In Part 1 of Drummers Past, I went all the way back to the beginning of my lifelong love affair with drums and drumming. The idea was to compile a listing of as many of the drummers I could remember playing with and/or meeting since the drum bug hit me back in 1963. We […]
After reading Mark Volman’s biography (Happy Forever … as chronicled in two parts – FTV: The Turtles 3-4-26 and Flo & Eddie 4-1-26 (it wasn’t a typical autobiography as 90 percent of it was contributed by his colleagues, friends, and family)), I was inspired to take a ‘wayback machine’ trip to examine my encounters […]
When Guitar World Editor-in-Chief Damian Fanelli got an email inquiring if his magazine would be interested in doing an interview with legendary Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards, he wasn’t about to say ‘no’. In his Woodshed column from GW Vol 47, NO. 5. (May 2026), he noted how many times Keef’s name and/or image […]
When the March 2026 Equinox edition of The Planetary Report (Vol. 46, No. 01) landed in my mail box, the cover image of Comet 67P/Churyumov – Gerasimenko didn’t give a hint as to the major announcement that was waiting on page 4. The image was taken by the European Space Agency’s Rosetta spacecraft in […]
First the disclaimer: my wife and I are not mountain climbers but we have hiked up many slopes near our home turf in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Even though they are called ‘mountains’ (ie: The Porcupine Mountains, The Huron Mountains), they are mere foothills when compared to the mountain ranges found in the western states. […]
A lot of folks say they became fans of Steppenwolf after hearing Born To Be Wild in the movie Easy Rider. The movie was released in the United States in July of 1969. By then, I had already been playing their eponymous debut album for a year (and thus Born To Be Wild) as […]
Ken & Mike, WNMU TV 13 Studio – taking publicity shots for Sledgehammer I just found out that my old bass playing electronic wizard buddy Mike Kesti passed away at his home in Oroville, CA on April 1, 2026. My condolences to his family – I attached the included photo of us from 1975 to […]
Flo & Eddie are actually four different people who co-existed in two different bands. There is an entire tail twisting story behind the name so I am going to do my best to unravel it for you. Two of the people known as Flo & Eddie are actually Mark Volman and Howard Kaylan from […]
When I saw the posting from the Calumet area on Friday, March 13, 2026, it reminded me that we were, indeed, having an old fashioned winter. The sign being held by a man next to a very large snowbank noted the Keweenaw Peninsula had been averaging 7.2 inches of snow per day. As of that […]
Growing up, one of my favorite sayings we applied to solving complex problems was, “Keep It Simple, Stupid.” In the best NASA tradition, we trimmed it down to the acronym, ‘KISS’. During the period where some people strived to be more politically correct, someone came up with the idea that it should be shortened […]