Music is always a cool escape in a world that can try its best to squeeze the joy out of you into my teens and forever after.
Always a part if my life, my older sister was into music to the point where she won dance contests for the hully gully and the Watusi. the was Motown, r&b, blues and rock and roll basically in that order,and became a cool part of my being fiber.
Coming into my teens with music like r&b was a part and slowly i listened to the Beatles, Yardbirds, Stones, the Temptations, Smokey Robinson and others captured my ear. That was when garage bands started and in the tradition of all of the great, you gotta start somewhere. I myself have always played a mean stereo -vinyl at the time (the height of audio technology in that day) my musical tastes covered a large spectrum. And as fate would have it, many friends had started bands and i had met some in the Haight playing locally, such as the Grateful Dead, Santana, a Beautiful Day, Janis, Big Brother and the Holding company and many other local San Francisco bands. Before working at the Avalon puppet show, I usually went to concerts with my road dog Bart and some other friends or just run into some at the concert, the Fillmore, the Matrix, Longshoremans hall, The Avalon Ballroom, Golden Gate Park, Speedway Meadows, Mount Tamilpias and there was a few at the beach. So it wasn't just rock, blue too had taken hold as many knew this to be the root of rock and roll. Steve Miller blues band for example, Muddy Waters, Big Momma Thorton, Buddy Guy too. So garage bands like all varied, but those who went to concerts and listened to music tended to start a style of their own, all a process. So going to rehearsals, they was always one member if not more or all who wanted an opinion. Since we tended to enjoy like music and I was honest, without fangs and usually pretty close to an accurate assessment. If they sounded like a band and if they were off, but really didn't care to go to rehearsals, not being in the music world quite as literally, but did enjoy concert going and that was as I have written, a rite of sorts and one aspect of many's social interactions, add in not the just the concerts both paid and free I had gone to, but the time at the Avalon ballroom and the puppet show, my musical tastes had added in rock and roll and blues, listened to some jazz but it didn't really catch my ear until later. It was a different era where most bands who played the Fillmore and were local you could bump into on the street or in a store or cafe and many times knew where the house they lived in, the bodyguards and the limos (usually the roadies were considered a bodyguard of sorts) were more so a thing of the large venues and the likes of the stones or Beatles.
So now to Los Angeles from the 70's to the mid 60's-its not just an actors mecca, it is truly an artists mecca of all kinds and types. Lofts, studios, rehearsal halls, sound studios, theater and more. A melting pot of various art forms like many big cities but on a much larger scale.There was a cool energy cool creatives meeting or in competition with ..All cities have areas of conspicuous consumption L.A.. truly seemed to have much more square mileage.
All cities have areas of conspicuous consumption. Los Angeles seemed to have a more blatant display of big money and the both cool and frivolous things that were available for a big price tag.
I digress....so music was always a part of my life. I have had musician friends since jr. high in San Fransisco and when I moved to L.A. the story was no different. One musician had met had played since he was young and had been the guitarist in Steppenwolf, prior to that it was The Sparrow and the irony was i had seen them play as The Sparrow back in S.F. in the mid-sixties. Michael was the youngest band member and to get in some clubs (he was15-16, I believe) he painted on or put on a fake mustache. As an aside, he had a choice in the beginning, he could have gone with The Sparrow or Iron Butterfly, either way he would have made him part of Rock History.
At that time I was a bachelor again and sometime would visit Michael and go out and eat or just have conversations that ranged from music to gossip to the odd meaning of life.
This day I had come over because he wanted to show me a new contraption he had gotten and wanted to try it out, it was called an octave divider for guitars and this was about in 1973 or 4. He had a small Marshall Amp, the mainstay of many who practiced away from a rehearsal stage or studio- (if I recall Michael usually had a wall of Marshall amps behind him when he played on stage. Anyway, i made my way over after i had visited a girlfriend whom i knew from the club scene and other friends and had had dropped off a satin shirt i has needed the armpit threading sewed, as the older materials (which usually had the cool and most unique designs) we not treated for the salt that we sweat and these were probably for some satin curtains or dresses. It was a dark green but had these little birds as part a design and was one of several different shirts that one store carried from a local seamstress, they were tailored to fit and the sleeves were long enough, a rarity and were cut so you could tuck the shirt tails in easily and they wouldn't untuck, but then too, cut so you could wear them outside, moreso at home. So the salt had taken the threading out and i would never find this patter or material again so i wanted to save it as best i could.
Got over to Michaels, which was off the strip (Sunset) and actually at the bottom of the hill, as Sunset from the club strip part was either uphill and downhill, if you walked it was an exercised in itself, but as the song says, "nobody walks in L.A."
