C’MON! – My Story of Rock, Ruin and Revelation Read online

  My fourteen-year-old sister Debbie also got into the act by smuggling home pirated tapes that she’d buy from music bootleggers at school. This was a very early version of what today’s music thieves call file sharing.

  Debbie was also becoming so hip that she started buying edgier seven-inch singles. The Osmonds were passé by 1973 and she was now turning me onto grittier music by such R&B acts as Sly and the Family Stone, Isaac Hayes and The Staple Singers. And I was quickly becoming the funkiest eleven-year-old white boy in school!

  I Get a “KICK” Out of You

  For my twelfth birthday in 1974 my parents bought me an AM radio headset. This was a battery-powered headphone device with a built-in AM radio. Depending on your point of view, this was either the greatest gift they would ever give me or their all-time, single biggest parental blunder. I could now listen to the radio at any time, in any place and if I kept the volume low enough, no one would ever know. My favorite radio station quickly became AM 1340 KICK. In those days AM radio was still kinda cool and station program directors enjoyed considerably more freedom than they do now. KICK’s play list combined typical pop hits of the day from such Top 40 artists as Elton John and America along with more FM-oriented artists like Alice Cooper and The Doobie Brothers. KICK was also responsible for introducing me to the world of southern rock through frequently played records by The Charlie Daniels Band and (Springfield natives) The Ozark Mountain Daredevils. And it was on KICK in January 1975 when I first heard a song called “Free Bird.” It started out as a beautiful ballad, but faded out more than five minutes later amid layers of soaring guitar solos. And I was sure the DJ announced that the record was by a guy named Leonard Skinnerd.

  In early 1975 there was hardly a time when I was without my trusty AM headset. It was on in my bedroom while I did my homework, it blasted in the bathroom while I was in the shower and I even slept with it (turned down very low) under my pillow.

  I soon became a frequent winner of KICK’s various listener call-in contests. From seven inch singles and full-length LPs to movie and concert tickets to near countless restaurant gift certificates, my slew of radio prizes kept me rocking, entertained and well-fed. One day, while playing hooky from school, I scored a complete FREE set of tires for my sister’s car from a call-in contest. Even my dad was impressed by that one!

  KICK DJs Jay Stevens and Peter T. became my heroes. My dad would drive me all over town as I became a regular attendee at their frequent promotional events, broadcast live from various record stores, used car lots and pizza joints throughout the Springfield area. And when I had a sixth grade class assignment to interview someone with a job I’d like to have, my dad drove me to the KICK studio to interview Peter T. as he cued up seven inch singles and pre-recorded commercial tape cartridges live on the air. For a young, impressionable kid, it was a fantastic and memorable experience. My love affair with radio would endure for the next twenty-plus years.

  The Midnight Special

  The kids of my generation didn’t have MTV to shape and mold our musical and cultural identities 24/7. We discovered new trends and music artists of the day via weekly television programs like American Bandstand, Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert and The Midnight Special. Airing every Friday at midnight (duh!) on NBC, The Midnight Special debuted in August 1972 and featured live concert performances from a wide array of artists as varied as David Bowie, Earl Scruggs, Al Greene and Helen Reddy – often in one single episode. Consequently, as a kid I could never hear “black” or “white.” And I never recognized any difference between R&B, country or rock. All I heard was music. And to this day my personal iPod can randomly shuffle from Marvin Gaye to Patsy Cline to Motörhead to Buddy Guy without me noticing any difference in the genres.

  I made many life-changing musical discoveries via The Midnight Special during the early and mid-1970s. I can recall the show’s announcer, legendary radio personality Wolfman Jack, introducing a beautiful brunette singer during one particular episode in early 1975. The petite bombshell with a huge voice who completely rocked my world was Linda Ronstadt. Although she would go on to become one of rock’s all-time best-selling female artists, she was only starting to break out at that time. As she belted out the lyrics to her then current fiery breakup hit “You’re No Good,” instantly knew that Laurie Partridge had been replaced. Linda Ronstadt was now my one true love. And I knew she was destined to fall in love with me too. After all, I was a dashing twelve-year-old with an awesome bike! How could she possibly refuse me?

  I Slept with Brad Pitt – TWICE!

