stephen Tow
“The after-show party was lame until some people started throwing things off the roof.
“Somehow the cops were called and they showed up and they sent the vice squad after us. I mean these were heavy-duty cops”.

The incident escalated when the police began to shove badges in people’s faces, called them “faggots” and  became physically abusive. A policeman grabbed The Enemy’s singer, Suzanne Grant, pulling one of her arms behind her back and ended up breaking it. It’s reported that Damon Titus tried to come to Suzanne’s defense, but had his face smashed on the ground in the process.

Luckily one of the people caught up in this mayhem had a tape recorder (remember; this was the day before cell phones) and the entire incident was recorded.  The band used the recorded evidence in a suit they brought against the Police.  The band won and received a monetary settlement.  Portions of the same tape was also used for the intro of their next single, Trendy Violence.

With The Bird officially gone Roger Husbands and The Enemy looked for a space to re-open a regularly running club. However, their attempts were in vain.  Even though they weren’t able to find a permanent space and create the magic of The Bird they booked several all-ages concerts around town, primarily at the venerable Oddfellows Hall mentioned at the beginning of this story, but also at Fourth & Wall, and at The Carpenters Hall.  The concerts were dubbed The Bird In Exile and followed the same format the club had been so successful at. The magic of The Bird may have been gone, but it was clear there was no turning back.  Punk had arrived in Seattle for good.  It became frequently featured as dance music in gay clubs like Tugs Belltown, and later live and recorded punk and new wave became the raison d’etre for bars like WREX and The Gorilla Room (who had also been “opened up” by The Enemy.  It wasn’t long before band that had previously featured cover band began to book edgier bands doing original.  Still the underage crowd were left to organize their own shows around town.  That too would eventually end when The Metropolis, an all-ages club near Pioneer Square began booking national touring acts like Bad Brains, Hüsker Dü, Black Flag, The Butthole Surfers, Flipper. The Replacements, The Meat Puppets and dozens more.  Almost every show was  supported by local bands that included TAD, Mudhoney, Green River, Soundgardem, Mr. Epp, Skinyard, The U-Men, Malfukshun and others who would be the precursors of “grunge”and find wild success later.  But even here we see a direct line from the first punks in Seattle to take a stab at creating their own club..

Around the time The Bird closed, Neil Hubbard wrote;
“The Bird was a complete breakthrough for Seattle. It created sensation in a city that thought the next big thing was the late King Tut exhibit arriving in town.  Never before, outside of the wretched taverns, had there been a regular place for local bands to play for the public–and make money doing it. Everyone had worked together to make it happen; Roger Husbands, for having the wits to open the place.  Don Harper for having the guts to spend over 60 hours a week keeping the place in working order, Gregor and Sheli for working the door and taking any kind of shit from all kinds of assholes and myself, for just being one. The audience dedication had  increased each weekend, with a strong core people that showed up each night  It was those people who were at the parties held at The Bird both the night it was closed and the next might. They deserve all the credit.  And our city.

 

IN MEMORIUM

Gregor Gayden

Homer Spence

Tomata du Plenty

Judy Stay

Upchuck

Geoff Cade

Brock Wheaton

Dave Drewry

Roger Husbands

Annie Mulcahey

Eldon Hoke

Dean Helgeson

Wally Danger

Case B. Armour

Greg Ragen

Randy Hall

Benji Rabinowitz

Bob Kondrak

Mike Vraney

Stan Foreman

Mike Refuzor

Frankie Sundstend

William Swan

Bill Rieflin

If you remember anyone else you’d like to add, leave their name in the “comments” section below

 

Author-Dennis R. White.  Sources: Jo David “Seattle Punk Club Opening Video” (March 3, 1978): George Gleason “Story of The Enemy” ; Peter Barnes “Interview with the author ( January 1, 2018); Damon Titus “Interview with the author (January 1, 2018) Sheli Storey (Letter of March 1, 2018 and various conversations 1979-2018); Leslie Meyers (Letter of March 1, 2018 and various conversations 1979-2018) George Arthur “Punk Rock Takes Flight At The Bird” (Seattle Post-Intelligencer, August 21, 1978);  Dave Birkland “Arrest of 15 at Punk-Rock Club Bring Complaints, Police Probe”  (The Seattle Times, June 8, 1978); Unknown Author “Police Arrest 15 Downtown Party-Goers” (The Seattle Times, June 3, 1978); Jeff Stevens “March 4, 1978: The Bird Was The Word” (The Seattle Star, March 4, 2013); “The 40th Anniversary of The Bird – Seattle’s First Punk Rock Club @ The Back Bar, Crocodile Club” (Ticketfly, retrieved February 21, 2018); Derek Erdmen “Seattle Punk Club: The Bird” (The Stranger [Seattle] October 28, 2012); Stephen Tow “The Strangest Tribe: How a Group of Seattle Rock Bands Invented Grunge” (Sasquatch Books, 2011);   Gordon Raphael “Upchuck in Seattle” Gordotronic.com retrieved January 26, 2018)               

A very special thanks to Neil Hubbard for his guidance, “Why The Bird Died” and “The Bird Weekly Press Releases” as well as photos and posters of The Bird (February, 2018)

TACOMA AT A GLANCE: GAIL HARRIS, THE VENTURES, THE BAR-K JAMBOREE THE WAILERS, OUT=OF-TOWNERS & SPANISH CASTLE MAGIC

Gail Harris was a seasoned pro when she first appeared with Tacoma’s Fabulous Wailers in 1959 at the age of 13. By then, The Wailers had become a regional powerhouse and were creating a national reputation.

In 1958 the Wailers had made a demo of an instrumental called “Tall Cool One”. The demo came to the attention of Clark Galeshouse, head of NYC’s Golden Crest Records. Clark signed a record deal and had the Wailers re-record the song in a Lakewood studio, just outside Tacoma in February of 1959. 

The instrumental “Tall Cool One” b/w “Roadrunner” was released in June of 1959 and peaked on the Billboard charts at number 36. Shortly after “Long Cool One” fell off the charts, their second single “Mau-Mau” b/w “Dirty Robber” was released in August of 1959. It only made it to number 68 on the Billboard charts, and their third single, but the band was making enough of an impression that it landed them an East Coast tour and appearances on Dick Clark’s American Bandstand and The Allen Freed Show.

In December of 1959, the Wailers label, Golden Crest Records recorded and released an album to capitalize on the band’s success. The album was titled The Fabulous Wailers, a name they would later use to distinguish themselves from Bob Marley’s band, also known as The Wailers. Golden Crest was eager to have the band relocate to New York City, but the group declined (probably under orders of their parents) and returned to the Northwest. Golden Crest soon lost interest in promoting the band even though they were still under contract with the label. Golden Crest Records would eventually drop them, but their contract would create some problems in the immediate future of The Wailers.

Shortly after returning to the Northwest, the band took on a new singer and frontman, “Rockin’ Robin” Robertswhose birth name was Lawrence Fewell Roberts II, not a name that conjures up the image of a rock and roll idol with greased back hair and skin-tight pants. Roberts had previously worked with another popular Tacoma band, Little Bill and The Bluenotes. 

Along with “Rockin’ Robin” Roberts came dissent. Roberts was pushing to record a souped-up version of a song written in 1956 by Richard Berry. The song was “Louie Louie”, created by Berry, who was inspired by the song “El Loco Cha Cha” written by Cuban-American René Touzet. It had been a popular song performed live by Ricky Rillera and the Rhythm Rockers in Southern California during the 1950s. Roberts had heard Berry’s performance of the song and may have been the single most responsible person for it becoming a beloved Northwest standard.

Richard Berry had spent time sitting in with The Rhythm Rockers before creating “Louie Louie” based on the lead riff of “El Loco’ Cha Cha”. Berry said, “I took some Latin, some calypso, some pop, threw it all in, and came up with ‘Louie Louie”. Berry later added that he was partly inspired by Chuck Berry’s “Havana Moon” as well as Johnny Mercer’s lyrics to “One For My Baby (And One More For The Road)” that was first popularized by Fred Astaire in 1943 and later in 1949 by Frank Sinatra.

Berry’s label, Flip Records, released Berry and his band, The Pharaoh’s version of “Louie Louie” twice. First, in 1957 as the B-side to Berry’s cover of “You Are My Sunshine” and again in 1961, this time as an A-side backed by the song “Rock, Rock, Rock”.

‘Louie Louie” had become a favorite of R & B fans during Berry’s forays into the Northwest, and as we know, the song was destined to become a massive success for The Wailers, Paul Revere and the Raiders, and it’s the most well-known version by The Kingsmen. Thousands of other versions have followed. According to some accounts, the song is claimed to be the “most covered” song in music history, but it’s clear this is not true. Both the Beatles’

“Yesterday” and the hymn “Amazing Grace” with words written by English cleric John Newton have been recorded more times than “Louie Louie”. The all-time award belongs to the song “Summertime”, written by George Gershwin with lyrics by DuBose Heyward. The Guinness Book of World Records states that, as of June 1st, 2017, the song had been recorded 67,591 times. Still, “Louie Louie” may have the most out-sized influence of any other song of the 20th and 21st centuries.                               

To get around The Wailers contract with the now disinterested Golden Crest Records, it was decided that “Louie Louie” would be released under the artist name “Rockin’ Robin” Roberts even though it was The Wailers who would record the song with Roberts as vocalist.

The band rightly assumed that listeners and DJ’s would know The Wailers actually performed the song despite whoever the label said the artist wasThis plan didn’t sit well with guitarist John Greek. He was promptly dismissed and replaced by John “Buck” Ormsby, another recent member of Little Bill and The Bluenotes.  Ormsby later claimed that Gail Harris had helped in arranging “Louie Louie” even though she remains uncredited.

The Wailers had a plan for moving forward, but without a record label, no one within the music industry believed they could succeed, and The Wailers would probably fall into oblivion. During a meeting in the late summer of 1960, the band came up with a solution. The Wailers would form their own label and self-release their records. Although thousands of small labels were thriving throughout the US, not many belonged to the bands themselves. Labels selling, distributing, and promoting records is quite different than writing, recording, and performing them.

Not every one of The Wailers could afford to participate in the scheme, so Ormsby, Roberts, and Kent Morrill, the lead singer and keyboard player for the band, financed this very risky project as equal partners. They chose the name Etiquette for the name of their label. It’s often been pointed out the label’s name is not “Etiquette Records”. It is simply “Etiquette”. With no remaining members living, this finer point is not as important as it once was to the partners in the venture.

The Wailers had begun as an instrumental band like many of the original NW Sound artists. With the addition of “Rockin’ Robin” Roberts, they set out to imitate the R&B revues that were popular at the time…one band backing several featured singers. Obviously, the main attraction was “Rockin’ Robin,” but soon, the group added a “girl singer” from Puyallup named Gail Harris. 

Harris had appeared in several talent contests and on The Bar-K Jamboree, a weekly show hosted by Buck Owens, who was then pursuing a radio and television career in the Northwest. The Bar-K Jamboree aired simultaneously on radio station KAYE and KTNT TV. Buck’s regular band (The Bar-K Gang) included Don Rich, then a fiddler who would become Owen’s best friend and one of the architects of the Bakersfield Sound, Steel guitarist Dusty Rhodes, guitarist,and songwriter Rollie Weber, Shot Gun”Red Hildreth playing double bass, drummer Howie Johnson, and pianist/horn player Don Markam.  Filling out the group during the first year was a local kind named Nokie Edwards,  Gail Harris and Barbara Vogel made occasional appearances.

Guests of the Bar-K Jamboree’s included Don Wilson and Bob Bogle (then known as The Versatones, Nancy Claire, who along with Gail and a young woman then known as Merilee Gunst would be the three most sought-after lead female vocalists in the Northwest. Gail Harris, as we know began singing with The Wailers and later had couple modest hits of her own.  Nancy Davis continued singing with various local groups and also had modest success with a few singles. 

Merilee Gunst went on to be a member of the group The Amazing Aztecs, and later co-founded her own band, Merilee and Her Men that was largely a cover band.  She later ended up working with the R&B group Tiny Tony and the Statics.  Eventually, she married her long-time collaborator, saxophonist Neil Rush and the two founded one more group, Merilee and The Turnabouts.  The group garnered regional success and eventually toured with Paul Revere and the Raiders.  Merilee met record producer Chip Moman through Raiders singer Mark Lindsay.  It wasn’t long before Merilee Rush found herself in Moman’s Memphis studio recording “Angel of the Morning”, a song written by Chip Taylor, who I’m obligated (like all other music writers) to point out is the brother of John Voight and uncle of Angelina Jolie. Extra points are added for including Chip and John’s brother Barry Voight, a geologist/engineer/vulcanologist and former professor at Pennsylvania State University where he still holds the title of Professor Emeritus and still conducts research.  It was Barry Voight who first correctly foresaw the devastating eruption of Mt. St. Helens and causing it’s north flank to collapse.  It was his study and work surrounding the eruption of Mt. St. Helens that brought him worldwide recognition.

Merilee Rush had a top ten single and worldwide success on her hands. Her rendition of “Angel of the Morning” earned Merilee a 1968 Grammy nomination for”Best Contemporary-Pop Vocal Performance, Female”.  The Grammy that year went to Dionne Warwick for “Do You Know The Way to Santa Fe?” which, ironically Warwick didn’t like and had to be coerced into singing.

