music
I was fifteen in 1964, taking the schoolbus when I met John Lee who saw that I was carrying drumsticks and asked me if I wanted to be in his band, The Breakers, a surf band. I had never played drums before, but my father took me to a pawn shop where he bought me a ratty old set of yellowed white diamond pearl Slingerland drums from the forties, the kind with the straight up rims that chewed up drumsticks. Apparently it was played by a jazz drummer in many nightclubs as evidenced by the three long brown cigarette scares on the top of the bass drum. The Breakers were John Lee, Zach Taylor, Tom Martin and me. We perfomed at shows put on my Pacesetters international along with many other local bands, before dissolving and becoming a blues band.
the Breakers
Proof
After several iterations, the band Proof was formed with founding members John Lee, Gary Sloan, Dean Forbes, Emerson Cirvello, Pete Nolfi and myself. Later Emerson moved on and the backbone of the band remained.
A vanity Proof album was recorded at the Outer Limits in Fairbanks on a Roberts 2 track recorder that Gary and I acquired by picking potatoes in Palmer, Alaska at the rate of a penny a foot. We picked 5 miles of potatoes to get the recorder. In later years, an Italian company bought the rights to the recording after rare copies of it were selling on eBay for $450.
In 1967 the band was reformed in Syracuse, NY with Gary Sloan, Steve Tyler and Lindy Raines from Fairbanks, and myself. When we met an aspiring songwriter, Dan Hutsch on the street, we brought him in and in the process acquired a manager, John Daniels. In December of 1967 Proof recorded a demo at Jimmy Jeeters studio in NYC
Mother's Apple Pie & Baseball Band
Mother's Apple Pie & Baseball Band was formed in the spring of 1967 as a "superband" created by merging the two top local Anchorage bands into one unified force, Proof and The Arsons. gary Sloan, Dean Forbes and myself remained and to that we added Mark Thompson, Dave Cannon and Sandy Forest from the Arsons.
In June 1967 we opened for The Turtles at the War Memorial in Anchorage and then flew with them to perform together at the Sesquicentennial celebration in Fairbanks, after which we spent the summer in Seattle without Sandy, having the time of our lives.
Page One
After Gary, Steve and Lindy returned to Alaska and Dan Hutsch moved to Baltimore, Page One, the top band in New York State, found themselves without a drummer and I was hired to fill the position. Garry Grashow, Donny Carpenter, and Thorny (Thornton something or other, I never learned his full name) and myself comprised the full band together with our indispensable roadie and stage manager, Doan Trevor. We toured the New England area, primarily New York, Vermont, New Hampshire and Pennsylvania. Lake George was a regular summer gig and Lake Placid in the Winter. Occasionally, Craig Fuller (later of PurePrairie League fame) would visit and sit in. Craig wanted to join the band but we had a full roster and a great opportunity was lost.
We popular just about everywhere, however we were not welcomed in Hazelton, Pa where the audience threw beer bottles and shot glasses at us on. stage for playing original songs and we were literally chased out of town. On leaving the venue, Thorny barricaded the doors by inserting a 2x4 through the door handles locking the wild crowd in the venue facilitating our escape.
in 1969 we auditioned for Sherwood Schwartz and Andrew Tobias, and were signed to an all inclusive music, TV/film deal. They wanted us to be the next Monkees. When Thorny began exerting pressure on me to quit college, I instead quit the band and it just broke down after that. I had a wife and a child on the way and was near to completing my degree and I could not commit to a life on the road over my family at the time. Ah, such are the choices we make in life.
Craig Fuller & Friends
This ticket is all that remains to testify to Craig Fuller & Friends. The band was formed in 1973 by Craig to include Geoff Maxwell, Jim Westermeyer (Westy), Mike Flethcher (Thatcher), Motorman Stevens and myself, After he was convicted of draft evasion and no longer toured with Pure Prairie League, Craig was sentenced to alternate service at St. Elizabeth's Hospital in Covington, KY and couldn't leave the Tri-State area.
The group disbanded later when Craig, a conscientious objector, was pardoned and he formed a "superband," "American Flyer" with. Steve Katz, Eric Kaz, Doug Yule and Russ Kunkel. American Flyer toured with "Little Feat" and from that relationship, Craig was hired to replace Lowell George who passed away prematurely.
Songs of Metal & Wood
I met Richard Cook in the 1990's. He was living in Moab, Utah and making experimental instruments from various woods, aluminum, PVC tubing and natural wood formations he collected in the desert around Moab. The overiding principle behind his creations was to make music accessible to anyone, so each instrument could be played intuitively. I acquired as many as nine different instruments from him and housed them in my studio. Richard came to Cincinnati and we invited several local drummers to participate in recording songs with these instruments. Richard also plays flute. I played Umba-Imba and engineered the recording. None of the drummers had ever played these instruments before. The session was entirely improv and yielded this album.
These are representative samples of six of the songs on the album. They are not full songs, but edited demos. For full songs or to listen to the entire album, join spotify. It's free.
Music Licensing Available
I've created a catalog of instrumental songs suitable for licensing FOR Tv, film production and other applications.
A FEW SAMPLES ARE BELOW. FULL SONGS CAN BE HEARD ON SPOTIFY.
TO GET THE FULL CATALOG OR INQUIRE REGARDING LICENSING OR RIGHTS, CONTACT RESET MUSIC. CLICKING ON THE LOGO WILL TAKE YOU DIRECTLY T0 THE WEBSITE.
