It was my first real, gonna-do-a-gig band, and we needed a name. This causes more band anxiety than anything imaginable. Actually, the girlfriend/wife who co-manages the band is the real back breaker, but we didn’t have that to worry about Jeanine just yet.

With a week to go until show time our bassist, Jim, came up with DARKHORSE.

It wasn’t great, but we fought about it the least. And that would be a useful future lesson. The bottom line was we KNEW we were bad ass. I mean look at us! Can’t you see the potential?

Lucky for us, the band would be the only entertainment for our all-boys prep school, scheduled on a Casino Night (of all things) in the middle of a New Jersey winter! We had a captive audience and an awesome set list. How could we lose?

Turns out we couldn’t and didn't, stage appearance notwithstanding, and a borrowed fake leather jacket from a friend certainly helped. We opened with Coast To Coast, off of the Scorpions Lovedrive LP. It was easy, it had no vocal, and it would give us time to get the first inning jitters out of the way. From the moment it began to the second my friends carried me off of the stage on their shoulders, I was hooked.

Thankfully, the latter happened after we had finished the last encore (which we were unprepared for, but trampled Rush's Anthem anyway) sixty minutes later.  

DARKHORSE limped through the rest of the 1981 school year, later doing a farewell gig with the lineup pared down from two guitars to one, the addition of an offstage keyboardist (we thought he was goofier looking than us...we had some nerve), the removal of our singer, and the addition of me singing. In six weeks, DARKHORSE had more personnel changes than Blackmore’s Rainbow. Not all of these were improvements. As a matter of fact, I am not sure if any were.

Graduation came and went, and it was off to form college bands. The first one was called NEMESIS, and we were based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The band was convinced that our brand of hard rock/metal would really be popular in this legendary beer capitol, and it would be a veritable gig-u-copia! Why it was only the year before that Black Sabbath's Geezer Butler got beaned with a beer bottle and a massive riot ensued! THIS TOWN KNEW HOW TO ROCK AND/OR ROLL!!!

Again, I ask you: how could we lose?

First off, for a four piece we had a running tally of about eight members. This was a bit of a problem, since only four would be onstage at anytime. Like pass rushing specialists, whenever a particular song in the set arrived, the guy who could best play or sing it would sprint up and let loose.

Also, appearance seems to have been a repeated factor in the band credibility stakes. In our defense, my wardrobe includes a really bitchin' leopard tie, coupled with a tragically cool French Foreign Legion shirt thingy for a look that says "I am one to be reckoned with as a Force of Metal". (Randy, our drummer, is luckily/wisely hidden behind his set.) On the far right, Ron Z has the latest in Moe Howard/Malcolm Young bowl coifs, with tie strategically akimbo and distressed Nike's adorning his feet. On the left, bassist Dan Harley (a born Metal Name if there ever was one) is sporting the latest in Mequon winter outerwear, worn years before the grunge look was en vogue. His shoes are clean, however. I think that did us in.

O, death, where is thy sting?