View from the Blues Stage: Garage Band Evolution

Garageband Evolution -

Remember the garage band era? Summer nights in the 60s, man, you could walk around your neighborhood and always catch a garage band concertsomeone belting out "Hey Joe" (the Leaves version of course) or a scratchy vocal rendition of the Yardbirds "For your Love". We had a local concert area called "The Wild Goose" in a public park that had "Big Name Bands" like the Buckinghams, Baby Huey and the Babysitters, and the American Breed. Three bucks granted you the privilege of standing inside the fence, we always stood on the outsidethats were all the action was anyway.

I saw a California band called "The People" (I love you) do a mind-blowing rendition of "I am the Walrus". Very Cool. I saw a young 17-year-old Steve Windwood belting out "Gimme some Loving" with The Spencer Davis Group. Someone said that his mother had to sign the record contract because he was under 18.

Music was everywhere--the car, the beach, and in the garages of America. It was so much more important then. We all knew which songs were in the "Top Ten". We listened to the radio like it was an auditory horse race; watching and waiting for our favorite songs to move up into the lead. Everybody had the dream of getting discoveredmaybe even one day becoming a local hero and playing the Wild Goose who knows? In any event square one of that process was the workshop-stage known to our parents as the garage. I was lucky enough to have a garage band next door to me in Oak Lawn called "St. George and the Dragons". They helped create the whole garage band paradigm for me--the petty disputes over costumes, and where people would stand at seemed much more important than the music. Whatever they lacked in musical proficiency, they made up for in volume (when in doubt play louder). They named the band after the bass players guitara garage band specialthe brand? St. George of course. Never seen a St. George instrument since.

My brother got bitten by the garage band bug and bought a guitar. A two pickup Tiesco Del Ray. He had a plan to form a band with a few of his friends but it never even gelled into a single practice session. I guess the majority of garage band plans make it about this far. Meanwhile I latched onto the Del Raylife changed after that.

I of course played the garage circuit. My first band was called "The Elements of Tyme". I thought up that snazzy name. (Tyme with a Y for extra coolness--that's what we did in the 60's--the Byrds for example...). One of the guitarists in the band couldnt play a note, but had to be in because his mom was a best friend of the drummers mom and they laid down the law that the kid stayed in. Period. Garage bands always had plenty of guitar players. Three, four, or even five six-string players was not uncommon. We let one guy in because he had suede "Monkee Boots". Sometimes thats all you needed to be in.
We quit and joined bands on a daily basis, gaining and loosing vital concert equipment with each change, while continually striving to trade up both players and toys.

I bought my first acoustic a Norma Dreadnought just before I entered high school in 1968. An acoustic gave me the freedom from my tethered amp. I took that old jumbo box with me wherever I went. I hooked up with other acoustic players. One of the guys Ted had written a song called "Ive been on that train"

Ive been on that train

Searching for that girl

Searching for that girl that I will never know

And Im crying

Crying

Crying baby for you.

Its built upon alternating Cmaj7 and Fmaj7 chords and was hypnotically melodic.

Well if Ted can write songs we all could.

And thats what we did. We started writing and recording on a reel to reel tape machine that one of the guys had. Soon we had a list of probably 50 or more songs. We called the band Woodlind. I dont remember how we came up with the name, or why we chose it, but all throughout high school it was Woodlind. We played many small venues throughout those years, and had finally made it out of the garage.

By our senior year we decided to cut a double album of our best songs. We went to another (rich district) high school and got a small string section to orchestrate our songs. It was beautiful man. The songs became more technical and complex in nature. They also became more fun.

The 20th Century Cowboy

His harp in hand he plays the stars a tune

A drunken cowboy laughs beneath the moon,

says "whiskey's good to ease the pain"

been roaming 'round for days in a daze

he doesn't care...

We found a local studio: Pumpkin Studios in Palos. Run by local hero Gary Loizzo of the American Breed. We spent many months there laying down track after track on our double album. Pumpkin at that time only had four tracks, but Gary mixed the four down to a stereo left and right, and then we overlaid two more vocal tracks on the now empty tracks three and four. These again were mixed down into stereo left and right. Pumpkin was an excellent "Studio 101" course. We learned both the mechanics and protocols of music at an accelerated pace. Gary Loizzo was a great teacher, role model, and friend. Ted and I got jobs a the Harmony Guitar Factory at 44th and Pulaski to pay for the album. All day long I glued necks onto "Stella's" in order to pay for my work with "Norma"

By the time the album was finished, unfortunately so was the band. Squabbles over time, money, and artistic differences took its toll upon Woodlind. Ted and I did the last couple of songs as single person solo cuts. Both Woodlind and the album faded away.

