Another Piece of History

It is amazing what you find when you go through your valuable "stuff" to clean out and throw away.

Throwing away the baggage of old titles, I came across these band cards.

From 1963 and the early Beatles, electronic music entered my imagination of music.

A friend from elementary school, decided he wanted to set up a band, but he didn't play an instrument, so he became the manager. He contacted me and gathered some other friends and we met one weekend at the house of a post deliver.

A blue collar household just off the beaten path of Patterson Avenue, my route to the country club.

The house was small and the furniture dirty and piles of dishes sat in the kitchen. Now I know why my mother looked so worried when she delivered me to this out of the way location.

Inside was a large beer drinking man at a chrome table in the kitchen, a larger girl in a mess of slips and slippers moving back and forth through the dark rooms.

Then there was the "band".

Wally, who's house we met in, was a pocked marked intense eyes and a grin that could warm a room. Paul, his buddy, a squirrely guy with grease on his hands, a Brillo hairdo and a jerk like motion that represented a puppet. A fresh faced Bill, the drummer, looked confused as I was to be in this setting. He also had the prep hair cut and clean shoes.

But Bruce has brought us together to make money. He was a typical manipulator for self profit and saw a band in the early 60's as a money maker.

So we sat down together and figured out a song list and a uniform acceptable to Richmond at the time. We didn't play any music that first meeting, but we seemed to get along.

It was a big adventure, that was fascinating every weekend as we played in the Wicker living room.

And every weekend the music got louder with more chords, guitars, amps, and laughter. The doors would open and the sound would spill out into the street.

And then it happened.

Girls started to come by and listen and giggle and smile.

So the band broke up, then rejoined and then broke up and the pattern continued.

New members play new songs, then move to another name and another manager and another printed card.

The band card showed they were to be professional.

But we were just kids with guys who would say they would be our managers and get us jobs playing dances, and parties, and would take a cut.

We didn't care. We just wanted to play rock and roll.

So local printers enjoyed the young boys wanting to be the rock and roll greats, but their only benefit was designing business cards to be handed out to each other.

Names like "The Thames", "Chapperells", "Morning Glory" and "Thursday Night".

Each with a group of different players. Each with a different song set.

So these antiques from the 60's are a smile on the past and a sign that life was much simpler then.