In 1973 I started the ninth grade at Grandville High School. I was looking forward to playing in the concert band, but would have to wait another year to march at the football games. I also joined the high school swim team and learned that in order to swim like Olympian Mark Spitz I was going to have to spend an inordinate time in the water. I also learned that the ritual freshman hazing stories were true.

I witnessed firsthand the terror that upper class men dished out regularly to the ninth graders. They were expert at snapping wet towels at us, causing ugly welts. They would strip freshman naked and throw them, screaming, into the pool during the community swim period. I also watched in distress as a busload of these cretins performed a sadistic ritual on a friend of mine. They stripped him naked on a bus ride home from an away game and slathered hot balm and eggshells on his groin, then wrapped him in athletic tape. They made him ride all the way home in this humiliating condition. I determined right then that I hated jocks.


  


Soon after, I sat at the family dinner table and proclaimed to my parents that I was going to quit the swim team and dedicate more time to my piano and other musical pursuits. They stood behind my decision and notified coach Hall. I wasn’t there but I could feel the rage in the air as he bellowed his disapproval and insisted I couldn’t quit. My parents get another medal for this, too.

The rest of that school year I studied snare drum and started timpani lessons with Bruce Pulk, principal timpanist with the Grand Rapids symphony. My mom took me all the way downtown to his home where I saw his astounding collection of vinyl record albums. He introduced me to some new artists and I found he also loved the music of Frank Zappa., which included some astounding xylophone and marimba work. He currently lives in Phoenix and performs with their orchestra.



  


Sometime during this freshman year I was approached by some upper class men to play piano at one of their band practices. I don’t remember who asked me or even how they knew I could play the piano. I suppose word got around because I was known to boogie woogie or play some ELP riffs on the choir room piano on occasion.

I was pretty nervous. These guys were in 11th grade and had facial hair, cars and girlfriends.
Scott Scheerhorn was the band leader, I guess because it was in his living room we met. His parents were very conservative, strict, Dutch Christian Reformed folks and I give them credit for letting us set up a drum kit in their pristine drawing room and, especially, for letting me bang on their little spinet piano, which I’m sure had experienced very little music other than offerings from the Psalter Hymnal. Well... maybe the Baby Elephant Walk and White Christmas.

Scott was a guitar player and a very talented artist. It was his drawings and paintings that later formed the visual images for the band. Dave Borgeson was the lead singer and also played alto sax. He could sing very high and, if I was going to assign him an influence, it would be David Bowie during his Ziggy Stardust days. Rick Annabell played bass and I had known who he was because he also played trombone in the high school band. Mark Milnickel played drums and was the son of the junior high school vice principal. After a few rehearsal/auditions I was officially asked to join the band and become a member of Grandville’s newest rock and roll entity. Our name was was going to be written in the stars and across the galaxy because we were.... Cosmic.



  

Click on the pic to see an early promo of the Cosmic band. Can you guess which one is me?

This is not the original lineup, but is the second that had some longevity to it. I'm still digging through albums to find anything earlier.

Everything cool, I thought, came from England; The Beatles, Herman’s Hermits, Davey Jones, King Arthur and his knights, the Battle of Britain, ELP, Genesis, Yes, The Who, Elton John, the british monarchy, and especially British accents. Ever since I fell in puppy love with Hayley Mills on Sunday night’s Wonderful World Of Disney I had wanted to speak like an englishman. I could pick out the differences between cockney, high brow, Liverpoolian, and the sister accents of the Scots and the Irish.

My latest infatuation was with the recordings by Monty Python’s Flying Circus. Ed Buchanan often played them on his Sunday night comedy show and WLAV-FM would play their comedy skits between songs at any time of the day. The Python’s accents hooked me immediately. They introduced me to some I had never heard before and I especially loved it when the guys would imitate English women in high, screechy voices.

I was confused, at first, by the British slang and topics about UK politics and sports figures, but after many, many nights of repeated spins on my hi-fi I not only picked up on the deeper humour but also began to mimic them and memorize entire skits. I had every album available at that time. See? I even spelled humor like an englishman.

If you are a fan you will remember these tracks: The Cheese Shop, Word Association Football, The Argument Room, Nobody Expects the Spanish Inquisition, the Lumberjack Song, and the world’s first three sided record album. I didn’t even know what the Spanish Inquisition was and I found it hilarious. These guys’ humour would figure prominently in my social life throughout high school and beyond.

An inventory of my record and book collection in 1973 would have found over 80% of it as an export of UK music, literature and history. At this time, even my fashion sense mimicked some of the mod looks of the British. I began to grow my hair longer and even had my mother buy me a paisley puffy shirt.

All of this anglo love was a solitary enjoyment and I had no one to share it with. My eighth grade friends had no similar literary, comic or music interests but that would change the next year. I was going into high school.

1974. Still fourteen years old. I continued to play the piano and sought out new styles wherever I could. I discovered boogie woogie and began to copy the left hand patterns that made it rock and roll. I am left handed, so I had the strength to repeat the motifs until my family urged me to move on.

My two biggest influences, Keith Emerson and Rick Wakeman were both piano players who also surrounded themselves with batteries of MOOG synthesizers, Mellotrons, clavinets and Hammond organs. They were stylistically different, both in music and stage persona. Keith, I had read, was known to stick a bowie knife between the keys of his Hammond and wore leather pants. Rick sported long blonde hair and wore a splendid cape as he maneuvered within his island of keyboards. These were impressive attributes to an impressionable fourteen year old.


  

CLICK Rick!