Rush’s version has become a timeless staple of 1960’s music and created so many fans of the song that Chip Taylor had written that it’s been recorded by dozens of artists.  Among those artists are  P.P. Arnold, Connie Eaton, Melba Montgomery, Juice Newton, and Chrisse Hynde.

 

The Bar-K Jamboree launched even more careers.  That kid Nokie Edwards?  He was recruited by Don Wilson and Bob Bogle of The Versatones, to play bass, along with Skip Moore on drums to form The Ventures.  Soon the band was in the studio working on “Walk, Don’t Run”.  Moore opted out of the band and agreed to $25 for his work as a session man and future royalties for the song.  He was replaced by an underage George T. Babbit, who left the band and eventually became a four-star General in the U.S. Airforce. After a couple of other drummers,it was Mel Taylor who became the permanent stick man for the band.
The Venture’s first single  “Walk Don’t Run” sold over one million copies and launched a decades-long career as one of the innovative guitar groups of all time.

Things really coalesced for the Ventures in 1961 when Nokie Edwards turned in his bass to play lead guitar and Bob Bogle who had formerly played lead guitar became the bass player.  This resulted in Nokie’s career and his influence to rise to the stratosphere.  Even though Edwards led the Ventures in 1968 he’s still considered one of the major gods in the history of the electric guitar.
There were other stars that would be birthed from Buck Owen’s little show. 
Loretta Lynn (then a housewife living in Custer Washington) made her first television appearance on the Bar-K Jamboree. 

Loretta, born Loretta Webb, had grown up in poverty in Butcher Hollow, Kentucky. She married Oliver “Doolittle Lynn at age 15 and moved from Kentucky to Washington state when she was seven months pregnant. Beginning in 1953, Loretta taught herself how to play guitar over three years and went on to form a band she named Loretta and The Trailblazers. She played in postage-stamp-sized venues, grange halls, and bars before Vancouver Canada’s Zero Records discovered Lynn through Buck’s show and released Loretta’s first single “Whispering Sea” b/w “I’m a Honky Tonk Girl” in March of 1960.  She and her husband “Doolittle” spent months traveling and sleeping in their car to promote her debut single. The couple crossed the nation and tried to hit every country radio station possible to hand out Loretta’s record or do unscheduled, on-the-spot interviews with any DJ that would let her talk. Much of Loretta’s eventual success came down to selling records out of the trunk of her and Doolittle’s car.”Whispering Sea” didn’t get much traction, but the B-side “I’m A Honky Tonk Girl” hit number 14 on Billboard’s country music chart on July 24th, 1960′. Loretta Lynn, as they say, had become “an overnight success after years in the making.

Buck Owens wanted Gail Harris to become a regular member of his “gang” but Harris’s first love was R&B, and she was already pursuing her dreams by diligently practicing songs by her favorite R&B artists and honing her stage presence in front of a mirror and for her family. From the beginning of her 2-3 year stint with The Wailers, she must have blown the bobby socks and tenny-runners off every largely teenaged audience. Gail could be compared to both Little Brenda Lee with the clarity of her voice and bravado and the sustained, sexual growl of early recordings by Tina Turner. Gail’s love of R&B made Ike and Turner 1960 hit “I Idolize You” one of her signature songs, and blew the house down every time she performed it.

It didn’t hurt that Gail Harris also looked well beyond her actual age and could be just as demure and charming off stage as she was ravaging onstage singing. Gail performed “I Idolize You” with The Wailers on their groundbreaking live album, The Fabulous Wailers at The Castle. The record is still one of the NW Sound’s most important albums. It set high standards that other of the early 1960s bands would try to emulate, but only a handful could achieve. The live album also included her interpretation of the Jimmy Davis penned “All I Could Do Was Cry” made famous by Etta James. The live album was rounded-out with four numbers sung by “Rockin Robin” Roberts and two by Kent Morrill. The album was recorded by Seattle legend Joe Boles and produced by Ormsby, Morrill, and promoter/DJ/entrepreneur Pat O’Day. The album was an immediate regional hit when it was released.

 

 

 

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In 1963 Carlton Records released a single by Gail Harris-now going by the name Gayle Harris “Here Come The Hurt” b/w “Don’tYou Love Me No More?” A February 9, 1963 issue of Billboard Gayle’s release is noted by a small mention that reads “GAYLE HARRIS Drums rolling for Cartlon Records (Honest, fellows she’s really only 16) and  her”Here Come The Hurt”

Here Comes The Hurt” didn’t pick up at the time, although in the last couple of decades the song has re-emerged and been included in several 60s, and “girl group” compilations. Gayle found her way to a San Francisco and came to the attention of arranger/producer Don Costa.  Costa had an impressive Curriculum Vitae. s Starting as a side-musician in New York City, Costa eventually worked up to the position of arranger for Steve Lawrence and his wife, Eydie Gormé.  Soon he found himself as head of A&R and house arranger at ABC  Records.  His first big launch was a young Canadian singer by the name of Paul Anka. In 1959 Costa, Steve and Eydie moved over to United Artists Records where Costa continued to arrange for the couple,  He was also carving out his own place as a recording act. Apart from his arranging skills, Costa was a guitarist. In 1956 and ‘57 he released two 45s on ABC-Paramount using the alias “Muvva “Guitar” Hubbard. His first release, “Ponytail”, was an R&B instrumental. The single’s B-side was “Congo Mombo”,  His second release was a cover of “Raunchy” originally recorded by Bill Justis. The B-side was appropriately named “The Other Side”. Apart from his arranging skills, His 1960 version of the Manos Hatzidakis penned “Never On A Sunday” (originally known as “Ta paidia tou Peiraia” in Greek) sold over one million copies.  The Melina Mercouri version may be better known to the public, but it was Costa’s version that outsold all others.

In 1961 Frank Sinatra asked Costa to arrange his album “Sinatra and Strings”. (released in 1962). The album was filled with standards like Cole Porter’s “Night and Day”, Harold Arlen and Johnny Mercer’s “Come Rain or Come Shine” andAll or Nothing at All” written by Jack Lawrence and Arthur Altman. The album became hugely popular among Sinatra fans as well as the public in general. Eventually, Sinatra would hire Costa away from Steve and Eydie as an arranger and took Costa on as his producer as well.  Don Costa then formed his own company (Don Costa Productions) and started working with artists as diverse as Trini Lopez, and Little Anthony and The Imperials.  Don Costa also continued to work with Sinatra. Don Costa would go on to conduct Sinatra’s orchestra until he had a heart attack during one of Sinatra’s Las Vegas performances.  Costa recuperated but did not return to the draining job of conducting for Sinatra…but he was not ready to quit. Costa would go on to produce and arrange for Mike Curb Productions.  His later successes included production for The Osmonds, Sammy Davis Jr. and Petula Clark, Sinatra, Paul Anka. In total, Costa ended up producing 553 albums and arranging or writing 953 songs.

Somewhere along the way Costa also found time to become a father.  His daughter, Nikka Costa has gone on to be a performer in her own right.  Father and daughter would work on several projects, that included a duet with Don Ho, when Nikka was only five years old.  Nikka is also found singing along with her father on the album Don Costa Plays the Beatles.  She sang at The Whitehouse with Sinatra, but Nikka’s most famous childhood hit was 1981’s  “Out Here By Myself” from the film Fame recorded at age 10. The single sold over three million copies. Shortly after her biggest hit, her father, Don Costa died from a second heart attack.  Fortunately, Nikka Costa managed to parlay her child stardom into adult success by crossing over to funk and R&B.

Don Costa “discovered” Gayle Harris one night when she was booked into the Galaxy Club in San Francisco.  He signed her to his production company almost immediately and started handling her career.  With it came more “adult” bookings rather than the teen-dances the earlier “Gail” had been used to.   One of her most prestigious dates came at The Playboy Club in Los Angeles where she did a stint opening for African-American singer Adam Wade. Wade was popular throughout the 1960s for his smooth, jazz-tinged voice.  In 1959 he had his first success with a song called “Ruby” b/w “Too Far”, the a-side being a cover of the hit movie song from 1953. In 1960 three of Wade’s singles managed to make it into the Billboard top 10; Take Good Care of Her” b/w “Sleepy Time Gal” reached number 7, and “As If I Didn’t Know” b/w “Playin’ Around” peaked at number 10 and “The Writing on the Wall” b/w “Point of No Return” made it to number 5.

Whatever one may think of Hugh Hefner and his magazine one thing is very clear; Hefner was a dedicated supporter of civil rights throughout his adult life. In 1959, he helped organize the Playboy Jazz Festival, which included performances from black and white  musicians like Dizzie Gillespie, Dave Brubeck, Oscar Peterson and Jack Teagarden. The  profits went in part to the NAACP. Later festivals would proudly continue to feature black and white musicians sharing the stage. The first interview published in Playboy was with jazz great Miles Davis and was written by an up-and-coming  black journalist called Alex Haley. The magazine also published interviews with prominent black figures such as Muhammad Ali, Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X.

Hefner was not afraid to have African-Americans and Latino entertainers play his clubs. He hired a bevy of Black women to work as “bunnies” and his clubs-even his television show “Playboy Penthouse”-were integrated.  It wasn’t unusual to see mixed race “party guests” on his television show. So Gayle Harris was thrown into this milleu.  It was probably an atmosphere she appreciated because back in the Northwest the teen dance scene was largely segregated.  Gail had deep admiration for the Black women singers and belters of the late 50s and early 1960s-as did many participating in the Northwest Sound.  After all, the basis of most Northwest Sound artists had been admiration of R&B since the beginning. In 1965

Don Costa had Gayle cut a promo single (“Ain’t Gonna Let Me Down” b/w “Here I Go Again”) for his label DCP International.  Once more.  The sides were great, but Costa chose not to release the single.

In the mid 60’s Gayle was introduced to Arlin Harmon, then woking with a dynamic outfit called The Big Beats. The introduction probably involved Don Costa, since The Big Beats had originally played as “Trini Lopez and His Big Beats”, though Lopez would leave to pursue a solo career after only one album, Costa continued to producer..  Harmon had been the featured vocalist on one of the Big Beats singles (“Out of The Picture” b/w “The Work Song” ) and as a member of The Big Beats on another seminal live album “The Big Beats LIVE! At The Off-Broadway” recorded in San Francisco in 1965 where they’d  found a large audience. The Big Beats were also known as one of the best bands of the 60s and 70s in Las Vegas. The two married in 1967 and worked together, travelling the country with Arlin’s bands.  They later returned to the Northwest to work as “Gail and Arlin…Gail had reverted to the original spelling of her name.  Harmon would later join James King & The Southsiders. While Gail pursued a career in music. Gail and Arlin had more in common than music.  They also shared a love of Harley-Davidsons.  They spent plenty of time on their bikes and even occassionally showed up on their Hogs and in their leathers. While Gayle was spending  time in San Francisco during the 60s she had trained with the vocal coach Judy Davis at her Oakland studio.  Davis was often referred to as “The Vocal Coach To The Stars” for having clients as diverse as Frank Sinatra, Barbara Streisand. Grace Slick and Country Joe McDonald. Davis was an expert in the physiology of sound projection.  She was well-known for her method of teaching vocalists to breathe properly and to strengthen their vocal cords so they may project and control their sound. Davis had conjured up a method of vocal training that is still used around the world.

Actually, I’m just a vocal plumber,”Ms. Davis told The San Francisco Chronicle in 1995, when she received a Lifetime Achievement award at the Bammies-awards given by BAM magazine (now the California Music Award). I fix pipes.”she added.

This training was not only useful in Gayle’s vocation, it also brought opportunities to work with musical artists such as Stevie Wonder, Tina Turner, and Frank Sinatra Jr. among others.  For many years Gayle has been a vocal coach based out of Tacoma and still incorporates lessons she learned from Judy Davis. Gail Harris has taken part in the occasional Wailers get-togethers, most notably in the 1980s.  But with the passing of Buck Ormsby (on his 75th birthday in 2016) while in Mexico, none of the original members remain.  Ron Gardner died in 1992. Richard Dangel died of an aneurysm in 2002. John Greek died in 2006, Mark Marush in 2007, and Kent Morrill died of cancer on 15 April 2011. Perhaps the most tragic death of any one of the Wailers was that of “Rockin’ Robin” Roberts who  died at the age of 27. Roberts was killed in a head-on collision after leaving a night club celebration on December 22, 1967. He was a passenger in a car traveling the wrong way on the Interstate , just south of San Francisco.  He was killed on impact. Gail Harris remains one of the brightest stars of the early Northwest Sound.  She went on to work in music the rest of her life (up until now) had a wonderful and exciting marriage to Arlin Harmon who died in 2014. She is deeply loved by her fans and friends throughout the world.

Any additions or corrections are welcomed.

