FTV: Drummers Past – Part 2

 

     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 are not talking about drummers from famous bands;  just the ones from my days living in Marquette and Ontonagon.  It did not hit me exactly how many people have been included in my ‘drum circle’ until Part 1 neared the end of my high school years.  Each and every person discussed so far was involved in the musical education we received in the Marquette Area Public Schools.  Part 2 will be more about the musical education that came my way via playing with various musicians outside of school.

     Once my folks took a flyer and fronted me the money to buy an actual Ludwig Classic drum kit in April of 1966, the die was cast for me to eventually play in a band.  I say they ‘fronted me the money’ because I helped my dad cut, haul, and sell a lot of firewood at $8 (and later $10) per pickup truck load.  This was a small money making hobby for my dad, but there were many a Saturday when I was rousted out of bed with, “Come on boy, we have to pay for those drums!”
Unlike my less than enthusiastic approach to learning the piano, I was more than happy to spend part of each and every day practicing.  Paying for the drums was just part of the gig. 

     My back yard neighbor, Louie, was a year older than me and had bought an electric guitar with his paper route money.  The first summer I had my kit, he came over with another kid from farther up the street also named Lou.  Louie introduced Lou 2 as ‘The drummer in the band we are putting together.  We practice in the old bar that his grandpa used to run behind their house.  He wanted to see your drums.” I obliged and sat down and played a basic four beat riff ending with a roll around the kit and a cymbal crash.  When I asked if he would like to try them out, he said, “Wow, no thanks.  You are much better than I am.  I have a hard time doing rolls.”  I was in no way anything more than a beginner myself, but I took that as a compliment (and no, I never did hear Lou 2 play although we did go up the street to see their rehearsal space and his drums).

     By Christmas time, I had progressed enough that I got to actually play with a real band.  My sister had a Christmas party in our basement and a few guys in her class who had a band were there.  They saw my drums shoved off in the corner and ran out to get their guitars and amps before they dragged me into the basement to play with them.  When the serious slow dancing started, the records went back on and I was banished back upstairs.  After eight months playing along with records, my mind was racing because I had just proved to myself that playing in a real band wasn’t a pipe dream after all.

     With less than a year of woodshedding under my belt, I got a call from guitarist Ron Phillips.  He said their drummer / vocalist had ‘lost his drums’ so they were looking for a new drummer for his band.  It turned out the drummer ended up playing a small organ (I never did get the story of how he lost their drums) which I found out when they brought their gear over to our house to audition me.  It went okay but I sensed they were not overly impressed with my playing.  Ron the guitar player had to show me how to play the tom tom riff to Wipe Out but judging from their exchanged glances, it seemed they did like how fast I picked it up. 

      The rhythm guitar player asked, “Hey, I hear there is a state bull (meaning a State Police Trooper) that lives in this neighborhood.  Do you know where?”  I pointed at the basement ceiling and said, “Yeah.  Upstairs.  That would be my dad.”  I am not sure if this was a factor in me not getting the gig, but I wasn’t ready to start hanging with high school guys yet.  Four years later, our band, The Twig, did a two band dance with Ron’s band (now known as Sweat Equity). Their old drummer was still playing keyboards.  The guy who got the gig instead of me was named Ted Thomas and he was a good drummer and singer . . . and a real lady killer.  Whenever we crossed paths after that, we would talk drums a bit before Ted would wander off to talk to any and all females present.

     In the summer of 1967, I got a call from Rick Leppanen, the bass player in the band I had jammed with at my sister’s Christmas party.  He lived about four blocks away and asked if I would be able to come over and rehearse with them.  Rick explained their drummer Neil was not good at showing up to practice and they had a bunch of new songs to learn.  I hopped on my bike and was there before he had time to hang up the phone.  It was a lot of fun to play with them again and when I left, Rick asked if it would be okay if he called me again sometime.  After the second or third time he called, I started wondering if they might ask me to join the Self Winding Grapefruit.  One day, they showed up at our house out of the blue and asked if I wanted to go to the drive-in movie with them.  I was entering my freshman year in high school and I am pretty sure my mother was relieved that I begged off.  A freshman in high school hanging out with college freshmen even made me feel a bit awkward.

