My Long Strange Love Affair With Music

 

Ever since I was a young kid, I’ve been in love with music. I was sure I wanted to be a musician when I grew up.

When I was in the eighth grade I first got involved in the business by helping out my friend Tim Loth. Tim had a band called The Shadows. Now if you had a band, you had to have a manager – as everyone knows – and I was in the right place at the right time. It was that simple. I don’t think I actually did anything. I just hung out with them. They played one gig, as far as I can recall, at a dance at Hunt Jr. High.

I moved to New Zealand the next year and In Te Karaka, I became best friends with Willie Rutene. Willie had a band called The Glasses, and again I was made the nominal manager. The Glasses actually had quite a few gigs around Te Karaka – not bad for young kids still in secondary school.

I started learning how to play guitar and bass at that time, and flirted with singing, fronting the band for several numbers. I was a novelty – the only American kid around. My voice was even pretty good back then, before I destroyed my vocal cords with tobacco.

My family moved from Te Karaka to Turangi in late 1967 and I became involved with a new band, the Raspberry Fuzz . The Fuzz was a creation of Graeme Gibbons, David Priestly and Alan Ward. I was manager again; I also subbed for Dave Priestly on bass occasionally.

The Fuzz was a well-received regional band in New Zealand at the time. We traveled to all-age gigs all over the central area of North Island.

My family moved back to the States in 1968, settling in Federal Way where I played bass in several bands during high school – most notably, in Silver Hammer, with Bill Stephenson and Larry Larson.

I don’t have any pictures or recordings of the older bands from New Zealand or Federal Way.

I did, however, save some stuff from the seventies.

Below are links to pages containing (among other things) free MP3’s of some of the music of the last couple bands I was associated with – Stir Crazy and Kid Rodeo.

They were pretty decent in their own right. Listen to the music and tell me what you think…