  From October 1967 to May 1975 I lived at 703 Katella in Springfield. During this time I attended school one block down the street from my house at Horace Mann Elementary. Just as on TV, I lived a wholesome life that mirrored practically any episode of Leave it to Beaver. I also was seemingly a clone of the nerdy pre-teenage character, Ernie Douglas, from the CBS sitcom My Three Sons, a ratings winner during the 1960s and early 1970s. Hang on, it gets worse. I somehow became so politically charged at an early age that during the time of the 1972 presidential campaign, while my friends were collecting football and baseball trading cards, I was collecting president trading cards. At the age of ten I had all of the U.S. presidents committed to memory – in order. I was such a freak of nature that my fourth grade teacher Mrs. Page would frequently parade me in front of the class to show off my little “trick” for various school administrators. Yeah, I was (am) a complete dork. However, despite being hopelessly uncool, I did have a very cool friend…

  If you went down a block or two from my house on Katella, took a right on Broadway, then a left on Primrose, you would have been at the Pitt residence. Yes, THE Pitt residence!

  Brad Pitt wasn’t someone who I kinda knew and now conveniently remember, given his incredible Hollywood success. Brad and I were actually childhood buddies. In fact, he even attended my twelfth birthday sleepover party in December 1974 (the night I received the radio headset).

  There are lots of things I remember about Brad growing up in the 1970s. I vividly remember his mom, his younger brother Doug and his sister Julie. I also remember that as kids, Brad’s friends were never allowed actually to enter the Pitt home. We always had to play outside in their yard or at one of our other friends’ houses. One day while playing with Brad on his family’s porch, his mom opened the front door and for a brief moment I actually got a glimpse inside of the pristine Pitt palace. I remember seeing a beautifully furnished, immaculate living room with white shag carpet and lots of decorative (and breakable) glass fixtures. Even as a dumb kid, it quickly became clear to me why the inside of Brad’s house was off limits to us ragamuffins.

  After becoming disenchanted with the electronics business, my dad accepted an offer from my Uncle Bill in March of 1975 to become a partner in his Florida chemical business. As my family prepared to move to Orlando in May, my mom allowed me to have a going-away sleepover party. She didn’t want a houseful of kids running around so I was only allowed to invite my three best friends from school: Joe Deskin, Kerry Middleton and Brad Pitt.

  My sleepover parties were typically routine affairs. My pals and I would stay up late with our sleeping bags lined up on my parents’ living room floor, playing cards and listening to records. Inevitably we would end up around 4AM sitting on the kitchen floor, devouring breakfast cereal, talking about school, little league and of course our favorite subject – girls. I recall hearing rumors circulating in the late 1980s among some of my childhood friends that Brad had moved to Hollywood and landed a couple of TV appearances. Then the movie Thelma & Louise hit theaters in 1991 and soon Brad Pitt would become a household name.

  As his Hollywood star was rising in the mid 1990s, Brad developed a reputation for being a dark and mysterious loner – a bad boy. This was hilarious to me because the Brad Pitt I knew had always been an outgoing chick magnet. In fact, he was Student Council President in the sixth grade at Horace Mann. As kids, my buddies and I would become annoyed when he would show up at our
local roller rink, Skateland, on Friday nights. We knew none of us stood a chance with any of the little girls from school as long as Brad was hanging around.

  My mom got a kick out of Brad’s notoriety. She’d often boast to friends that People magazine’s “Sexiest Man Alive” used to sleep on her living room floor – in his underwear!

  I remember Brad and I hanging out in my parents’ living room on the morning following my going-away party in 1975. It was like a scene right out of the popular 1980s TV show, The Wonder Years. As we listened to Alice Cooper’s “Only Women Bleed” playing on KICK, it finally started to sink in that in just a few days I actually would be moving away to Florida and that I’d probably never see Brad again. In fact, my whole life was about to change and my Leave it to Beaver days would soon be gone forever.

  *******

  CHAPTER TWO

  Under the Influence

  My first day of school at Stonewall Jackson Junior High in Orlando, Florida on September 2, 1975 proved to be a complete culture shock. As a kid growing up in Springfield, Missouri, I’d only met one African-American and I was completely naïve to racial discord. With my new school’s multi-cultural student body I now would witness frequent afternoon rumbles between whites, blacks and Cubans. Some of my classmates actually kept chains in their lockers and we even had a full-time, on-campus police officer to deal with volatile daily student-related situations. In short, I wasn’t “in Kansas” anymore. But many fascinating individuals soon entered my life who introduced me to the music that not only provided the soundtrack to my early teens, but also fueled my future rock and roll ambitions.