Overall, Emerson won my biggest admiration as his style was more aggressive and musically masculine. Pianistically, he had a mean left hand that shined in his solo piano works. His left played a very fast, repeating ostinato pattern while improvising with his right. It sometimes sounded like three or four hands blazing away and, as a teenager, bigger and faster was always more impressive. The solo section of “Take A Pebble”, from ELP’s debut album, is a great example.

I had never actually seen my favorite bands at this time. Emerson, Lake and Palmer and Yes had never toured in West Michigan. Television changed that. Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert and a competing show brought contemporary rock acts to our weekend TV viewing.

I will never forget the seeing California Jam in the spring of 1974. Some of my favorite bands were going to be shown performing at a concert in Ontario, California that drew over 200,000 fans. ELP was going to be one of them, but they were the finale. First, I got to see Seals and Crofts, Rare Earth, The Eagles, Black Sabbath, Earth, Wind and Fire, Black Oak Arkansas, and Deep Purple. Wow! And they showed more ELP than any other band.

I saw Carl Palmer’s mammoth drum kit that included two timpani, chimes and a large gong. I got to see his extended drum solo, too. For the first time I saw Keith Emerson perform on his modular MOOG with it’s knobs, wires and oscilloscope monitor displaying crazy waveforms.


I couldn’t sleep that night after watching him run to the grand piano for his solo spot and razzle dazzle the keys. After a while, the piano, bench and Keith slowly rose into the air to a serious height as he furiously attacked the keyboard. This was miraculous enough, but then I had to rub my eyes in disbelief and question the physics as the piano began to rotate in a clockwise pinwheel spin as my newest super hero continued to play. Did anybody else see this??

It was all over for me now. My destiny was written. This fourteen year old kid from the midwest was going to be a cape wearing, knob twiddling, super fast, multi-keyboard playing rock musician.


  

CLICK on Keith's pic to see knobs and wires close up!

In addition to my Art Rock collection, there were also two special albums in my house that heavily influenced my musical tastes. The first was the original release of “Jesus Christ Superstar” by Andrew Lloyd Weber and a host of British musicians, including Ian Gillan, lead vocalist for the rock band Deep Purple, as Judas. There was a lot of musical variety on this double album. The ominous opening guitar feedback led into an infectious groove, followed by Judas recollecting, “My mind is clearer now. At last, all too well, I can see where we all soon will be.” It still gives me shivers.

The arrangements, for the first time, blended serious rock rhythms with orchestral and choral textures. I still liked bombast, so I was naturally turned on to the huge chorus of the title track “Jesus Christ Superstar”. Again, my head rested in the center of the console stereo speakers as I read along with the libretto printed inside the album.

I was also aware of the vitriolic voices of the religious community condemning the Superstar story line and could only wonder what the fuss was all about. I thought it was a pretty cool way to evangelize for Jesus. It attracted me, an impressionable teenager, to the gospel. What more could they ask for? My social conscience was being influenced by those Aquarian values of equality, women’s lib, antiwar protests, socialism, English monarchy, Watergate, wizards and demons, and rock and roll. Now the teachings of Jesus and his betrayal and death, once a catechism boredom, were presented in an exciting way. Thank you, Sir Andrew.

The second record I loved was the soundtrack to “Superfly” by Curtis Mayfield. I had not seen the movie, but I grooved to the soulful rhythms and anti drug social commentary it presented. It was funky and included some very cool electric piano sounds. Along with Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye and Billy Preston, these guys were influential in my love of soul, gospel, and good old R&B music. Don’t forget funk. Curtis was one of funk’s pioneers and I would soon be playing a lot of it in the next few years.

During the eighth grade I met a kid who would become my lifelong friend through all sorts of trials and tribulations. Richie Dekker was in my class but, for reasons I don’t remember, he was a year older than me. His brother, Peter, played baritone horn in the 8th grad band and, from the percussion section, I saw a lot of the back of his head.

Richie Dekker was, and still is, an imposing dutchman and today would remind any baby boomer of the TV character, Grizzly Adams. He was stocky, blond haired, big boned, and quick to temper. He’s held some grudges for over 30 years. He was exactly the kind of pal a peaceful, music loving eighth grader would want on his side as he entered a big, scary high school full of upper class bullies with trucker wallets and facial hair.

I also knew he was a really nice guy with a hidden teddy bear character, but I kept that secret to myself.

We were partners in science class and this is where I found he had an interest in electronics. In his basement were mounds of radios and older TVs in varying degrees of disassembly, waiting for him to repair. His father, an audiophile and officer of the Holland Municipal Power Plant, encouraged him and often brought Richie more electronics to tinker with.

Dekker’s parents had intriguing Dutch accents and were also music lovers. His uncle played the organ and at their family gatherings they would gather in his basement, drink lots of beer and play polkas really, really loud. These were fun loving people.

I shared my interest in electronic music with Richie, including the cool organ playing by my keyboard idols. I loaned him some of my albums and he would record them onto his dad’s reel to reel tape deck. He also understood the mechanics behind the sound of a Hammond organ being played through a Leslie speaker and shared this mystery with me by drawing a picture for me in science class. I wish I still had it.

He explained the woofer and tweeter speakers and how, through a system of motors, pulleys and trumpet shaped horns, this wood grained speaker cabinet could “rotate” the sound and throw it across the room. He showed me how the musician could throw a switch and make the horns rotate from a slow chorale to a spinning, tremulating flurry of sound.

After understanding all of this, I began to appreciate its expressive nature and found it in many rock and gospel songs of the day. Listen to “Green Eyed Lady” by Sugarloaf or “Hold You Head Up” by Argent and you can hear two fine examples of Leslie speakers in use. We thought it was the coolest machine in the world.

If I was ever going to use one myself, I was going to have to get an organ first.