 

 

-Dennis R. White. Sources; “Don Costa Biography”,”Space Age Musicmaker”. Retrieved December 12. 2017); Singles Reviews (Billboard Magazine, September 21, 1963); Shannon McCarthy “Nikka Costa Biography” (musicianguide.com, retrieved December 10. 2017); Buck Ormsby “Etiquette Records-The Short Story” (etiquette.com, retrieved December 10, 2017); Peter Blecha “Etiquette Rules! The Northwest’s Reigning ’60s Garage-Rock Record Company” ( April 10. 2009, HistoryLink.org. Essay 8947); Eileen Sisk “Buck Owens: The Biography” (Chicago Review Press, 2010); Gail Harris (Learning Musician.com, retrieved December 12, 2017); Jesse Hamlin “Judy Davis of Oakland-Vocal Coach To Stars” (The San Francisco Chronical, January 31, 2001);”I Don’t Jump Rattlesnakes No More” (afflictor.com, November 13, 2017); Tim Sendra “One Kiss Can Lead To Another: Girl Group Sounds, Lost and Found” (AllMusic.com, retrieved December 10.2017); Buck Ormsby “The Marshans” (etiquette .com, retrieved December 10, 2017); Peter Blecha “Music In Washington: Seattle and Beyond” (Arcadia Press, November 7, 2007); “Don Costa” (Space Age Music Maker. Spaceageop.com, retrieved December 10. 2017); “The Fabulous Wailers” (bands.fogcity1.com/THEFABULOUSWAILERS/index.php/home, retrieved December 10, 2017); Arlin Harmon 1945-2014: Musical Memorial (https://www.facebook.com/JazzbonesTacoma/ retrieved December 12, 2017): “The Wailers” (PNW Bands, pnwbands.com/wailers.html, retrieved December 8. 2017); Cub Coda “The Fabulous Wailers at The Castle” (AllMusic.com, retrieved December 8, 2017); Russell Webster “The Fabulous Wailers at The Castle” (Gaslight Records, gaslightrecords.com/reviews/albums/the-wailers-the-fabulous-wailers-at-the-castle, retrieved December 8, 2017;  PNW Bands “The Spanish Castle” pnwbands.com/spanishcastle , retrieved December 8, 2017); Jan Kurtis Skugstad “Ernest Tubb Live 1965” (Camelot Media, www.camelotmedia.com/ernest.html, retrieved December 8, 2017); John Broven “The Wailers” (Golden Crest www.johnbroven.com/goldencrest/wailers.html retrieved  December 8, 2017)

THE BARDS

Looking back on  heyday of 50s and 60s teen-dance music in the Northwest we tend to forget there was also a very healthy  scene in eastern Washington, Northern Idaho and to a lesser degree in eastern Oregon.  Teen dances were just as popular on the east side of the Cascades as they were on the west, but we often overlook it.  Perhaps the crowd sizes were smaller, but it’s important to remember the distances between the small towns of the Inland Empire.  Bands did much of the bookings themselves in Grange Halls, all-ages clubs, teen fairs in the larger towns and relentlessly trying to get the attention of small, local radio stations that were largely forgotten by labels and distributors.  One of the many bands that would follow in the tradition of eastern Washington bands was The Continentals (later The Fabulous Contitnentals).  The band was formed was formed at Moses Lake High School in 1961/1962.  Originally the Continentals was loose-knit affair with personnel coming and going.  During the early years Ron Covey was added on electric guitar, and singer John Draney got on board. According to bassist Chuck Wallace;

John (Draney) could do a pretty good Roy Orbison and ‘Pretty Woman’ was an early addition to our repertoire. Ken McDonald was the leader of the group and named it the Continentals. His father owned the local Lincoln, Mercury car dealership but at the time I’m not sure we were sharp enough to make a connection”.

Ken suggested the band play a “real” gig and they ended up with a 1962 booking for a New Year’s dance at a local Elks Club.  The band played “Five Foot Two” and the mostly-adult crowd loved them.  Chuck says “I was playing the upright bass, Bob Hull was on piano and I don’t really recall the exact make up of that first combo.” 

After graduating from High School in 1963 Ken went off to college, and the band went through drummers Stan Gibson and Nick Varney.  But it was Bob Galloway that finally became a permanent member of the band.  Bob Hull had also gone off to college and was replaced by keyboardist Mike Balzotti, and guitarist Mardi Sheridan joined the group around the same time.  It was at this point that the band re-christened themselves as The Fabulous Continentals and added Marsha Mae, sister of Ron Covey, on vocals. Chuck Warren says:

“We were traveling the state and enjoying some success on the dance circiout but the size of the group made traveling and dividing up the paycheck at the end of the gig was a challenge”.  Early on we rented our own halls and probably hit every Grange and Armory, and City Hall in Eastern Washington. As our popularity grew we began being hired by promoters who ran dances in roller rinks and larger venues”

It’s clear the core members of the Fabulous Continentals had aspirations and were willing to work as much as possible to make things happen. Keyboardist Mike Balzotti, guitarist Mardi Sheridan, drummer Bob Galloway, and bass player Chuck Warren were at the core of the band and made a decision to scale down the band to it’s basics.  Marsha Mae was told “to stay home. Her brother Ron quit in solidarity with his sister-or possibly on the orders of his mother and father.  At this point the Covey parents asked the remaining members to “leave the basement” where they’d practiced and “never return!” The parents even went so far as to run a local newspaper ad proclaiming that Ron and Marsha Mae Covey were no longer associated with The Fabulous Continentals “Lucky for us” Warren slyly adds “Bob Galloway had a garage!”

The move didn’t seem to deter Marsha Mae’s rise to local fame and her notoriety was probably more to her parents’ liking. In 1968  she would  be crowned “Miss Moses Lake” and the year after she was crowned “Miss Washington”.  Ron Covey became involved in Moses Lake politics and spent years on the city council as well as serving as Mayor.  Later he headed ‘The Moses Lake Irrigation and Rehabilitation District Board’ but resigned (without explanation) in 2014 after a contentious four years with the MLRDB.

Once Balzotti, Sheridan, Galloway and Warren had pared down the group to a quartet they started looking for a new name.  The musical world had been turned up by the British Invasion, with The Beatles at the forefront.  Contemporary musical tastes were changing at a dramatic pace, and bands across the US were in the process of finding more British sounding names.  Peter Blecha has pointed out a few Eastern Washington bands that followed the trend to Anglicize their band name;

“Spokane’s Runabouts retooled themselves as the London Taxi, Ellensburg’s Avengers reformed as the Scotsmen and recorded “Sorry Charlie” replete with Brit accents, and a Moses Lake band, the Bards — who had originally formed as the Fabulous Continentals back in 1961 — began restyling themselves after the Beatles…Another popular Moses Lake-area band, the Page Boys, got signed by Seattle’s Camelot label, which released their single “Our Love” The members of the Fabulous Continentals were changing (like many of their contemporaries) from a primarily instrumental band playing raucous R&B-tinged garage rock to a more lyrical outfit that would be known by a name that implied a more “British” sound.   The band started looking through a Roget’s Thesaurus to find a name that would describe the new path they’d chosen…to make use of classical  lyrics and content set to modern music…and of course to “sound” British.   After a search, they decided on the name The Bards.

The band kept up a hectic schedule playing as many venues across Washington, Oregon and Idaho as possible. After years as a dance band, and the hard work as The Bards things started paying off.  Although they were writing new music all along, they made sure to keep their audiences satisfied with playing plenty of their old standards from the Fabulous Continentals days, thus keeping fans old and new happy.  After years of constant playing they were becoming the most popular band in the Northwest…on both sides of the mountains; so it wasn’t a stretch that they’d eventually come to the attention of Seattle-based Jerden Records head Jerry Dennon.

Dennnon offered the band a chance to record a few songs at Kearney Barton’s Audio Recording Inc. studio, then on Fifth Avenue.  Barton’s Audio Recording Inc. was built inside space he’d made into one of the most sophisticated studios in the Northwest, complete with two echo chambers and a three track tape recorder. The Bards initially recorded four sides with Barton. “The Owl and The Pussycat” based on the poem by Edward Lear,  “The Jabberwocky” inspired by the Lewis Carroll poem, an original composition “The Light of Love” and a cover of The Who’s “My Generation”. The sessions were engineered by Barton and produced by Gil Bateman who also produced the Sonic’s  “Psycho” and “The Bears” by Springfield Rifle among other great Northwest sides.

Even though The Bards had originated about the same time as The Wailers, The Frantics and dozens of other NW Sound bands  The Bards tried to distance themselves from what was popular west of the Cascades.

“We purposely tried not to be too “Seattle” as we felt that many of the groups over there sounded a lot alike”.

Their first recordings show they were serious about that claim. After completing their first recordings  Dennon shopped them around Hollywood and New York City, but couldn’t find a major label willing to release them.  He had proposed “The Owl and The Pussycat” b/w “The Light of Love” as a single but label execs found the lyrics of “The Owl and the Pussycat” too…suggestive… even though the lyrics were mostly an unadulterated reading of Edward Lear’s original poem.

Instead of continuing to pursue a major label, Dennon decided to release The Bards’ first single on his Piccadilly Records imprint. Picaddilly was the regionally distributed label that Jerden Records  used to float a trial balloon for local  talent they were considering signing, or as a respected regional label that might attract the majors.  The release got a bit of Puget Sound and Eastern Washington attention, but really went nowhere.  “The Owl and The Pussycat” was rooted in what we might think of as “The Northwest Sound” but it definitely wasn’t garage rock in the manner of the Wailers, The Frantics or The Sonics. There was far more folk-rock influence, and it’s clear the band were interested in a more “pop” sound-albeit one based in serious songwriting rather than playing to the masses. The prominent organ was not played in the standard local R&B and vocal harmonies were more pronounced.  Over all it’s a great tune.  Ironically it was later re-issued by Capitol Records as well as a slower version that is pure early psychedelia. Unfortunately the later Capitol release didn’t do well either, although it’s worth a listen, and some collectors even covet it over the original recordings.  They’re  great examples of early  psychedelic pop.

The Bards second release (also on Picaddilly) didn’t fare any better outside the Northwest.  Their cover of “My Generation” was solid but not particularly innovative.  The “B’ side of the single is “The Jabberwocky” which would be used again later as a B-side (as was their song “The Light of Love”). “The Jabberwocky” is set to fine instrumentation, but the lyrics of the Lewis Carroll poem seem out of place here.  A bit too forced.  This might be because the poem was far less referenced in 1967 than it has been in the ensuing decades.  At a time that most songs on radio were love songs, or all-out rockers it gets marks for innovation.

Finally on their third try The Bards hit pay dirt.  The band had heard the song “Never Too Much Love” on the B-side of Curtis Mayfield and The Impression’s 1964 hit “Talking About My Baby” The Bards were smitten.  They rushed back over the mountains to Kearney Barton’s studio to cut their own version almost immediately.  Mayfield had originally written the song and performed it in the classic R&B/Soul style that he pioneered.  The Bard’s version didn’t veer too far off vocally, aside from being less smooth than the incomparable Impressions.   The smooth instrumental harmonies and a gentle horn section were missing on The Bards version.  They did what most rock bands do when faced with ballads-they relied more on electric guitar.  The result was a truly new reading of Mayfield’s song.  Instead of cool soul it took on a more folk-rock/psychedelic  air.  It was also infectious and rose to number one status on many Northwest and British Columbian regional radio station’s playlists.  More importantly, it drew the attention of the major labels who had earlier turned The Bards down. The Bards were left to choose several offers that were coming in fast but chose Capitol Records, since it was the American home of their revered Beatles.

The result was taking their regional hit “Never Too Much Love” to a nationwide distribution deal, and would become a minor hit around the US.  It still ends up on compilations of both Northwest and psychedelic bands. In the aftermath of their “hit” The Bards remained on the road even more than they had in the early 60s.  They found themselves as openers for bands like The Young Rascals, The Turtles, The Dave Clark Five and as pick-up band for Tommy Roe.   Although they admit they found Roe to be a top-knotch performer, they weren’t as thrilled by his music.  The Bards also opened for other top national and international acts around the region.

Between opening gigs they continued headlining the kind of venues that had always provided their bread and butter; teen dance halls, roller rinks, grange halls, county fairs and whatever other spaces that hosted teen dances.  According to Chuck they were working 20-25 nights a month and in 1967, 1968 and 1969 they had put over 100,000 miles a year on the Bardsmobile, a car that towed a small trailer carrying their equipment with The Bards logo prominently displayed on each side.

“Virtually all of those miles were in the Northwestern Part of the United States. Washington, Oregon, and Idaho were Bard states. Parts of Montana, British Columbia and Northern California were part of the circuit also”

The schedule got incredibly demanding after “Never Too Much Love” and the band was afraid of becoming stale.  They cancelled a month’s worth of gigs and rented an old theater in Moses Lake (The Ritz) to write, practice and record.  It was these recordings that showed an even more original and innovative sound.  The band recorded on a reel-to-reel  and a song or two at a time was sent to Kearney Barton’s studio for mastering.  At the core of what they were writing was a sort of mini rock opera they called “Creation”. The Bards were so pleased with the results they decided to drive to Los Angeles with demos in hand to find a label interested in releasing the totality of “Creation” which would include a few other remarkable compositions that would fill out an album.

