Don’t let anyone fool you. Every one starts some where. And you hope that the path to stardom has a "caterpillar to butterfly" quality to it, but that is rarely the case. Most of the time, it is frightening and awkward, like a drunken elephant climbing onto a bicycle. For me, it began with two guys who made some extra cash in the winter of 1977.

It snowed something like eight feet that year, and school was out for an entire week. Our academic down time was put to good use by shoveling local driveways. A friend and I pulled in some decent coin, but didn't know what to do with the windfall.

Over the weekend, WUAB in Cleveland was running "A Hard Day's Night" over and over. All of a sudden, guitar playing looked fun, instead of a dreary hymn strummed out during mass at St. Vincent's. This was a revelation. The opposite of what they were hoping for in church, I'll bet. (Actually, I shouldn't bet, as it's a sin. And don't mention Bingo Night, or you'll be smoking a turd in purgatory.)

The choice became as simple and powerful as a Lennon-McCartney duet: buy an electric guitar. This will be a ticket to stardom, my son!

A trip to Music Mart, and their convenient lay-away plan, began to pave the road to success. I had undershot the price of the guitar by about fifty bucks and needed to pay in installments (read: shovel more driveways), and had to enlist my Dad's help as well. My pal took the same course and we'd compare payment schedules as the day of musical and financial reckoning drew near.

After a few dozen more driveways, that day came, and we raced out of the place, ready to rule the world.

Yes, this was Rural Ohio, and on that day we became aspiring Rock God Teenagers, armed with the instruments that would someday bring us millions. His choice was an acoustic, mud-brown with a flowered pick guard on it the size of a shark's fin. Mine was a tawdry red electric, with squawking black amp.

Combined we probably spent 150 bucks. That’s a lot of snow-covered driveways. Especially in 1977.

After a few months of unbridled noise and enthusiasm, a drummer had also joined us. He could play at least nineteen instruments (not counting each piece of his Rogers drum set) by the age of eight and had made two actual records before he hit fourteen. With top quality musical gear in poorly coordinated hands, we formed our first band and began noisily rehearsing in patient parental garages. Hindsight reveals that our parents conveniently had errands to run during our "musical" rehearsals. Lots of errands.

Two numbers were played ad nauseum: one called "50's Blues" that had four chords. This was four more than I contributed. And we tried, vainly, to re-create Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven". Someone's mother thought/hoped we were playing a song from her youth called "Stairway To Paradise". Either way, it was a downward spiral to cacophony, the exact opposite direction of Harmonious Valhalla.
 
A third attempt was "Don't Fear The Reaper", but like any weak triplet it died off early due to an inherent weakness: our abilities.

And onward we plodded! We sucked and we were ready to let the world know it! Gigs must be booked! Friends must be annoyed and appalled!

And who but our friends and family should share in this delight? Yes, we agreed, gifts like this must be shared with loved ones.

Thank God they didn’t kill us.

But we all start somewhere. And this page is my attempt to acknowledge those who:

It was fun where I ended up, and if I had to do it again…

I would.

If you have to add, or would just like to say hello, send me an e-mail...