     Sometime in August, two things happened that put me in contact with three new drummers.  The first was guitar player Mike McKelvy, whom at the time I knew as the older brother of one of my classmates.  I found out much later that when his family had moved from California to Marquette, he arrived in town as a drummer.  In fact, the red sparkle drum kit I was playing at Rick’s house used to be McKelvy’s.  Mike dropped by Rick’s house when we were practicing to play a couple of cuts off a brand new album he had purchased on a recent trip out west.  Our jaws dropped when he put the needle down on Purple Haze.  In one instant, I became a big Jimi Hendrix fan and as soon as the album arrived in town, the Jimi Hendrix Experience’s drummer, Mitch Mitchel, was added to my pile of practice records. 

      At the first high school dance that fall, Mike’s band played Purple Haze.  I watched their drummer intently because I already knew the Are You Experienced? album inside out.  Their drummer, Randy Seppala, was also the older brother of another classmate but I was too much in awe to talk to him.  He had an identical silver sparkle Ludwig drum set as mine which allowed me to snag a lot of tips just by watching him play.  I spotted Randy at the Porcupine Mountain Music Festival a few years back.  He now lives in the Covington area and I see his name pop up at various musical events with groups he performs with.  I introduced myself and mentioned I was still playing my original Ludwig kit that matched his back in high school.  Randy said, “Man, I wish I still had mine.”

     The third drummer I met at Leppanen’s house was the drummer I was subbing for.  Neil showed up at one rehearsal and found me playing his kit.  It was just as awkward as it sounds, but we still finished the song we were playing.  Rick simply said, “Thanks for helping us out, Ken,” which I understood was my invitation to escape.  Apparently Neil got the message and started to show up.  When they played high school dances, I knew all their songs and in my mind wondered how I would have fit in.  I took three things away from this experience:  1) Neil was an okay drummer, 2) I would have done fine if they had asked me to join them, and 3) I had no doubt at all that I would be in a band of my own somewhere down the line.  

     As a footnote to this story, I used to correspond with Steve Seymour from Escanaba.  Steve ran a record store and penned newspaper articles called Rock ‘n’ Roll Graffiti  (which he also compiled in a book of the same name).   I got an email from him one day in which he said, “I went to a show at the casino in Harris the other night.  I got talking about bands with the guy sitting ahead of me and he said, ‘I used to play drums in a band in Marquette called the Self Winding Grapefruit!’  One part of me really wanted to tell him, ‘Yeah, Ken told me all about it,’ but I let it slide.”  Small world, right?

     My old high school bandmates Tom Lyons and Wayne Maki both ended up getting their own drum kits.  Wayne used to jam with a piano player named Bruce (who was very good) and our old tympany player Tim on guitar.  Tom took it a bit further and ended up playing with a Chicago themed band called Sunstone with guitarist Barry Seymour (no relation to Steve).  Tom was eventually replaced with a drummer from Gwinn who I never got to know.  Before Sunstone formed, I jammed once at Tom’s house along with my old Twig bassist Mike Kesti.  A couple of  years later, Barry, Mike and I formed Sledgehammer when Sunstone disbanded.  

     Another drummer I knew from my class was Warren MacDonald whose father owned MacDonald’s Music Store.  Warren never played in the school band but from eighth grade on, he was in a couple of local bands.  The first was The French Church with his older brother Gordon  on bass.  When Gordon joined The Stan and Jeff Band while attending Northern Michigan University, Warren joined up with an army vet named Al Robertson to form Fatty Arbuckle.  Before The Twig was a gigging band, I had played Warren’s kit at an outdoor ‘festival’ in Sundell under our pre-Twig name, The Bight.  It was a windy day and we played first.  Warren ended up laying down on the stage to hold down the cymbal stands that kept blowing over.  From there he would give me an occasional thumbs up as if to say, “You are doing fine!”  As soon as we finished the first song, they pounded nails into the flatbed trailer and bent them around the cymbal stand legs to keep them in place.  Mike, Gene, and I were later invited to jam with Fatty Arbuckle at Al’s house which we felt gave the newly named Twig a little more street cred. 