Before their move to find a label in LA The Bards recorded one more song at Kearney Barton’s studio.  This time the band chose Jeff Afdem of the bands The Dynamics and Springfield Rifle to arrange and produce.  The A-side of the single was “Tunesmith” by Jimmy Webb.  Webb was at the height of his career at the time, writing classic songs such as “Galveston”, Witchita Lineman” and “MacArthur Park”. The B-Side of “Tunesmith” was written by an unknown singer/songwriter born in Spokane and commuting between his home in Yakima and his gig with the Seattle based band Caliope. The song chosen was “Good Time Charlie’s Got The Blues”, and of course the singer/songwriter was Danny O’Keefe. O’Keefe had recorded a demo of “Good Time Charlie’s Got The Blues” about a year before The Bards release. O’Keefe’s version had remained unreleased since it was, in fact, a demo that O’Keefe had used to find a label.  O’Keefe had also caught the eye of Jerry Dennon very early on, and O’Keefe had become friends with Jerry, and signed with his Jerden label, as well as Dennon’s Burdette Publishing. It’s likely that this was the connection that brought the song to The Bards attention

The single was released on Parrot Records (a U.S. subsidiary of London Records) who would go on to license two other Bards  re-issues.  Danny O’Keefe would have an international hit with his song a few years later, and since then his song has been covered literally by dozens of well-known artists.  Although Jimmy Webb was considered one of America’s best songwriters at the time, Keyboardist Mike Balzotti says:

“Had it been up to The Bards, ‘Goodtime Charlie’s Got The Blues’ would have been the “A” side”.
He goes on to say:
““As it turns out, a year later Danny O’Keefe made a big hit out of a similar rendition of the song!”
(The song would actually become a hit for O’Keefe in 1971, three years after The Bards).

Despite Webb’s fame and popularity The Bards were on the right track.  “Good Time Charlie” has become the longer lasting song, that still remains a staple of oldies radio, and the many other covers of it remain favorites of the fans of other artists.

. Once in Hollywood, by pure coincidence The Bards ran into singer/songwriter/producer Curt Boettcher in an elevator after they’d visited the offices of Mike Curb, one of the most successful producer/executives of all time.  Boetthcher was taken by the band right away  so he drove them to his business partner Gary Usher’s house to listen to the tapes they were shopping.  Both Boettcher and Usher were impressed.  Later the band were introduced to Usher and Boettcher’s third partner, Keith Olsen.  Boettcher, Usher and Olsen were then in the process of putting together a label called Together Records.  On paper the trio seemed like a team that couldn’t be beat.  All had been successful producers and/or engineers on a plethora of hit records.

Boettcher had produced The Association’s debut album which resulted in the hits “Along Comes Mary”  which reached number seven on the Billboard Charts and “Cherish” which reached number one. Boettcher is remembered as one of the earliest proponents of “Sunshine Pop”-a slightly more serious version of “Bubblegum Music” and although he only lived to be 41 he would go on to produce The Grateful Dead, the mixdown engineer for Emmit Rhode’s “Farewell to Paradise” and in the mid-1970s, he sang backing vocals for artists as diverse as Elton John, Eric Carmen and Tanya Tucker among a host of others.  He’d also managed to perform and record as a solo act.

Gary Usher had strong ties with the Beach Boys, had produced a few of their early singles and co-written several  songs with Brian Wilson, including “409” and “In My Room”. He’d also produced The Byrds, The Surfari’s and Dick Dale, as well as “discovering” The Firesign Theater and being instrumental in getting them a major label deal. Usher would go on to have his own successful career in the 1970’s.

At the time Keith Olsen was a respected engineer, but his incredible track record of production credits was a bit ahead in his future.  During the 1970’s Olsen produced dozens of hit artists and several number one albums.  In all he would produce more than 39 Gold records, 24 Platinum records, and 14 Multi-Platinum albums. So under contract to “Together Records” The Bards set out to record what would be an album with “Creation” at it’s core.  Their new label seemed bound to be a huge success with all of the talent on hand and with distribution through Curb. One hitch was that The Bards were still under contract with Jerry Dennon of Jerden Records, and also to Capitol Records.  They needed a new name to release any new recordings.

Curt Boettcher, as producer had been fascinated by the name of The Bards’ hometown, Moses Lake.  He suggested the band their name should be changed to “Moses Lake” The band liked the idea, so the recordings proceeded with the assumption the band name had changed.  While the erstwhile Bards were recording , Usher, Boettcher and Olsen were in the process of finding financing and distribution for their new label.  The three had been in talks with Motown in the beginning, but no deal could be reached.  The trio then returned to Mike Curb (in who’s office elevator the band had met Boettcher) and were able to secure the finances they needed to get off the ground, and a distribution deal through Curb’s organization.

Mike Curb was and is a legendary figure in the music and film business.  He had worked with artists such as the young Linda RonstadtThe Electric Flag (featuring Mike Bloomfield and Buddy Miles) as well as writing songs for and producing The Osmonds, Roy Orbison, and Liza Minnelli among many of the acts that would later become best sellers.  Curb would also sign artists such as Richie Havens, Gloria Gaynor, Eric Burdon, Johnny Bristol and War.  In 1969 Curb merged his successful Curb Records with MGM and became President of MGM Records and Verve Records.

Shortly after becoming President of MGM  Curb became embroiled in a crusade to rid the music business of drugs by dropping 18 acts that in the words of Billboard Magazine

“had, promoted and exploited hard drugs through music.”

Billboard added that Curb was motivated by the drug-related deaths of Janis Joplin Jim Morrison and Jimi Hendrix. Oddly enough one of the acts Curb had dropped was Frank Zappa.  Even in the 1960s Zappa had been well-known as a critic of drug use.  Apparently Curb had not gotten the memo.  He also hadn’t got the memo that Zappa had already fulfilled his contract and was in the process of establishing his own labels, Bizarre and Straight Records.

Sadly Together Records failed to live up to it’s promise.  It’s said that their only release that came near being a “hit” was used for paying staff.  The compilation  “Preflyte” by The Byrds is a collection of demos and non-released material that predated their being signed to Columbia.  The album also contains a great deal of early material recorded under The Byrds original name, The Jet Set.  The album stalled at number 84 on the Billboard charts, and other Together releases by The Hillmen, Sandy Salisbury and Charlie Musselwhite, and Curt Boettcher himself didn’t even chart.  The label was out of money, and their distribution deal was dropped.  Mike Curb was not interested in putting more money and more energy into a label that looked like it would continue to be disastrous.  No one else would touch it.  The result would also be disastrous to The Bards/Moses Lake. They’d mostly finished their album after working many months on it, but were now without a label to release it.

Producer Curt Boettcher suggested the band return to Moses Lake with him coming along as the band’s lead singer. This suggestion did not go over well with all members of the band, and going through an ordeal like the one with Together Records again was too much.  Apparently Mardi Sheridan and Mike Balzotti  had already seen the writing on the wall and left the band.  Chuck Taylor decided he’d spent too many years and too many miles on the road and wanted to return to Moses Lake to spend time with his family. Drummer Bob Galloway chose to keep the band going with a series of players until 1972.  Bob was the only original member, but “new” Bards found gigs in the Northwest, although never found the kind of success or popularity of the classic 1965-1968 line-up.  Despite their disparate reasons for dissolving The Bards/Moses Lake,  the band agrees the split was amicable.  This was reinforced when the band re-united one more time to celebrate Mike Balzotti’s 40th birthday in 1987.

The Bards work for Together Records was not a complete failure, though. The label had released a single from their “Moses Lake” sessions.  The single, “ Oobleck” b/w “Moses” was finally released under the band name, Moses Lake in 1971.  The A-side, “Oobleck “ was inspired by Dr. Seuss’s 1949 book Bartholomew and the Oobleck” with music by Mike Balzotti.   Although it has an intro that seems to go nowhere at first, and sounds appropriately Seussian, it becomes the kind of unexpected song that rings “genius” and leaves a person wanting more. Even though it’s launch was completely ruined by the concurrent collapse of their label there are a few copies to be found on the collectors market.

One other unexpected results was that without a label the band no longer had a contract with Together Records.  Their contract had not been bought-up by another label-they were, in fact, free agents. The tapes of the “Moses Lake” sessions would remain in their hands and under their control.  But life has a way of keeping us from reliving unfortunate and discouraging  past events.  Better to concentrate on the present and future than to revisit the past…so the “Moses Lake Recordings” stayed with Balzotti, without public exposure, for three decades.

Mike Balzotti was surfing the web one day and came across the site for Gear Fab Records out of Orlando Florida. Gear Fab releases what they term “Legitimate and Authorized re-issues of Psych, Garage and Rock Sounds, 1965-1972” Since the band had already come across an unauthorized bootleg of their early Piccadilly recordings along with a few later Bob Galloway-era songs, Gear Fab seemed like a natural, ethical  label to release their only album  on.  If not for this re-issue The Bards would probably be near-forgotten today.  With help from Gear Fab head Roger Maglio, the record was re-mastered for CD and released in 2002.

The album is still in print and is a great reminder of how psychedelia, pop, good songwriting , lyrics (even borrowing from the masters) and great musicianship combine to make a total much more than the sum of it’s parts. Despite the material on the album being stellar, the title is a bit cumbersome.  Officially it is “The Bards resurrect ‘The Moses Lake Recordings’ Produced by Curt Boettcher and Keith Olsen featuring ‘The Creation’. But no matter, it’s not that difficult to simply search for “The Moses Lake Recordings” Even though it sounds as if the recordings were done in Moses Lake they were not.  The title is meant to point to the band’s re-naming.  Over three decades since it was first recorded this album seems revolutionary in it’s mix of pop, garage, psychedelia, bubble-gum and prog-rock.  It’s final release is truly the end of an amazing story.

One last note;  Near the end of the documentary “I Am What I Play” Pat O’Day, the dean of west coast AM-Top 40 DJs was asked was asked what NW group deserved greater national recognition. His answer? “The Bards

 

-Dennis R. White.  Sources:  Don Rogers “Dance Halls, Armories and Teen Fairs” (Music Archives Press,1988); The Bards (http://mikebalzotti.com/BardsHomePage.htm); Richard Flynn (“Woodstock Rock RTR-FM 92.1,Perth Australia”); Stanton Swihart (The Bards Artist Biography. allmusic.com); Chuck Warren “The Bards Interview” (http://home.uni-one.nl/kesteloo/bards.html); “The Bards” (discogs.com);  Mike Dugo “The Bards” (The Lance Monthly, Volume 4, No. 3, May 2002); Peter Blecha “Inland Empire Rock: The Sound of Eastern Washington” ( HistoryLink.org Essay 7490); “Resurrect The Moses Lake Recordings by The Bards” [album20909] (rateyourmusic.com); Stanlynn Daugherty “Rock ‘n Roll Group Draws Anxious Crowd” (The Lantern, [Pendleton Oregon], Friday November 1, 1968); Beverly Paterson, Review of The Moses Lake Recordings  (September 23, 2002. The Lance Monthly); Mike Flynn “Once-obsure political race in Moses Lake takes on new import for areas’s economy. (Flynn’s Harp [Columbia Basin]  November 16, 2011)

 

THE F-HOLES

The F-Holes formed out of a jam session on Nov 21, 1984 at The Central Tavern near Seattle’s Pioneer Square. The original members were “Lucky” Tony Mathews, Douglas “Stringtie” Creson and John “Moondog” Mooney. The jam consisted of three songs. The booker was impressed enough to ask them to open for his band, The Alleged Perpetrators on Dec 14, 1984, and a band was born. Since that night The F-Holes have consistently been part of the Seattle music scene.

One night while Stringtie was playing pinball at a tavern with Kevin Heaven (a local musician and well-known scenester)’ Kevin said;“You gotta check out my new f-hole guitar!” Stringtie went home that night and made a poster. He brought it to rehearsal the next day. “We are the F-Holes” he told them.  The newly-named outfit’s drummer, John “Moondog” Mooney asked;“What am I gonna tell my Mom?”

1985 brought a solid stream of bookings.  The bookings continued.  The first few years The F-holes played more shows than they rehearsed. Doug Creson recalls;

“We’d rehearse on Wednesdays and play shows Thursday , Friday and Saturday”.

Things changed in 1986 when the F=Holes added Otis P. Otis on lead guitar. He was a huge Johnny Thunders fan and brought a heavier sound that lead the band into the pre-grunge era. The original F-holes sound included generous heaps of Psychobilly, Cowpunk, Garage Rock, Punk, Acid Blues and 60s Psychedelia. They add they also play Country music, though they add

“we’re not sure which country“.

Along with Otis  came a sound that brought the band to a new level and wider audience. They still played the same music as before-only heavier.  Their look was still psychobilly with the big pompadours and cowboy boots and bolo ties.  That would change in later years, but for the earlier part of their career the band was known for their appearance as much as their music.  Both were fun, over the edge and a little bit retro as far as their dedication to punk.

“Promoters always had a hard time pegging our sound but we played with all kinds of bands. Punk, Alt Country, Grunge, Power Pop” says Creson.

The biggest misconception may be that the F-Holes are a rockabilly band.  It’s a claim the band adamantly deny.  Since the beginning they’ve always played a few rockabilly-tinged numbers, and they often dressed in a style associated with rockabilly.  Still, it’s hard to listen to them without thinking they’re nothing less than a great punk-pop band with the talent to pull off just about anything they throw out to their audience.

