The Beginning (probably further back than you care to go, but...)

I met Bill Drennen in highschool. He was into the guitar well before I really got to know him. He won the junior high talent show, I think. Well, if he didn't win, he should have.

Anyway...

Bill Drennen and I played music together in the highschool Jazz Band. He was on the guitar. I was playing trombone at the time. I later traded the trombone in at a music store in Cape Girardeau and bought a violin shaped bass because I wanted to be Paul McCartney. I blew off classes at SEMO and practiced along with Beatles, Zeppelin, and (gulp) the occasional Scorpions recordings that Slyman (we'll get to him later) taped for me.

In about 1985-86, Bill and I started playing in a cover band with my sister's boyfriend, Lonnie, and his cousin Nicky. We practiced in this little shack next to the boyfriend's grandma's house. It was very tiny (2 rooms) and was heated by a wood stove. We had to run electricity out to it via an extension cord plugged into grandma's house. They were called On Tap when I joined, but, Bill and I somehow managed to get them to change the name to Gangster. We pretty much stuck to the KSHE 95 playlist but also bent toward KWK. Classic rock and pop songs that we thought girls might dance to.

Gangster exploded (forget the year) about the time Bill and I started thinking about writing songs. That implosion was accelerated by the desire to no longer be in a band with a guy who wanted to dress up like Sammy Hagar at every gig (sorry Lonnie). Lonnie's Sammy love would later land him a great gig doing a custom Mustang for the Red Rocker, so, I guess these things have a way of working out.

Around that same time, Bill and I were doing a stint with a country cover band called The Deuces Wild. We did whatever tunes the gang at the VFW and Eagles lodge wanted to hear (George Jones and George Strait heavily featured). I played bass, Bill played lead guitar, and about 37 other guys played guitars, saxophone, you name it. That lasted us about a year, but, it's worth mentioning because I think it contributed to our closeness as a songwriting team.

I had a close friend in highschool named Rick Husky, but, everyone called him Slyman. I don't know the exact origin of the nickname, but, he did have the same (slimey?) moustache as the Slyman Brothers guys in the appliance ads on TV. I could spend an entire blog post describing the guy, but, I won't, since the last time I talked to him, we got in a bit of a fight and I might be tempted to tell the story wrong.

Slyman was way into rocknroll and was the guy in your school who made the most excellent mix tape. A tape so 'top shelf' that he had requests to publish copies of it. He was in choir and had the inexplicable bravery that made him believe he was a lead singer. So, he became our new singer. [there's more to it, but, this is already miles too long]

Drummer Jeff DeClue was discovered through the tried and true method of finding out who we knew who had the biggest drum set. Seriously, I can't remember how we met him. Maybe someone can comment. Great guy, good pal. Had a truck and was into promoting parties.

This band fussed around with a few names and finally settled on LiveWire, derived from either the AC/DC title or the Motley Crue title, I do not recall.

Jeff once signed us up to play at a party out in the boonies. We had no idea how far out in the sticks it was until the day of. We set up on the guy's carport. All was going great and we were counting up the money in our heads as the crowd got bigger and bigger. But, then, we heard the roaring of motorcycles... the Saddletramps had arrived.

They moseyed up toward the carport/bandstand and stood in the back of the crowd. At first, they were cool, but, when we did a Beatles set, they started getting rowdy and tossing driveway rocks at us. We had brought baseball bats along for this sort of thing but had hoped that their mere presence next to the amps would be enough to ward off any evil spirits.

We quickly switched gears and started playing every Lynnrd Skynrrd song we knew, back to back with extended jams in each one. The bikers stopped throwing rocks, made their way to the front, and started passing whiskey bottles up to the band. We made it out alive that night with $1500+ in cash. How? I do not know.

LiveWire now had money and an interest in recording our own tunes. We were not, however, in the business of paying full studio rates.

Bill was a Jazz Studies student at Webster University and they had an audio recording studio. So, I asked him to get a list of all the kids enrolled in the Media Studies program that he thought might want to take us on as a project. I cold-called everyone on his list, basically making the same pitch: record us as a project and we'll kick some money under the table to you.

Scott Roever was the only student lacking in scruples enough to take us up on it.

We went about the business of recording LiveWire in the old studio facility at Webster. That facility was basically a large classroom that had one corner walled off into a control room. We were nervous and all the performances showed it, except Bill's. And, Scott's. Anyway, we titled it "Lightning Strikes" after the first track (which haunts me to this day). The album never really saw light of day. Slyman paid to make copies but nobody bought them. Last I heard, he had a basement full of tapes and/or discs.

But, we had built a relationship with Scott and that's why I mention it.

For a variety of reasons, we decided to ditch Slyman and Jeff. We were young and full of ourselves and probably didn't do it very nicely. Then again, there's no easy way to say "I don't want to play music with you anymore."

Bill and I decided to continue as a 3 piece and get a new drummer. He asked one of his music friends from Webster, Kevin Gianino, for a list of students he thought might be able to cut it. We auditioned a few, but, totally locked in with Steve Lord. He knew Kinks songs and Police songs, and he was a better timekeeper than anyone we'd played rock with up to that point. So, Steve was in and he named the new group Fallout after a favorite rare Police song.

Scott Roever helped us record an EP as Fallout. We had a few gigs. It was going ok, but, we weren't quite clicking the way I wanted. I was getting tired of playing bass and trying to sing and goofing up the rhythms. So, we put on a search for bass player.

Steve was working in a pizza place called Balducci's Winefest. One of his friends in the kitchen was Jon Ackley, a Bon Jovi-haired folky type, who was working his way through all the women in the restaurant - employees, customers, or otherwise. He had never played bass, but, did seem to manage to draw an ok crowd of girls when he would play stuff on acoustic guitar.

We convinced Jon to switch to bass. I don't remember how long it was between him joining and us recording Hello Mr. Jenkins as The Finns, but, I do know how hard we worked. We rented a storage locker and practiced there. Rain or shine, cold or hot, we were in that locker hammering it out. We had our gear plugged into an adapter screwed into the light socket. And, if we were using a space heater, we would overdraw the powerstrip and everything would shut down. Off to McDonald's for a warmup, then reset the strip and back to work.

Scott Roever snuck us into the new Webster studio for the first two songs of what would eventually become Hello Mr. Jenkins in September of 1989. Patrick Conway, our great friend in the Barking Aardvarks, was along for the ride as either co-producer or engineer or something, I dunno. But, his name is listed on the tracking sheets (which I will try to scan and put up on the blog somehow).

The first two songs, "If Time Stood Still" and "Behind Your Eyes" were pre-released as "Two Songs for Two Dollars" on cassette. That tape as well as opening slots with Big Fun, landed us our first big gig opening for the Rainmakers at Mississippi Nights. We played 17 songs in 35 minutes. Pat Lacey, Miss Nights co-booking manager and all around great lady, then put us on the bill with Hoodoo Gurus. Between those two gigs we sold all 100 copies of the cassette.

Next up, the sessions for Hello, Mr. Jenkins.