  Flaming Youth

  My cousin Cathy lived in Tampa, Florida during the mid 1970s. Cathy was two years older than me and in my mind at the time she was the personification of “cool.” She smoked cigarettes, went to concerts and helped reinforce my self-esteem during my particularly awkward tweenage period. The coolest thing about Cathy, aside from always being hip to the hottest new bands, was her willingness to hang out with me at our frequent family functions despite my obvious lack of coolness. Through Cathy I heard amazing first-hand accounts of actual rock concerts by such top-name acts of the day as Bad Company, Rod Stewart and Alice Cooper.

  I remember hanging out with Cathy in my parents’ living room on Thanksgiving night in 1975, listening to BJ-105 FM, a popular Orlando radio station. Mixed in among current hits from such pop artists as The Captain and Tennille, Barry Manilow and K.C. and the Sunshine Band, I heard for the first time a distinctive-sounding, hard rock, live concert recording. I couldn’t help but notice the abrasive guitars and gang-style back-up vocals chanting, “I – wanna rock and roll all ni-ee-ite, and party ever-ee day.” It was loud, heavy and I didn’t like it. In my estimation, Cathy knew everything about music. Consequently, I asked her, “What’s this crap?” She immediately replied, “This is Kiss. And they’re cool!”

  I’d recently seen the band members’ outrageously painted faces on their album covers at the local record store in the mall. I also recalled having seen a commercial for their television appearance that summer on The Midnight Special. Their trademark make-up, leather outfits, platform boots, and fire-breathing, blood-spitting antics frightened me. And although The Midnight Special was my favorite TV show, I definitely did not tune in that week.

  But Cathy confidently endorsed these weirdoes, and who was I to argue? From Elton John to Steely Dan, she’d always been on-point with every other musical recommendation. Could she also be right about Kiss? Hmm, I had my doubts this time.

  My younger brother Greg was the first in my immediate circle to (bravely) purchase a Kiss record. Although I openly chastised him for his lack of sound musical judgment, I’d often secretly crank up his 8-track tape of Kiss’s Destroyer album when nobody else was at home. I was quickly hooked on their high-octane, heavy rock anthems like “Detroit Rock City,” “God of Thunder,” “Shout it Out Loud,” and “Flaming Youth.” Before long I personally owned several Kiss albums. I also began buying every magazine I could find that featured pictures or stories of the band and my parents were becoming very concerned. I remember dressing up as Kiss drummer Peter Criss for Halloween in 1976. I didn’t possess the means to recreate his outrageous stage costume, so being a rather resourceful kid I just wore my green leisure suit, claiming I was paying tribute to Peter’s Dressed to Kill album cover look. I was clearly becoming a bona fide “Kiss Freak.”

  Do You Feel Like We Do?

  To me, the mid 1970s was a fascinating period to be a young teen. In 1976, America celebrated its Bicentennial, a peanut farmer from Plains, Georgia was elected President, The Six Million Dollar Man was a top-rated TV show and Farrah Fawcett’s image was seemingly everywhere. Plus, who could forget the C.B. radio craze with such infamous catchphrases as “Breaker-breaker, good buddy” and “Hammer down!” From country acts like Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson to rockers like Aerosmith and Nazareth to R&B groups like Earth, Wind and Fire and The Ohio Players, there was also an abundance of incredible music in 1976. And I absorbed it all like a sponge.

  In the spring I became friends with two teenage brothers who lived down the street from me in Orlando – Ricky and Ronnie Burns. Unlike myself, the Burns brothers were to me, very cool. Ronnie, in particular, smoked, rode motorcycles, listened to rock and roll and was adored by the neighborhood “bad girls.” In fact, the Burns brothers were so cool that my mom literally forbade me to associate with them.