Th band is also known for wicked sense of humor.  In 2011 when the magazine Seattle Sinner asked them what their fondest Christmas memory was Creson told the interviewer;

“We played a Buzz Scooter Club party in an abandoned building with 64 Spiders. On the way to the gig we bought a sheet of windowpane acid, 100 hits. At the party we dissolved the acid into the punch bowl. People were drinking kegger cups full of this shit. By the time we finished our set everyone was just flying, wandering around lost on the upper floors like wide eyed zombies. I wonder how many bodies they found when they tore that place down. This was in 1984, back when you hipsters were still crappin’ in your diapers and sucking breakfast out of your mama’s knockers”.
True story.




By the mid ‘90s band members drifted into other bands, failed marriages, rehab and dead-end corporate jobs. They played a few uninspired shows, now and again…not really breaking up, just not playing with the same passion and frequency as before.

In 2006 The F-Holes were invited to play Geezerfest at Seattle’s legendary Crocodile Cafe. It was a
showcase of bands that helped create the alternative sound and so-called “grunge” Seattle had become known for in the 1990’s.   These were long-time workhorse bands that had actually developed the sound, others had built their success on, but despite their talent were overlooked getting signed to a big record deals. Along with The F-Holes, the line up included bands like Catbutt, Coffin Break, Swallow, Snow Bud and The Flower People,  Blood Circus, Love Battery, and  other worthy bands.

The F-Holes showcase was so well-received that it led to their playing steady ever since. Now in their 33rd year of rocking their fans remain rabidly loyal, and friends are bringing their kids (and grandkids?) to their shows.

The F-Holes recorded output over the years has been sporadic…in fact there’s been only a few recordings available; but the good news is that they’ll be entering into the studio with Jack Endino in 2018. They’ve also found a newer and younger audience while keeping the old-timers.  An Endino-produced album looks promising.

The Stranger magazine’s Mike Nipper observed that after so many years;

“The F-Holes are, dare I say, a smart and (ahem) “songwriterly,” kickass punk group, and live they’re driving as a mofo”.

Even more fitting, on their website the F-Holes simply say “Totally Skankin’ since 1984”.

 

-Dennis R. White-Sources; Doug “Stringtie” Creason;  The F-Holes (home page, http://fholesrock-blog.tumblr.com); Mike Nipper (The Stranger, February 23, 2016); The F-Holes (thatsdadastic.com, 2010); Chuck Foster (“The F-Holes Unmasked: F-Holes Celebrate 28 Years of Being Misunderstood”  Seattle Sinner, December 2011)

THE VENTURES

Tacoma’s Ventures. They’ve lasted almost 60 years in one form or another. They’ve released over 250 albums.  They’ve sold over 120 million records….more than any other instrumental band in history.  Those records are unlikely to ever be topped by an instrumental band of any genre.  During their career they’ve covered just about every kind of music there is.  Most of their albums are largely covers of popular songs, but surprisingly they write about one third of their music. They helped develop the “surf sound” although they point out they didn’t invent it, and don’t consider themselves a “surf band” at all. In a 2015 interview with Forbes magazine co-founder Don Wilson told interviewer Jim Clash;

“One of our biggest sellers was a surfing album. I guess we got tagged with that – Pipeline and Wipe Out we are associated with – so suddenly we are a surf rock band! I see that written a lot. But I don’t care. I’m used to it. We’re not just surf”.

Band members have always denied their music being founded in the surf sound, but it’s certain The Ventures had a profound affect on it.  It could be they’ve always refused to be labeled surf just as much out of deference to the artists who truly are surf bands as much as the facts.  It’s also true that The Ventures went far beyond any one genre-expect being instrumental.  They’ve also maintained keeping current with putting their sound to current music.  Aside from their top-knotch playing it is these two other factors that have kept them in the world’ public eye for decades.

The story of The Ventures goes back to the day that Bob Bogle first met Don Wilson in 1958. Bogle was looking to buy a used car from a dealership in Seattle.  The car lot was owned by Wilson’s father. Don was the salesman. During their conversation, they found out they both had an interest in music.  They became fast friends, and soon Wilson began working with Bogle in the masonry field.  Obviously carrying mortar and bricks was more lucrative than hawking used cars for small commissions. In 2009 Bob Bogle told The Seattle Times:

“And then we found out that we each knew a few chords on the guitar, you know, and we had a lot of free time on our hands. But neither of us owned a guitar.”  

So off they went to a Tacoma pawnshop where both of them bought very cheap guitars. They say the guitars were less than $10 each.  Over the next few months the two practiced every moment they had between jobs…and they were frequently out of work.  Soon the two were making the rounds of local bars, house parties and any other gig they could find.

Meanwhile bassist Nokie Edwards had begun playing around Tacoma with Buck Owens’s band The Bar-K Gang.   Owens also hosted the KTNT “Bar-K Ranch” TV show that gave Owens (and Nokie) even more local exposure. Sometime in 1960 Wilson and Bogle saw Edwards playing in a Tacoma club (possibly Steve’s Gay 90s where Owens’s band had a residency).  After about a year Nokie left Buck’s band behind to join Wilson and Bogle This move had unknowingly helped spawn two superstar bands.  Owens soon switched fiddler Don Rich to guitar in his newly formed band, The Buckaroos, while Nokie helped fill out The Ventures– a band that would later be dubbed as “The Band That Launched A Thousand Bands”, The Ventures.”

By the time Nokie had joined Owens band he was already a known as a regional virtuoso guitar player.  He’d played professionally since he was 17 and managed to make a very good living with many gigs paying up the $350 a week.  By the time Bob Bogle and Don Wilson lured him into with them he was certainly taking a big financial hit.

Originally Bogle and Wilson had chosen the name The Versatones, but as Don Wilson put it;

“We started out calling ourselves ‘The Versatones’. When we went to register the name, we found out that it was already taken. We were disappointed then, and my mom said, ‘You are venturing into something new, so why don’t you call yourselves The Ventures’?”  I thought it sounded pretty corny, but anyway it stuck!’

This wouldn’t be Wilson’s mothers’ only contribution to the band.  After The Ventures had shopped around for a recording contract (and failed) Josie Williams founded Blue Horizon Records, and arranged studio time at Joe Boles legendary West Seattle studio Custom Recorders.  The Ventures recorded their first single “The Real McCoy b/w Cookies and Coke” with Boles.  Josie wrote the lyrics to Cookies and Coke and produced both sides.  The single was a flop,  but it wasn’t long before Josie booked more time at Custom Recorders and Walk-Don’t Run” was recorded. Bogle played lead guitar with Wilson on rhythm, Edwards on bass, and Skip Moore on drums .  The tiny label pressed up only 300 copies, and distributed them locally.  Unfortunately for Moore, he had decided to leave the band and work for his father’s gas station.  He agreed to be paid $25 for his work on the recording instead of a royalty sharing deal…a mistake that would deprive him of royalties even after a lawsuit a few years later.  Moore was replaced by drummer George T. Babbitt, Jr., but at 16  he was too young to play bars and taverns The Ventures were often hired to perform in.  Finally the band hired Howie Johnson in order to go out on tour in support of their major hit and new-found popularity.  In the fall of 1961 he was involved in a car crash, causing him irreversible spinal damage. Johnson managed to play drums while wearing a neck brace. Beside touring he drummed on the first four Ventures albums and  half of the tracks on the fifth LP.  He ended up quitting in order to spend more time with his family and occasionally played locally throughout the rest of his life.

Josie Wilson pushed Walk-Don’t Run day and night to anyone who would listen. Out of the blue local entrepreneur, DJ and radio station owner Pat O’Day started using a portion of Walk-Don’t Run as a “kicker” (intro) to his newscasts  on his wildly popular radio station KJR.  Listeners wanted to hear more, so KJR put the entire song into rotation.  Soon legendary Seattle label Dolton Records were beating a path to Josie’s door to pick up The Ventures’ contract.  The irony was not lost on Josie and the band that they had previously auditioned for Dolton, but had been turned down.  Though Dolton heads being a bit embarrased theywent on to re-release Walk-Don’t Run on their label.  At the time Liberty Records was their distributor so Dolton licensed the rights to the much bigger and more powerful national label.  

It’s well known that the band had been introduced to Walk-Don’t Run through Chet Atkin’s 1956 version of the song included on one of Bob’s favorite albums; “Hi-Fi In Focus”.  Yet the song had originally been written and recorded by jazz-great Johnny Smith in 1954.  The Atkins version is more syncopated than the very jazzy Smith version.  Both are fine renditions, but The Ventures would put their own Imprint on it- as they did on other recordings-creating yet a third dynamic version of the song. Both Chet’s and Johnny Smiths are worth a listen.  Both are as individual and inspiring as The Ventures’ forward-looking interpretation.  In 2011 Don admitted

“He (Chet Atkins) played it in a classical jazzy style and we couldn’t play it like that. We weren’t good enough. So we decided to make our own arrangement of it and simplify it and that’s how that happened.




Having found a local label with national distribution propelled “Walk, Don’t Run” to number two on the Billboard pop chart and sold over a million copies.  When the Ventures relocated from Seattle to Los Angeles in 1963, Josie Wilson remained the band’s co-producer in tandem with Dolton owner Bob Reisdorf.  Years later she was also instrumental in getting fans to demand The Ventures be inducted into The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. During her life she became a savvy business person, a respected producer and one of the first to kick down the doors of the music industry to women. Surprisingly it was another woman-Bonnie Guitar-who grew up just a few miles north of Tacoma-who would also be instrumental in gaining respect for women in music circles.  Josie Wilson remained a trusted insider of The Ventures until her death at the age of 91 in 2007.

Their second release was a re-working for a 1940 Xavier Cugat hit called Perfidia. It only reached number 15 in the charts, and was followed by a steady flow of singles that stalled in the nether end of the charts; but album sales were always a more important money-maker than singles. The band would never see such spectacular single’s success aside from their 1964 re-make of Walk-Don’t Run (it reached number 15 in the US charts) and 1969’s “Theme From Hawaii 5-0” which reached number 8 in the charts.  Oddly enough the theme for “Hawaii 5-0” had been written by director Morton Stevens as a short opener for the show.  It wasn’t until The Ventures full recording of the song that it became a fully-formed song.  The addition of horns to the song may have seemed an odd move for the band, but they utilized brass sections on and off during their career…and fans love “Hawaii 5-0″.  It also didn’t hurt that they’d get a short listen to it once a week on television.

Although The Ventures would have few hit singles, they made up that by releasing hit after hit albums.  They may be the world’s first band that relied on album sales rather than singles.  This was unusual for the 1960s and would only become more common in the 1970s with the advent of FM radio.  When Dolton Records re-located their main offices to Los Angeles in 1963 it was to the detriment of Northwest artists, but an incredibly valuable move for The Ventures. It meant better studio facilities and closer contact with Liberty Records and their distribution executives.

The Ventures set the stage for a guitar line-up that has now become the typical formula; Lead, rhythm and bass guitars backed by a great drummerThe formula was not unheard of before but the band did a lot to popularize it.  They’d also created “the big guitar sound” and although instrumentals were at the core of the late-50s/early 60s Northwest Sound, The Ventures were introducing a new approach that did not heavily rely on  R&B and the ever-present organ.  They were interested in technical advancements as well as new sounds. Over the years they would be pioneers in distortion, reversing tapes, bringing the Theramin to rock and heavy use of vibrato as well as a myriad of other  effects.

Soon after Bob Bogle’s death in 2009, fellow guitarist Don Wilson told The Los Angeles Times;

“Any guitar player would tell you, Bob is the most unique-sounding guitar player ever. The way he used to do the whammy bar — that vibrato bar. He kept his little finger on it while he played it all the time. He’d make it sound, like at the end of a chord, Wow-wow.

Soon after the success of Walk-Don’t Run drummer Howie Johnson (a guitarist in his own right) suggested that Bob Bogle and Nokie Edwards trade places resulting in Bogle as bassist Edwards as lead guitarist.  The formula worked, and the transition was amicable.  It made the band more of an overall talented unit.

Howie Johnson left the band in 1962 he was replaced by Mel Taylor who had been a house drummer at the well-known Los Angeles club The Palamino.  Taylor had already made his mark as a drummer for Herb Alpert and as a member of Bobby (Boris) Pickett’s band who had recorded the seasonally perennial hit  “The Monster Mash”.  On a side note, Mel’s younger brother, Larry, became the bassist for Canned Heat and before that had been a session bass player for Jerry Lee Lewis and The Monkees among others.

One of the reasons The Ventures deserve the moniker “The Band That Launched a Thousand Bands” was their release of several volumes of the “Learn To Play The Ventures” series.  The learning process came to be known as “guitar phonics“. This was a completely new approach to learning guitar and bass.  There had been written “how to…” books  before The Ventures.  There were also a few recorded tutorials.  But there had never been a series of lessons by the bands players themselves to teach kids (and adults) to play specific parts of their own songs.  There’s many a modern artist that proudly admit to having learned to play with The Ventures’ series.  The first volume of the “Learn to Play….even showed up on the popular music charts.

The Ventures were also one of the first bands to take advantage of  fuzztone.  Ventures afficianado’s can’t seem to agree how the fuzz was first created.  Some claim it was the Mosrite guitars’ pickups they were using at the time, the Mosrite Fuzz-Rite or The Maestro FZ-1 Fuzz-Tone.  No matter the source, it would become one of The Ventures signature sounds.  Musicians and fans have cited their 1962 single “2,000 Pound Bee” as the first use of the fuzz guitar, but it’s clear it had been used by Ike Truner as early as 1951, on the Memphis recordings of Howlin’ Wolf (1951-52), Johnny Burnette’s “Train Kept a-Rollin” (1956) and Link Wray’s “Rumble” (1958).