As another aside, I was with some friends,husband and wife, he was a roadie and i was with a girl well we were heading up the hill to get to Sunset and maybe eat anyway, the car they had we lovingly called the "shitbox" as we always wondered when the threadbare front tires would blow. As we headed up and we chatting as to where to eat, someone honked, actually laid his hand on the horn behind us, we where waiting as the light always favored the traffic on Sunset and to try and make a right was a suicide dance against traffic that gave you no quarter. So it always took a while to get up the Sunset hills. Well this couple must have felt too important to wait, as they were in a Rolls Royce, so in this case the elitist came out. Well knowing Glen, this would not sit too well., and in his Boston manner said "O.K. mister, you want me to move, then I'll move". Well. lo and behold he put the car in neutral, foot on the brake because of the hill's incline and with the other foot hit the gas. As the car revved up..i believe i said "oh shit" and his wife Debbie said Glen!!!! He the let slammed it into reverse, let his foot off the brake and we bolted backwards into the front of the Rolls. They sat in the Rolls with their mouths open and we drove up and luckily we able to turn right and off to eat. Now Glen had brought this car from some English musicians who only wanted it for the time they were in town, in those days many of the acts from abroad came here to showcase and either play, get a record contract or stay until either happened, you could run into the Baby's (telephone line-isn't it about time) band members, to name one walking around the strip or West Hollywood area. Well that being said, the car was not registered, the prior owner had gone back to England for the time being, so the plate on the car, even though it appeared current, actually had no owned, at least registered, so taking down the license plate was an act in futility.
So I get to Michael's which was an older classic apartment building that had housed stars and starlets-to whatever degree over the years and this was the Art Deco style with a bit of an ancient Egyptian touches like stairs that had at the start of the handrails, Anubis Dog statues and all the intricate wall designs and hidden lighting. The elevator had a glass door, but you still closed a scissored iron gate and then pushed your floor. Once in a while I'd see one of the other residents, once an older woman dressed in classic 50's outfit with that calm air of knowing she was dressed to kill, even though it was in the daytime. Knocked at the door Michael opened and i went in, he had a girl over we both knew who was making a health drink of carrots and some sweet fruit, for us. We went over what was going on in the music scene and within our circle of friends.
The girl had come over to let us try her new health drink concoction which i have no bad memories of, and was off to let other try her new drink of the day.
Now, Michael was a rock guitarist but also played piano, classic guitar (had a Martin 12 string) and Flamenco guitar too. He had wanted to try an octave divider and had brought out his wah wah pedal too. He set up his small Marshall amp and hooked up the octave divider and the wah wah pedal too. We were both interested in the sounds he could create, so at first with the octave divider some cool and some strange sounds, he was truthfully a master with the vibrato (whammy ) bar, very much in the vein of Jeff Beck and was bending and stretch sounds with the addition of the octave divider, now he said that he had learned new riffs thru many jazz artists (which i hadn't known) and r&b artists -i recalled another musician who had tried playing some Stevie Wonder songs and said, that was no as easy as it appeared, there was unique counterpoint and syncopation like he'd never scene and that it was fun but a challenge.
Well, in those days a phonograph was the thing, and so a Herbie Hancock LP was put on, the arm alighted and then Chameleon came on, and now i understood why he had the wah wah pedal, and commenced with playing along with the song but adding variations with the wah wah-or the octive divider and the slick use of the vibrato bar. We went through several jazz albums throughout the after noon and then put on Jeff Beck Truth album and it was interesting to see his guitar versions of the Beck songs.
So, i had listened to jazz, but in L.A. got in a Rock groove and now found myself later listening to more R&B and jazz.
It was later afternoon and with a afternoon of new and experimental music, i headed out to see if my shirt was done and Michael said he was going to keep playing around with the octave divider.
This was a year or so prior to being signed by Swan Song Records (Led Zepplins label) the only other band besides Bad company, the band "Detective".
From the left Tony Kaye-keyboards (YES)-Bobby Pickett-bass (Sugarloaf, Etta James) Michael DesBarres-vocals(Silverhead) Michael Monarch lead guitar(Steppenwolf) Jon Hyde (Hocus Pocus)-
vocals-drums
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03mGRXHbn_M
Steppenwolf days Michael on the Left
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XqyGoE2Q4Y
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dAwI_jqcFQ
here's a poster of the sparrow (before being called steppenwolf) and the doors, may have worked the puppet show at the time, but did go to the dance floor to see them play
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbLof-GKWOo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XqyGoE2