  Consequently, I had to sneak over to the Burns house to hang out while my mom was at work. It was during these covert after-school rendezvous that Ronnie showed me how to apply Alice Cooper-like make-up and breathe fire, Gene Simmons-style. Ronnie played drums in the school band and even owned a kit that he kept set up in his bedroom. From time to time he would give me pointers and even allow me to bang on them – and I loved it! Ronnie also educated me on various “ways of the world” – offering me compelling, step-by-step tips on how to get to “third base.”

  Almost daily we would sit in the Burns living room listening to Kiss albums at a ridiculously loud volume. Then one day, Ronnie decided to switch up the afternoon playlist and he introduced me to a new album called Frampton Comes Alive. After a succession of flop records, Peter Frampton, the former Humble Pie guitarist, exploded from out of nowhere and rocketed to the top of the charts in 1976 with the blistering live double-album. The signature Frampton classics “Show Me the Way,” “Baby, I Love Your Way” and the monstrous fourteen-plus-minute, “Do You Feel Like We Do?” made Frampton Comes Alive an overnight international sensation and is still considered one of rock’s all-time best-selling live albums. But one aspect of the record that captured my imagination almost as much as the music was the insightful liner notes printed inside the gatefold album cover. Written by (then) teenager Cameron Crowe, the Frampton bio was one of the first bits of rock journalism that I can recall ever noticing. Oh sure, I bought many of the popular rock magazines of the day, but with most of them offering near countless pics of Paul Stanley, I couldn’t be bothered with text. However, Crowe’s contribution to Frampton Comes Alive proved to be of considerable inspiration to me in my future writing endeavors.

  Night Moves

  Another inspirational character I met during my two-year stint in Orlando was a young man named David Tegeder. David was a year ahead of me at Stonewall Jackson Junior High. When you’re fourteen, one year is a BIG spread and I kinda looked up to David as an older brother. Unlike the Burns boys, David was focused on academics and he never got into trouble (at least not that I know of). He played sports and earned money doing lawn work. But David was also passionate about rock and roll AND I had a mad crush on his younger sister, Donna. Consequently, David was not only a guy who I wanted to hang around with but he was also someone of whom even my mom approved.

  After promoting myself for months as being at least somewhat cool and reasonably astute when it came to rock and roll during various lunchroom dialogues, David finally invited
me to his house one day after school – and yes, Donna was home! I remember first entering David’s bedroom and admiring his vast music collection. He had crates and shelves full of vinyl LPs and stacks of both 8-track AND cassette tapes. David’s stereo system was equally impressive. It had AM and FM capabilities with two types of tape players and a built-in turntable. PLUS his speakers were HUGE! The woofers must have been an astounding twelve inches in diameter!

  I don’t know if it was because he was so cool or that perhaps he was afflicted with ADD, but David only referred to musical acts in abbreviated terms. Jethro Tull was referred to as “Tull,” Aerosmith was simply known as “Smith” and REO Speedwagon was, well, you get the idea.

  During my first visit to David’s house he introduced me to an act he simply referred to as “Seger” – and he wasn’t talking about folk musician Pete Seeger. David was preparing to school me on the virtues of Detroit rocker, Bob Seger. Coming off the heels of his successful Live Bullet album, Seger, along with his Silver Bullet Band had just released his follow-up record, Night Moves, which at that time had just begun racing up the charts.

  “Seger blows Kiss away,” David informed me as he carefully removed his LP copy of Night Moves from its cardboard jacket and gently placed it on the turntable.

  By this time I’d become well-known at school as being a devout Kiss Freak and I soon got a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach as Seger’s classic “Rock and Roll Never Forgets” began blasting from David’s enormous twelve-inch speakers. I’d never heard such honest and pure rock and roll in my life. In fact, I became more enraptured with each ensuing track and I kinda felt as if I was cheating on a girlfriend. I mean, what would I say if Kiss guitarist Ace Frehley actually walked in David’s bedroom at that moment and caught me listening to Bob Seger with such delight? I could only imagine what I’d say in my defense. “Uh, Ace – you’re home early. This isn’t what you think! I swear it was only one time. Seger means nothing to me!” I then was struck with an unspeakable notion. Could it possibly be that Kiss was NOT in fact “The Hottest Band in the Land?” Although I was unwilling to dethrone my kabuki-faced heroes, I did have to concede by the conclusion of Night Moves that I would at least have to make room for TWO at the top of my “Greatest Bands” list.