In  1963 the band had entered into a deal Mosrite to play live with a series of Mosrite guitars that were specially designed for The Ventures. Before the Mosrite period all three guitarists had  played production models of the  Jazzmaster, the Stratocaster and a Precision Bass.  Mosrite  founder, Semie Moseley had built a guitar that he lent to Nokie Edwards for some recording sessions.  Soon Edwards had bought his own Mosrite and within a year The Ventures had an endorsement and co-distribution deal that made Mosrite a common name among guitarists.  The deal lasted until 1968, and aside from the use of Mosrite guitars, there are some archival photos of the band using the Mosrite Award solid-state amps from the Ventures’ Mosrite Distributing Company.  Despite their popularity with musicians this particular model would never go into mass production.

It was probably Nokie Edwards who had been the most instrumental in popularizing the well-crafted series.   Along with the endorsement and use of the Mosrites the guitar manufacturer sold the series to consumers with a label “The Ventures” on the headstock.  It began a mini-craze for the model that remains to this day.  Guitarists from Jimi Hendrix to Arthur Lee to Kurt Cobain have all played Mosrite’s.  Bands like the MC5 and The Ramones have used them. According to Mosrite’s  promotional material,  the company claims“Jimi Hendrix had two Mosrites. Jimi would commonly smash and burn his easily replaceable Fenders but the Mosrite’s were treasured and well taken care of.  The doubleneck used on Spanish Castle Magic is today on display at the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame”  They go on to say ” Virtually everyone who is anyone has owned a Mosrite at some time in their life”.  This is probably closer to truth than hyperbole.  Despite the quality of the instruments once the endorsement deal ended all three guitarists returned to the use of Fenders  Years later, n 1996 Fender released a limited edition Ventures Signature Series of guitars consisting of their original  Jazzmaster,  Stratocaster, and a Fender Jazz Bass.  This time the band had a hand in their design and specifications.  When Nokie Edwards left the band in 1968  he reverted to his Mosrite  During this hiatus Edwards was replaced by Gerry McGee and Edwards reverted to his Mosrite guitar for solo projects during this period.  When he returned to The Ventures in 1973 he again played a Fender, though occasionally pulled out his Mosrite.

The Ventures had also made a very savvy move in licensing their music to Japanese labels that would include Toshiba/EMI. Japan is the world’s second largest market for recorded music-The Ventures popular appeal in Japan came just as electric guitars were first being marketed in Japan-  Soon The Ventures and their use of the electric guitar were in such popular demand that they began to tour extensively in Japan.  Throughout their career they have been a huge draw in Japan.  The move to satisfy the Japanese market would provide a boon when The Ventures became less popular in the US during the 1970s.  They also recorded and released about 50 albums specifically for the Japanese market, while continuing to tour Japan on a regular basis.  After the 60’s their US output did modest sales and a dedicated fan base did not diminish in Japan.  The very fact that the band had never been dropped by a major label until late in their career allowed them to record and release the vast number of albums they’re known for. .  They also licensed their recording to labels all around the world. The Ventures were consistent sellers no matter what label was issuing or distributing.  Even poor promotion would not detract from their strong fan base.  But great deals with the Japanese and European markets brought in good royalties and a savvy approach to contracts and their huge audience outside the US (even to this day) was a large part of The Ventures success even as music fans at home were turning their backs on what was becoming considered dated artists.

At the advent of the 80s the Surf Sound, along with Rockabilly began to pique the interest of musicians and fans on the outer fringes of popular music.  At first the interest was largely a novelty (who can forget the silly “poodle skirt” era of the 80s?)  The Ventures  became associated with post-modernism-a slightly jaded form of kitsch that was meant to be shared by folks supposedly “in-the-know”  But as the popularity of bands like The Cramps and The Stray Cats became more serious, musicians and fans followed suit.   An entire genre of “surf punk” music arose with bands like Agent Orange, The Forgotten Rebels, and of course The Surf Punks at the forefront.  Many other bands would pepper their output with a surf or rockabilly song or two.  Later film directors used surf music in their film soundtracks.  Quentin Tarantino was instrumental in this by including classic surf tracks in his movie 1994 film Pulp Fiction.  Although their profile had been rising during the 80’s The Ventures were once again on top.

A new generation had found The Ventures…and took them seriously as masters of American pop culture. Sales of their old (and new) albums picked up.  More and more live dates in the US and in Europe were being booked…at first in smaller clubs, but they were finding the venues were getting bigger.  By the time the huge corporate-sponsored era of festivals  became fashionable the band was playing in front of crowds in the tens of thousands…or even hundreds of thousands.

Finally in 2008  one of the band’s dreams would come true.  It was also the dream of Josie Wilson, who had died a year earlier. The Ventures finally were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.  Artists become eligible only after the first 25 years of their careers.  The Ventures had passed that mark by 22 more yearsThe night of their induction by John Fogarty (Creedence Clearwater Revival) two of the “classic era” members of The Ventures were on hand; Nokie Edwards and Don Wilson.  Bob Bogle and Gerry McGee were unable to attend.  Being ignored by the Hall of Fame so long had been a bitter pill for Don Wilson, but when asked  “Why so long?” Wilson simply said “All we did was quietly sell millions of records.”  In 2010 The members of The Ventures were also awarded  The Order of the Rising Sun by the Emperor of Japan. The medal originated in 1875 and symbolizes “energy as powerful as the rising sun.” The ceremony took place at the Queen Anne  consulate.  During the ceremony Japan Consul General Kiyokazu Ota said”

The Ventures’ unique ‘teke-teke sound’ … grabbed the heart of many Japanese young men and women. These young fans in turn formed groups of their own, thus creating a huge boom of electric-guitar sales in Japan.”

So what of the players that have been part of The Ventures?

In 1972 drummer Mel Taylor left the band to pursue a career because he felt The Ventures had become a “nostalgia act“in and was replaced by drummer Joe Barile.  Taylor returned in 1979 and remained with The Ventures until his death in 1996 of cancer and heart failure.  After his death his son, Leon Taylor took over his duties as drummer.

Gerry McGee also left the band only to return.  He walked away in 1978 to work as a solo artist as well as recording and touring with Dwight Yoakum, John Mayall, Kris Kristofferson and others.  He returned to The Ventures in 1985 and is the only active remaining member left from any of the 1960’s line-ups.  During a subsequent tour of Japan McGee suffered a heart attack, but recovered and continues to play with the band.

Bob Bogle had belonged to the recording and touring outfit until his health began to deteriorate.  He retired from touring in December 2004 and was replaced by Bob Spalding.  He had lived in Vancouver, Washington, for years and died there on June 14, 2009, at 75 of non-Hodgkin lymphoma;

Howie Johnson, the neck-braced drummer that stayed with The Ventures for their first few tours and albums passed away in January of 1988.

Skip Moore who had been the actual drummer that had played on Walk Don’t Run had died in 1988.  Some musicologists have argued that it was Johnson who played on Walk-Don’t Run using the pseudonym “Skip Moore”, but the evidence points a different direction.

Nokie Edwards left the band a second time in 1984 to work in Nashville with Country and Western artists including lead guitar on Lefty Frizell’s final album.  Edwards re-upped with The Ventures for a short time in the late 80’s but soon returned to Nashville and began a very successful career with producer and fellow musician Art Greenshaw.  The critically acclaimed collaboration of Edwards and artist-producer Greenhaw has resulted in Edwards being nominated for “Grammy Award for Best Southern, Country or Bluegrass Gospel Album of the Year” with 2005’s  “20th Century Gospel”  andSouthern Meets Soul”in 2006.

Bob Spalding has remained part of The Ventures while pursuing his own solo projects.  In 2016 Bob’s son, Ian Spalding’  became The Venture’s bass guitarist. Bob now lives in San Bernardino CA.

In 2015 Don Wilson retired from touring and recording with The Ventures.  Since then he continues to keep the memory of the original outfit in  public view.  He now lives in Sammamish WA.

And what of the young George T. Babbit Jr., who, at 16, was too young to play with The Ventures?  Soon after his departure from the band he went to college and joined the ROTC.  He then enlisted in the US Air Force and rose to the commission of 4-Star General. Between 1997 to 2000 he served as Commander of the Air Force Materiel Command (COMAFMC).  On March 1, 1998, (while on active duty as 4-star general), he joined The Ventures onstage in uniform on drums.  He is now living in retirement in Bremerton WA.

 

The current touring line-up of the Ventures is:
Gerry McGee – Lead Guitar (joined in 1968)
Bob Spalding – Lead & Rhythm Guitar (joined in 1981)
Leon Taylor – Drums (joined in 1996)
Ian Spalding – Bass (joined in 2016)

 

-Dennis R. White.  Sources: Del Hartleman”Walk Don’t Run-The History of The Ventures ( Del Hartlman, 2011); Jame Bush. “Encyclopedia of Northwest Music” (Sasquatch Books, 1999); Jim Clash “The Ventures’ Don Wilson On His Big Hit Single Hawaii Five-O, More” (Forbes Magazine,

 

 

NANCY CLAIRE

Not surprisingly the bands of the 1950s and 60s that would define The Northwest Sound was mostly a boys game.  There had been women who’d made it in their own right –Bonnie Guitar comes to mind- but even she was closer to country than the newer sounds.  Bea Smith had made her name in rockabilly but  The NorthwestSound relied on a hybrid of R&B and jazz.  In fact most of the successful women performing were either coming out of rockabilly, hillbilly music or singing blues and early R&B among the many black venues surrounding Jackson St.  Of course many of these clubs were avoided by whites, and those teenagers wanting to hear the real deal dare not venture into many of the mostly-black bottle clubs and dens of gambling and prostitution that some rightly were known as.  Police raids were common along Jackson Street and door men were careful not to give entry to the kids that may be cause for even more raids.  The musicians who had come to play R&B were the exception to the rule.  Their fans may have been frightened off by what was collectively known as the (primarily black) Jackson St. Scene. The Birdland, The Ubangi Club, The House of Entertainment and especially The Black and Tan (which was largely integrated by the late 50s) were all clubs that attracted the young white practitioners of teen-dance R&B.

Very few of the early Northwest Sound bands ventured into vocals or women in general.  This wasn’t a purposeful lock-out of women.  It was out of popular demand.  Audiences didn’t mind instrumentals, they simply wanted to dance.  Girl Groups from across the nation were seen as a novelty acts.  Very few bands had fully-fledged female members of their bands.  There were exceptions, but this was mostly the face of the Northwest Sound during the mid-late 1950s. Enter The Fleetwoods.

Artist, label owner and producer Bonnie Guitar and her business partner Bob Reisdorff of Dolphin Records (soon to be re-christened as Dolton Records had taken note of the Olympia trio (Gary Troxel, Gretchen Christopher, and Barbara Ellis).  The band did not fit into the girl group mold, nor was it the kind of rollicking R&B Northwest fans were used to… but Bonnie and Bob’s belief in The Fleetwoods and their signing them paid off in droves.  The first two releases by The Fleetwoods rose to the number one position on the US Billboards charts in 1959.  Their music did as spectacularly well in Britain, Canada and the rest of the world.   “Come Softly to Me” by The Fleetwoods  was Dolphin/Dolton’s very first commercial release.  The label  had pulled-off something incredible, even today…an independent, regional label releasing a bona fide, massive hit on their first outing.  Fortunately the label  was widely available due to distribution from Liberty Records in the US and with London Records almost everywhere else in the world.  The second release by The Fleetwoods, Graduation’s Here, did well but it wasn’t until their third release that the band and label landed another number one single and worldwide hit.  Mr. Blue was also released in 1959 and helped make The Fleetwoods one of the best selling trios in the late 1950s




Aside from Barbara Ellis and Gretchen Christopher-along with Gary Troxel-becoming stars arising from the Northwest, there were a few great female singers waiting on the sidelines until regional bands realized that featuring a female singer in one of two songs was a bright move.  Among those waiting in the wings were Merrilee Gunst (later Merilee Rush) a very young and incredibly talented Gail Harris in Tacoma who had appeared on Buck Owens’ radio show and would later sing with Tacoma’s Fabulous Wailers.  But a young woman from Kent, Nancy Claire, was the most sought-after female vocalist in the Northwest.  She would end up singing and recording with the cream of the crop of NW music, notably as a featured vocalist for The Dynamics, The Exotics, and maybe the most popular Seattle white R&B band of the early 60s, The Frantics. The floodgates for featuring girl singers on a couple of songs at live gigs had opened.  In 2009 Seattle Music historian Peter Blecha wrote:

“…scores of Northwest combos joined in the fun and some cool records were one result. In Seattle, Ronnie D. and the Valiants featured Pam Kelley on their “Cherry Darlin'” 45; the Duettes (with Bonnie and Ann Sloan) sang their teen-dream ode, “Donny,” and Barbara McBride and the Nomads cut “The Only Reason”; Walla Walla’s Frets featured Janie Hanlon on “Do You Wanna Dance”; Moses Lake’s Fabulous Continentals cut “I’m Not Too Young” with Marsha Maye Covey; Tacoma’s Cindy Kennedy cut “Skateboard” and Patty Q recorded “Help Me Baby”; Olympia’s Stingrays featured Cheri Robin on “The Dance”; and Wenatchee’s Linda Jo and the Nomads recorded “Stop Your Cryin’.”