I was on my own now; moved on newer things like college. There I met Bob. Bob is an incredibly talented guy, musically, and artistically. He's a phenomenal singer, a skilled craftsman, and an inventor (once he actually tried to build a working set of wings with the intention of flying--no kidding he made a working model with a two foot wingspan where the tips of the "feathers" spread out like a real birds wing--it was a work of art in itself).

Anyway Bob and I hit if off and began writing, playing, and eventually performing. He raised the bar for me on writing and performing. Other people became interested and once again an acoustical group began to form. I played the old Woodlind tape for everyone, and it was unanimous--we would once again play these songs--we would once again call ourselves Woodlind. Only these guys were top gun musicians. The music reached a wonderful level of precision and expression.

I got Ted back in and things were like old times, only much better. The band got Larger, it was now Bob , Ted , Joey Drada , Jim , Ken , myself, and Scott on drums. We began gigging fairly regularly. We got tighter and had a following. We even hired a sound technician--Jerry. There's nothing like a competent sound technician to present live material to an audience. If you don't have one, find one--sometimes it's a make or break decision.

Well it's a long story but for one reason or another (I'll just leave it at that). I moved downstate to Carbondale. Within months I lost contact with Woodlind. Bob told me that there had been many disputes after I left, and within a year, once again Woodlind decided to call it quits.

Jerry began a business plan to open a recording studio.
After a few years in Carbondale (read my novel) I returned to Chicago. Got a job with one of the original Woodlind members as a carpenter. Who would have known that after years I still had a cosmic link to Woodlind.
Jerry now had the business capitol to rent space, buy equipment, and build a studio. As fate would have it we bumped into each other just about the time he was ready to begin his venture. We talked and then cut a deal. I was to frame his studio in return for unlimited recording there. What a deal.

So we began. Jerry made me read several texts on the acoustic properties of sound so that I would understand why we were building the studio a certain way. Although technical reading for me at the time, I thoroughly enjoyed finding out about the mechanics of sound waves. I learned a great deal about the physics of space and sound.

We finished the studio (Jerry Called the Studio "Timbre Studios" now it's ARS Studios) and I stayed on as second engineer. For a while I lived in the studio. I learned signal routing, and signal processing. I learned to mike drums. We did all kinds of interesting things, like split the lead guitar into a "DI" box to the board, and have a shotgun mike setup 30 feet from the Lead amp. We would phase shift the two signals so that the delay in the air wouldn't muddy the sound. The result was a crisp (direct) sound that was fully developed (air). Very cool stuff. We mixed and measured sound--did you know that sometimes sound is only electricity until the first time you play it back?

We took the garage bands of South Side of Chicago and made 'em sound like they never had before--powerful, layered, equalized, logically panned, and most of all colored many wonderful sonic colors. I was learning right along with them. Each band had their own individual sonic equations to solve and a sound to "find". My job was to help them find that audio groove. I really loved doing that.

I loved the post session breakfasts. 5:20 am. Denny's. Sometimes chowing with the band while discussing the night's session.
The music industry has changed so much from those garage band days. It's big business today. Nobody will lay out any investment bread on a band until it's been thoroughly market tested. They say that Elvis was just starting out today he probably wouldn't make the cut. I don't know about that, but I know the days of the "One hit wonder" bands are pretty much over.

We live in an age of specialization. We have specialists handle everything. We drink gourmet coffee, and likewise are musical connoisseurs. The listening audience is much more sophisticated these days. They are not content to listen to a song on a two inch speaker at the beach--they want full fidelity, with auditing capabilities. It's all virtual--eighty percent of our music today is born and lives within a microprocessor of some sort. Music like all other information it really isn't music but rather a binary code of 0's and 1's. Just like this page you are reading!

Woodlind had it's 20 year reunion in the mid 1990's

Copyright (c) 2005 Gary Wesselhoff

Gary "g-man" Wesselhoff is an acoustic blues writer/performer woking the Chicago Metro area. You can contact him at: gman@gmanblues.com

Please Visit my site: http://www.gmanblues.com

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