     Bands see members come and go and new bands are often pieced together with members of bands that splintered for various reasons.  Drummers are often one of the key pieces that move from group to group.  When Mike McKelvy first formed the band that would back the legendary Cub Koda before it became Walrus, their first drummer was a classmate of my sisters.  Les Ross, Jr had recently returned from the Army and he was on the drum throne the first time I saw this pre-Walrus line up at a school dance.  Not long after, he was replaced with an excellent drummer from NMU’s jazz band named Don Kuhli.  The band East of Orange was probably the most popular dance band in Marquette from the late 1960s until they finally disbanded sometime in the 1980s.   I never knew their first drummer’s name, but he was excellent and also a good vocalist.  I can not put dates on the exact timeline, but Les Ross, Jr ended up leading East of Orange for many years before they stopped playing together.. 

    I got to know Les better in the spring of 1980 when I was doing an internship in his office at the Marquette County Planning Commission (this was during the year I went back to school to finish my Master’s degree).  Les was a great guy and I was privileged to hear the inside story of how he came to form the Finnish-Reggae band Conga se Mene when East of Orange faded away.   Sadly, Les passed away much too early but his last creation, Conga, is still out there carrying the banner of the Finnish-Reggae genre he helped put on the musical map in the Upper Peninsula.

     The Twig were hired to play a couple of afternoon sets in the Wildcat Den at NMU sometime in 1970 or 1971.  It was weird performing a daylight gig in front of college students as opposed to the frat parties we usually played at for that age group.  I got a little nervous when Mike kicked off our first song, Wine, Wine, Wine at a pace so fast that the muscles in my forearms began to cramp up.  I think he was a little nervous and the adrenaline must have kicked him into high gear.  When we got into the groove a few songs later, I got nervous again when I saw Don Kuhli and Ted Thomas in the back of the room chit-chatting.  When we were packing up, Ted wandered over and said, “Hey, Don and I were talking.  He said he thinks you are a very good drummer.”  I often said, “Don Kuhli can play more notes with one hand than I can with all four limbs,” so it was a compliment that still makes me smile fifty years later.

     When I finished college and my last Marquette band, Sledgehammer, went our separate ways, I had no idea when I would get to play in a band again.  I did a couple of pick up gigs with Barry in a throw together group called The Gordon Coleman Trio (which was usually a four piece) but that was about it until the spring of 1976.  When performing with other Ontonagon musicians at an athletic fundraiser organized by Mark Bobula and the high school athletic staff (called The Hootenanny) , I got to meet a legendary local singer and drummer.  Donnie Hawkins was playing with Easy Money and there wasn’t a better singer around who could handle old time rock songs like Black Slacks and his signature tune, Mule Skinner Blues.  

     The second local drummer I met in Ontonagon was Kurt Giessau who played drums with The Copper Tones.  I did not know Kurt well but he was always eager to talk about drums.  After he passed away, his widow Stella contacted me and said she wished to donate Kurt’s drum set to the school.  I got to play this kit in a couple of community band concerts held at the Ontonagon Theater of Performing Arts.  With two drum kits gathering dust in the Ontonagon Area Schools band room, we eventually donated Kurt’s kit to the theater where it can still be played.

     Sitting on the backstage steps with Donnie and a couple of members of Easy Money at my first Hootenanny, I think he figured out I was a little nervous.  He offered me a nip out of his flask.  I was taking a hearty swig from it when Principal Lou Gregory opened the door leading to the side of the stage.  Lou simply said, “Oh, sorry,” and then he closed the door.  Donnie said, “Don’t worry, he is cool,” as I am sure my facial expression radiated, “Okay, I am going to get fired for this!”  I began subbing for Donnie in Easy Money when he was on shift work at the mill.  Eventually I was asked to be a full time member but I had to make one thing clear.  I said, “I would love to, but there is no way I am going to be able to replace Donnie’s voice.”  Over the years, I did my fair share of lead vocals with the band but was never asked to sing Mule Skinner Blues.  Still, it was great fun when Donnie stopped by when we were playing around town.  I would ask him if he wanted to play a few songs and watching Donnie play the drums and sing was great.  Backing him up on songs like Mule Skinner was also a blast.

     There are some younger drummers who entered the picture after my time in Easy Money, but there isn’t enough space left here to do them justice.  Suffice to say Larry Stong, Sam Bennett, Steve Bobula, and Craig Burgess, et al will have to be another story for another day. 

Top Piece Video:  My progress as a drummer took a big upswing in 1967 when the Jimi Hendrix Experience album Are You Experienced? was added to my turntable – drummer Mitch Mitchel was a great teacher.  And no, I have no idea why the bass drum head shown says ‘Mick’!