And plenty of other Northwest bands with girl singers never issued records, including Tacoma’s Sonics (with “Miss” Marilyn Lodge), Solitudes (with Dani Gendreau), Regents (with Sandy Faye), Galaxies (with Andy Haverly), and Statesmen (with ‘Fabulous’ Juliette); Seattle’s Neptunes (with Melody and Merilyn Landon), the Dynamics (with Randi Green), and the Pulsations (with Darlene Judy); Bremerton’s Raymarks (with future country star Gail Davies); Aberdeen’s Beachcombers (with Jocelle Russell and/or Shirley Owens); Olympia’s Triumphs (with Janet Weaver); Tenino’s Hangmen (with Sandy Smith); Sequim’s Eccentrics (with Pam Clark and/or Nancy Warman); Winthrop’s Danny and the Winthrops (with “Miss” Tessie Thomas); and Spokane’s Runabouts (with Mickey Davis).

But it was Nancy Claire who was in most-demand.  After playing dozens of gigs with an almost unbelievable amount of  well-know Seattle bands, the owner of Rona Records, Nacio Brown Jr. took notice and flew Nancy down to LA in 1961 to cut a few songs for his label.  Nancy was whisked off to Hollywood to pursue a solo recording career.  Her initial route to wide exposure was propelled by the release of “Danny” b/w ” Y-E-S!”.  She toured on the strength of that single and Warner Bros. took advantage of her popularity by licensing the single from Rona…Unfortunately her second release on Rona (Cheatin On Me b/w Little Baby) released in 1962  failed to catch fire among national radio stations, so Nancy returned to Seattle and continued to sing and hang out with dozens of then-important Northwest Sound musicians.  After her return from California she expressed ambivalence about her time in Hollywood.  She had done sessions with excellent musicians, producers and arrangers but the mold  record execs tried to put her into didn’t comport with her natural instincts for R&B and Rock & Roll.  It was, she said “not my bag”.

Nancy was approached to record in Hollywood again in 1963.  It was also to record again with Nacio Brown Jr. but this time the label would be the highly regarded World Pacific Records.  Nancy was put in the studio with a full orchestra and the sessions produced two more singles. (“I’m Burnin’ My Diary” b/w “The Baby Blues” and “Last Night” b/w “Charlie My Boy”  In retrospect both are fairly interesting singles, but top 40 radio at the time all but ignored them, and Nancy headed back to Seattle where she was truly appreciated


Once back in place as the Northwest’s most sought after vocalist Nancy joined up with The Viceroys.  In 1964 legendary radio personality and promoter Pat O’Day took notice.  He put them in the studio to record two cover-songs (Death of An Angel and Earth Angel)  and arranged to have the single released on the prestigious Imperial Records label.  The Viceroys (with Nancy Claire) single went nowhere, and it would be the last attempt by Nancy to release a national recording.

Although Nancy used the name “Claire” she was actually born in 1943 as Nancy Claire Penninger. She used Nancy Claire as her stage name-and who could blame her?  The name seemed so much more fitting for the petite, beautiful girl onstage.  Years later Nancy would officially change her surname to “Claire”  but most of her fans would never see her as Nancy Penninger in the first place. The name she chose to work under seemed so fitting.

Nancy’s earliest exposure to music wasn’t jazz, R&B or Rock and Roll.  It was Country & Western, mostly influenced by KVI DJ, Buck Ritchey and her exposure to his radio program.  Buck Owens also played a role.  Buck did a show on a station he co-owned (KAYE) in Puyallup WA.  As a young girl Nancy had played as an amateur with several C&W outfits, but it wasn’t until Nancy was invited to appear on a talent show televised by Tacoma’s KTNT that she got her break. A local Tacoma band The Versatones also appeared on the same show.  The Versatones had been founded by Don Wilson and Bob Bogle two masonry workers.  Their band would face adversity and challenges before emerging a couple of years later as The Ventures…the most successful instrumental band in rock history.

Del Halterman’s recounts in his book “Walk-Don’t Run: The History of The Ventures”  that Nancy
“strummed a guitar and sang cowboy songs under the watchful eye of her mother. When the TV show ended, the mother introduced herself to [the Versatones] as Nancy’s manager and described a problem that she hoped they could help solve. …[Clair’s] limited ability on guitar restricted the number of songs she was able to sing. Impressed with the Versatones, [she] proposed that they back Nancy on her show. There would be no pay, but [she] would bill the act as ‘Nancy Claire and the Versatones.’ Radio exposure being valuable and not easily obtainable, they accepted and proceeded to perform with her on KAYE each week for about two months”. (sited by Peter Blecha)


I
n fact Nancy occasionally reverted to her C&W roots as an adult and in 1965 she toured the west coast with some of the biggest country stars of her day-The Carter Family,  Skeeter Davis, Marty Robbins, and Merle Travis.


As the 60s progressed and The Northwest Sound made way for more rock, folk-oriented and psychedelic music.  Nancy spent more and more time raising a family, even though she drifted in and out of the music scene and kept up with old friends even though she was no longer in the public eye.  She wasn’t exactly forgotten, but she was certainly seen as a figure from a different era-even if that era had only been 5 or 6 years earlier.  As the 1960s wound down, Claire began singing with a hippie flower-power group, Paleface.  The band found modest success around the Tacoma and South Seattle.  She also sang with the bluesy band Easy Money, and later with a Top 40 band, The Royals.

Although Nancy appeared onstage less frequently she occasionally sat-in with some of her old  pals, and from 1970 thru 1972 she made regular appearances with Jr. Cadillac, a loose aggregation of players of former 50s and 60s regional bands. The line-up often consisted of the late Buck Ormsby (The Wailers), Bob Hosko and Jim Manolides (The Frantics), Jeff Afdem (The Dynamics and Springfield Rifle) and Harry Wilson (The Casuals and The Dynamics), drummer Steve Moshier (The Turnabouts) Les Clinkingbeard and Ned Neltner (Kidd Afrika/Issac Scott/Mark 5), Tom Katica, who passed away in 2010, and a host of others.  The band has played continuously since 1970 and plenty of well-known Northwest Sound artists have sat-in over those 47 years.

Nancy has also sat in alongside Merrilee Rush, Kathi Hart, Kathi MacDonald, Patti Allen as the Seattle Women in Rhythm and Blues,  She continued to make occasional sightings during the 70’s and in 1980 she took part in “The Great Northwest Rock and Roll Show” put together by  Jr. Cadillac gathering featuring Anthony “Tiny Tony” Smith,  Little Bill Englehart and The Wailers with Gail Harris. Nancy also took part in Jr. Cadillac’s 12th Anniversary party at Parkers Ballroom on Aurora Avenue-one of the premier venues that hosted teen-dances in the late 50s and 60s.

Today Nancy sings with “Blues On Tap” featuring Steve Peterson, a 2013 nominee by the  Washington Blues Society for  Best Male Blues Singer; Bruce Ransom who’s shared bills with Taj Mahal, Elvin Bishop, Roy Gaines, Kenny Neal, Billy Branch, Jimmy Burns, Mitch Woods, Deanna Bogart, and Eden Brent;  Ray Hartman who’s credits include a long stint with the Dick Powell Band who’ve opened for B.B. King and The James Cotton Band; and Jim Plano former drummer of the psychedelic-era Crome Syrcus among other gigs.

Over the past few years Nancy Claire continues to show up now and again, even though her audience has aged along with her.  .  Her singles, although ranging from modest hits to flops are worth a listen and various you tube vids of the music is online.  As the one-time First-Lady of Seattle R&B she certainly deserves attention from a younger audience that can take a snapshot of Seattle’s original burst onto the national scene.

Nancy Claire is also a two time winner of  The Northwest Music Associations Hall of Fame Award. Both awards are well-deserved.

 

-Dennis R. White.  Sources; Peter Blecha, “The Great Northwest Rock and Roll Show reunion gig of local rockers kicks of on July 20, 1980″ (NWHistoryLink.org, Essay 10375, April 14, 2013); Steve Flynn,”The Music” (stevenflynnmusic.com, 2017); Peter Blecha “Nancy Claire (b. 1943)” (HistoryLink.org, Essay 10374, May 8, 2023): Del Halterman, “Walk-Don’t Run; The History of The Ventures” (LuLu Books, May 11, 2009); Peter Blecha, “Women of Northwest Rock: The First 50 Years (1957-2007)” (Essay 8935,HistoryLink.org); “Blues On Tap”, (bluesontap.net/bios.php); Photo courtesy of Nancy Claire.

 

SILLY KILLERS

The Silly Killers are one of early 80s Seattle punk bands that would probably be forgotten years ago if it wasn’t for the fact that former Guns N’Roses’ Michael “Duff” McKagen was a member for a short time.  One has to wonder what rabid metal fans would have felt if Duff had continued playing in a multitude of punk bands before becoming famous in one of the all-time most successful metal bands in history; after all McKagen, from a very young age, was one of the most prolific members of early Seattle punk.  Most likely all of his hard work might have been little more than a footnote were it not for relocating from Seattle to Los Angeles-being a footnote is a fate he obviously would not deserve.  But in spite of McKagen’s short time with the Silly Killers, they had already become stars in their own right among Seattle’s punk community. The Silly Killers’ reputation in recent years has also has been heightened by new-found interest in their only 7” recording of what’s usually referred to as the Knife Manual EP, and two other hard to find tracks that have only been “officially” released on the excellent 1983 cassette “What Syndrome” put out by local label Deux Ex Machina Records And Tapes in 1983.

Then there’s Slats (born Chris Harvey) founding member of the Silly Killers who died in 2010 after years of being an iconic figure not only in the punk community, but in the city at large. Despite his ongoing addiction and alcoholism Slats made the rounds two and a half decades as a highly visible character in both Seattle’s University District and on Capitol Hill.  Some worried about him.  Others made bets on how long he would live.  Aside from that Slats was a genial, kind and generous person who had simply found himself in the grips of addiction.  Some friends have reported that he was clean his last few years, but there’s no doubt he was not sober.  You could often find him drinking in one of Seattle’s many musicians’ hangouts-always ready to talk and (what the hell) accept a free drink.  However addiction is in no way a character flaw and it’s clear that many were touched by his legacy…friends who had known him for years, and strangers who had only sighted him from afar.  He was much more than a cast-off.

From the mid 80’s onward Slats was well known for his “uniform”.  Punk-rock (all black) regalia, including skinny jeans and ratted, longish black hair almost always topped by a wide-brimmed hat.  If he never became a huge rock star he was always dressed as if he would be soon…perhaps as a re-incarnation of Johnny Thunders. But the legacy of the Silly Killers goes beyond an iconic figure or a member of rock royalty. The Silly Killers began as one of a handful of seminal second generation hardcore bands that arose in Seattle during the early 1980’s.  It’s might even be misleading to call the Silly Killers “hardcore” since their music and performances did not follow the formula most early hardcore bands did.  The singing of vocalist Eddie Huget could be nuanced instead of a constant, disembodied supposedly traumatized suburban scream.  The songs were actually melodic at times…it might be more appropriate to call the Silly Killers a great little rock and roll band that found it’s place among punk rock.





The band was not above pissing off everyone, including their own fans.  Instead of using the term “pissing off” “taking the piss out of” may be more correct.  Often acting as provocateurs 0n several occasions the band used what seemed to be misogynistic images to promote their shows.  The images drew the wrath of those who didn’t see it as funny or as a stunt to heighten the Silly Killers image in the public eye.   Needless to say, they managed to anger Seattle’s feminist and lesbian communities often.

It’s been reported that in 1982 the Silly Killers were part of the very first punk-rock show in Tacoma, which is about 25 miles south of Seattle.  The bill included The Fartz and Wad Squad (led by the equally iconic Chuck “Upchuck” Gerra).  This claim could be argued, since punk was not new to Tacoma, but it’s also probable that this could have been the first, most visible show of important Seattle bands to do an all-ages show in Tacoma.  Nonetheless the Silly Killers had already made a name for themselves in Seattle,  although often found themselves as the opening act for more well-known local and regional bands.  Despite being largely a support band the Silly Killers had a devoted following and it grew each time they hit the stage.

It was during this era that the Silly Killers recorded their now infamous Knife Manual EP for Kurt Bloch’s No Threes Records.  Kurt was a founding member of The Fastbacks and another highly visible musician-even to this day- on the Seattle scene.  Although the output of No Threes was sporadic during the early 80s Kurt managed to release some of the most classic (and consequently desirable) singles of any local label.  His first four releases (Kill The BeeGees by The Accident,  Man as Hunter by The Cheaters, The Fastbacks debut single It’s Your Birthday and “You May Not Believe In Vains But You Cannot Deny Terror” by Vains-which also featured the near ubiquitous Duff McKagen. No Threes went on to release several Fastbacks records as well as other bands, including Pure Joy, and more recently The Yes Masters and Full Toilet as well as an excellent compilation of the early Fastbacks recordings. No Threes is still active and has also re-issued many of it’s original releases-except, mysteriously, the Silly Killers.

The fact that Silly Killers tracks have been included in several unauthorized bootlegs over the years deprived the original members even a modest amount of royalties.  One of the unauthorized compilations the Silly Killers can be found on is Killed By Death Volume 12 (1996, Redrum Records).  In fact the cover art for this volume is based on the very same image the Silly Killers used on their Knife Manual EP…but then again, they had stolen the image themselves. The photo used on the cover of Knife Manual is that of wrestler turned Ed Wood actor Tor Johnson.  Johnson is probably known best as the hulking figure in both Bride of the Monster (1955) and Plan Nine From Outer Space (1959) as well as a few other Ed Wood films.  But, amazingly, Johnson was also featured in film and television from the big screen musical adaptation of Carousel to television’s Shirley Temple Theater to the Monkees psychedelic outing Head.

There have also been a few legitimate releases of the Silly Killers songs.  Among them is a tip of the hat from later Seattle favorites Gas Huffer.  They contributed their version of Knife Manual in 1992 on a split single with Mudhoney doing a cover of The Angry Samoan’s “You Stupid Asshole”.

The Silly Killers, like most early practitioners of punk never expected to make any money in the first place. They played and recorded for the hell of it, and knowing they’d be entertaining their fans.  They probably never dreamed they would have the status and influence of later generations.  After all, a review in the region’s premier music magazine The Rocket gave it a poor review, and sales of the 7” EP were modest at best.  Today copies are highly prized on the collectors market, but practically impossible to find…one copy recently sold for $200.

The Silly Killers were exceptionally entertaining live. Slats thrashed on guitar while lead singer Eddie  often Huletz feigned indifference when he wasn’t singing.  Both Gary Clukey and  Tim Gowell (now Steven Gowell) played with abandon. The shows could end in chaos (to the glee of audiences) and their set was filled with confrontational lyrics as well as the song titles on their EP which included Sissie Faggots and Social Bitch.  More strident members of the public had no sense of irony and considered the Silly Killers to be misogynistic and homophobic.  Of course it was all provocation as part of their schtick.  It should be noted here that Duff McKagen was not with the band at the time of their recording Knife Manual, but he is credited with “backing vocals” on the song Social Bitch.  By the time the Silly Killers recorded the two songs originally released on What Syndrome (Nothing To Say and Big Machine) Duff had replaced Gowell as drummer.  The band would dissolve soon after that, leaving Eddie and Gary (as well as Tim/Steven) to follow other pursuits while Duff McKagen continued his path toward becoming a rock star-and Seattle hero. As for Slats, he would continue to be a well-known figure in and around the Seattle music scene as well as somewhat of a cultural icon in the city-for decades.  He drifted in and out of bands, or made attempts at forming bands that never materialized and eventually went on to found Pain Cocktail, his final band.  He became a sort of romantic figure of the archetypical rock junkie that became almost de rigueur in some circles…especially in Seattle during the late 80s and early 90s.  Whether being taken seriously as a musician or simply “just another junkie” he was both revered and reviled by students University District where he was considered an “Ave. Rat” who was admired by others.  Later he spent time on the ever-more gentrified Capitol Hill.  “The Hill” still remained an important locale of the music scene and despite being written off  by many who didn’t know him, Slats was always ready to talk to anyone who approached him. According to Ross Beamish a fellow member of Pain Cocktail

I asked Slats one day if he had seen any of the bullshit people posted online about him.  He just shook his head casually and continued with whatever he was doing. It really didn’t bother him.” 

That was typical Slats…living in a world he’d built for himself but ready to engage with anyone and everyone with a respectful deference and kind heart.  In other words Slats was a good guy, despite his failings…and what failings he had didn’t really affect too many others outside of his mother.

In the spring of 2010 Slats fell and had to have hip surgery.  His lifestyle had done quite a bit of damage to his general health and he died from complications of the surgery on March 13, 2010.  There was a more-than-usual outpouring of love from the community for a one-time punk rocker turned professional addict/alcoholic.  His loss was mourned not only by his friends and family, but by strangers who had only had an occassional glimpse of him.  He’s remembered as a kind eccentric, and probably will be referred to for upcoming historians of Seattle music in the future.  But his lasting legacy will also be based on being involved in one 7” chunk of polyvinyl chloride pressed into a Seattle watershed moment.

-Dennis R.White. Sources: wabbit34, (last fm.com) Chris Harvey (discussions with the author 1984-2005};  “Knife Manual EP 7″ (biography and comments, Killed By Death Records, 1982-present) ” “Legendary Ave Rat Chris Harvey, AKA Slats, dies” (10 Things ‘Zine, March 16, 2010);  Josef Alton. “In Memorium” (City Arts, April 27, 2010); Justin Vinson “Silly Killers EP”  (Sugarbuzz Magaizine.com, date unknown)  “Tor Johnson” (IMDb.com)  “Not That Time Again” Video Slideshow ©Mike Leach

WREX

WREX was established in Belltown, Seattle by Michael Clay, Wes Bradley, and Aaron McKiernan in the early Fall of 1979.  The venue, at 2018 First Avenue, was formerly a leather gay bar called Johnny’s Handlebar, located on the ground floor of a former brothel. Johnny’s Handlebar, at the time it closed was said to be the oldest, continuously open gay bar on the West Coast.  For the first few months of it’s life WREX remained a typical 70s/80s gay bar, catering to local gay men.  The unique décor inside WREX included old car seats in the back, old airplane seats in the side area, and Seattle’s first music video system curated by Ted Ladd.  A DJ spun the popular music found in thousands of gay discos around the nation (and in Seattle) which also included a handful of the poppier “new wave” hits that most gay bars also included among their playlists. As the novelty of the new gay bar wore off the gay clientele retreated to many of their previous haunts around town.  The Brass Door, Neighbors, The Park Avenue, and a plethora of other LGBT venues that  were popping up with regularity.  WREX was still viable as a business, but they needed something more to bring in customers.  One of the targets WREX had not yet tapped into was the growing popularity of punk in the LGBT community  Many who came of age during the punk era rejected the “clone” culture that pervaded the  gay scene at the time.  Not only that, alot of younger straight adults interested in punk barely regarded a difference between themselves and their queer friends. They all gravitated  toward punk as an alternative, so they were all one tribe. It’s not surprising that gays bars were regularly part of the punk scene of the late 70’s and early 80’s.  They were always ready to allow punk rock in their midst because it represented the same kind of outsidership, and it’s no wonder so many gay youth were willing to embrace more outré artists that had emerged from gay disco-artists like Sylvester and the iconic Grace Jones.

Seattle’s punk and gay communities have often mingled together, and the subcultural mise-en-scène at WREX was no exception to that general rule. Occasionally, former Johnny’s Handlebar clientele would drop in after WREX’s opening, not yet knowing about the change in management and regular crowd. Since both gays and punks were then equally shunned by mainstream Seattleites, there was no true clash between the two subcultures.

Armed with that knowledge two gay young men who were familiar with the cross-pollination between punk and gay culture approached Aaron McKiernan, the principle investor in WREX with a proposal.  One night a week WREX would host dances showcasing the latest independent, alternative and punk rock. The two DJs there were Charles “Upchuck” Gerra, then a prominent figure within Seattle’s punk scene, and Dennis R. White who would later become a graphic designer. promoter. manager and part of the staff of The Rocket.  Although Gerra spun a few records each night, his real strength was hosting, mingling with and entertaining the crowd and promoting the fact that WREX had now become a haven for young gay and lesbians searching for their own space.  And with them came their allies and friends in the punk community.  All-ages clubs and all-ages shows had come and gone in Seattle, but no single club had devoted itself to punk and alternative dance music.  There was a ready audience waiting, so, on a rainy night in December 1979 just after 8PM the needle dropped onto “Orphans” by Teenage Jesus and The Jerks.  A new chapter in Seattle music had begun.

At first the crowds were sparse, but they grew throughout 1980 and eventually the club was just as much a “gay” venue as a “punk” venue that welcomed anyone with a love for the alternative scene.  Some time during this period, Mike Vraney (of Time Travellers and Modern Productions) began to book live music at the club.  His sights were high and he intended to showcase the best of popular local alternative bands with rising stars on the indie scene both in the US and Europe.  The first live band to play WREX was The Fastbacks (with a young Duff McKagen on drums).  Their set was meant to work out any kinks in presenting live music, and in anticipation of the first official show at WREX.  The next night The Blackouts and The Beakers opened for Delta 5 from Leeds, England.  Delta 5’s politically infused feminist politics had made them stand-outs in the early post-punk years.

From then on bands played at WREX three nights a week, originally booked by Vraney.  During his very successful run of bookings Vraney brought national and international acts to the club, as well as booking the cream of the crop of Seattle alternative bands.  The job was eventually turned over to WREX manager/publicist Wes Bradley.  Bradley had extensive ties within the established music business, so it wasn’t hard for him to get his foot in the door of the labels promoting alternative acts that were finally seeing some success in the wider music business.   Bookings were also handed over to independent agents as well as bookings by members of WREX’s own staff.  At the same time Ted Ladd, a video artist and curator was in the process of making headway with both video wallpaper and showing music videos between DJ’s and live music sets.

The shows filled it’s tiny space for most of the time WREX existed. Along with almost every local band then playing original music (starting with the Enemy), touring acts who played at WREX included Grace Jones, Joan Jett, X, The Fleshtones, Romeo Void, Wall of Voodoo, Los Microwaves, Hüsker Dü and others who were then becoming staples of alternative and college radio.  The frequency of shows — and their apparent local popularity — inspired other bars around Seattle to start booking original-music bands, thus giving a crucial boost to Seattle’s punk scene at a crucial time in its development. Additionally, certain bars near WREX in Belltown — such as the Frontier Room and the Rendezvous — soon became local punk hangouts. One gay bar that had always been punk-friendly was Tugs, Belltown.  The proximity of Tugs and WREX exponentially help create what would be one of the city’s best strips to enjoy music on, First Avenue.  A little further south down road lay The Showbox, and during the heyday of it’s operation was a showcase for everyone from Captain Beefheart to John Cale to The Specials to James Brown.  Smaller all-ages venues like Danceland and one-off store front gigs and artists’ studios became common.

By the height of WREX’s popularity Upchuck had continued pursuing his career as a rock performer, Dennis White was spinning records  one night a week, and involved in The Rocket, his own musical side projects, churning out hundreds of rock posters and producing a few band’s recordings on his Pravda label.  But the bulk of the music was presented by DJ’s Michael Clay and Ross Bostwick.  Bostwick would become the one single DJ that was the powerhouse behind the dance music at WREX.  He also made  the transition to the most popular DJ when the space became The Vogue, a few years later. His excellent taste in what was new, progressive, alternative or downright spooky kept the audience intrigued.  Meanwhile Ted Ladd continued to curate punk and new wave videos-a job he continued after the club became The Vogue.

Along with the fertile subcultural ferment that thrived at WREX, there was also an inevitable element of sleaze. At the end of many nights there, spilled beer lingered an inch or two thick on the concrete floor, and young couples often had sex openly on the back staircase during shows. Such was the standard punk nightlife during that time, in Seattle and elsewhere. The nature of its clientele wasn’t WREX’s most important problem: it also had constant problems with cash flow. Dennis White once lamented,

WREX was always out of cash. Toward the end I was buying the keg off the truck in the afternoon out of my own pocket, hoping they’d sell enough that night to pay me back.

Money-or lack of it-is the most common downfall of great nightclubs, so WREX officially closed on March 18, 1982. One year later, the same venue would reopen as The Vogue (in honor of the original hotel’s name-something lost on many of WREX’s former clientele). While focusing on recorded dance music played by DJs, also The Vogue hosted live music acts on off nights — including Nirvana’s first Seattle gig before a full audience on April 24, 1988.  Perhaps it was Nirvana’s “first Seattle gig before a live audience” Most rock historians consider this show the band’s first Seattle gig, but Bruce Pavitt, founder of Sub Pop Reocrds insisted that a Nirvana showcase he attended on April 10, 1988, at the Central Saloon was the band’s very first in Seattle.  He claims “No one else remembers it because it was just me, the doorman and about three other people.”

Some people see The Vogue as one of the first venues to host bands that would one day be known as “grunge”…but like the transition from the 80s to 90s Seattle music scene, it’s hard to escape that WREX had been important to that which would emerge around The Vogue and other clubs like Gorilla Gardens, The OK Hotel and The Metropolis.  Anyone old enough or with a good fake ID who would go onto become part of the late 80s/early 90s movement had stepped inside the doors of WREX at least once. “We all stand on the shoulders of giants” as has been pointed out so many times.

 

–Jeff Stevens & Dennis R. White Sources: Clark Humphrey, “Loser: The Real Seattle Music Story” (Feral House, 1995; MiscMedia, 1999, 2016); Clark Humphrey, “Seattle’s Belltown” (Arcadia Publishing, 2007); Peter Blecha, “Sonic Boom: The History of Northwest Rock, from ‘Louie Louie’ to ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’” (Backbeat Books, 2009); Stephen Tow, “The Strangest Tribe: How a Group of Seattle Rock Bands Invented Grunge” (Sasquatch Books, 2011),