This lovely True Noir image I just had to share with all of you.
On Monday June 10 a recording sessions involving six actors (most, if not all, of whom would be familiar to you, but I have to withhold their names for now) will get my audio adaptation of True Detective truly underway, guided by the fine hand of Robert Meyer Burnett (Free Enterprise).
I began playing rock ‘n’ roll in 1965.
I’d been Henry Higgins in our high school’s production of My Fair Lady, and it was the height of my years in chorus. The rest of the school year would be occasional concerts, very much a winding down after my quartet (Kathy Bender, Joyce Courtois and Mike Lange) had won State three years running. I’d snagged three Number Ones at State myself. No where left to go.
At that time, thanks to John/Paul/Ringo/and George, local pop combos (as we put it then) were springing up like mushrooms with the haircut to match. Some friends of mine from Chorus and I got into this craze a tad late, forming a group called the Barons. It should have been spelled Barrens, without the “s.”
My uncle Mahlon was a district sales manager for Chicago Musical Instruments, home of Gibson guitars. I had figured to have my uncle get me a bass guitar at cost. It looked like the easiest instrument to pick up quickly. He reminded me that I had taken three years of piano lessons. I reminded him that I fucking hated piano lessons and the most notable thing about the experience was that I rarely practiced.
He pointed out to me that combo organs were the coming thing, thanks largely to Paul Revere and the Raiders, and that even if I’d been a miserable piano student, I still knew more about playing keys than I did the bass. He suggested he get me a Farfisa.
I picked up enough rudimentary knowledge (basically how to play chords) to fill that role in the Barons. We played our first gig ($25, and were overpaid at that) two weeks later. The Barons dissolved quicker than Alka Selzter in a glass and, with my friend Jim Hoffman and some junior high kids who’d been recommended to me, formed the Daybreakers.
We became one of the upper tier local bands – I believe Muscatine, Iowa, at the zenith of this phenomenon, had 26 “local pop combos.” Initially I used sheet music till my cousin Kris, visiting (and a veteran combo player) asked me what the hell I was doing with sheet music to the likes of “Louie Louie” and “Hang On Sloopy.”
“Hasn’t anybody told you about C-F-G?” he said, through cruel laughter. “Almost all rock and roll songs are C-F-G!” That was an over-simplification, of course, but not much of one.
The Daybreakers by 1967 were in Nashville, thanks to Jack Barlow, a country artist (who had been a high school student in the music class that my father taught at Muscatine High School) who recorded for a famous record producer named Buddy Killen. We went down to Nashville with half a dozen songs, five originals and a version of Gershwin’s “Summertime,” and lucked into a record contract. Killen had on his roster, in addition to Barlow and several other country artists, a very successful soul artist, Joe Tex, and Atlantic Records was after Killen to find a rock act. And we walked in the door.
The record was “Psychedelic Siren,” a regional hit that was a claim of a sort of fame for the Daybreakers. It came out in early 1968 and was too much in the vein of Paul Revere and the Raiders to compete with the explosion of hipper music that happened immediately after our record session – we heard “Light My Fire” and “Purple Haze” on the radio, driving home from Nashville, and knew we were screwed.
Nonetheless, the band lasted five years (for a time called “Rox”) and we played in concert with the Rascals, Gary Puckett and the Union Gap, and the Buckinghams. And nobody could take away from us that we’d had a national record distributed by Atlantic on their Killen label, Dial.
You can read about all this, and get the names of my fellow bandmates – we were inducted into the Iowa Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame in 2008 – on my website (click on MUSIC).
Shortly after playing the induction concert, we appeared for the Muscatine, Iowa, Class Reunion (three of the original members – Buddy Busch, Mike Bridges and Denny Maxwell – were Muscatine High School Grads in ‘70.)
The Daybreakers is where my experience in rock ‘n’ roll starts (we’ll just shrug off the Barons) and I figured it was the beginning and the end. But in 1974 my longtime musical collaborator, (the late) Paul Thomas, suggested we start up again. I wanted to, but was reluctant – we didn’t care much for what was playing on the radio at the time.
A short sidebar: in those days, the pop combo days, all of us were “cover bands” (a term that wasn’t used then). The idea was to do a few originals, so if you got a chance to record you had something to offer, but mostly to give the kids music they were familiar with.
Anyway, the idea behind what quickly became Crusin’ was to dust off the old Daybreakers list and call it nostalgia. We did something at least a little historic, because Crusin’ the first ‘60s band in the Midwest and maybe almost anywhere (we were only five years past the ‘60s, after all). Unexpectedly, we got surprisingly popular locally and even regionally, and I wound up quitting my community college teaching job to play music with Paul – we even imported Bruce Peters, the best showman I ever performed with (and I performed with some great ones), from California where he’d gone to “make it.” We convinced him to come back to Muscatine and make it.
When the writing gig on Dick Tracy came along for me, I stayed with the band for a while – was sort of in and out and in again – and had a few reunions before Paul and I decided to re-group. While we never reached the level of popularity locally we’d had in the ‘70s and early ‘80s, the reputation of the original Crusin’ kept us as busy as we wanted to be. We made several records (notably the CD “Bullets!”), opened for the likes of the Turtles, Grass Roots and Peter Noone, and contributed to a national CD release of bands doing their versions of Monkees song (we did “Little Bit Me, Little Bit You”).
And in 2018 we were again inducted into the Iowa Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame, this time as Crusin’.
Here’s Crusin’ in 2008 at the Riverside Casino; this version features our original Daybreakers bass player, the late Chuck Bunn, and our longtime terrific guitar player, Jim Van Winkle, whose brother (the late Brian Van Winkle) replaced Chuck.
I also had the great fun of playing with the late Miguel Ferrer, Bill Mumy, Steve Leialoha and Chris Christensen in the “comic book” band, Seduction of the Innocent, appearing chiefly at the San Diego Comic Con. We released a couple of CD’s as well, “The Golden Age” (beautifully produced by Bill) and a live album.
In recent years, Crusin’ has played only in the summer, just a handful of gigs. For a while – since my open heart surgery in 2016 – I have suggested each year is the last.
This time I mean it.
This is the 50th anniversary of Crusin’ and our three performances will be our last.
This is a hard page to turn, a tough chapter to complete. But it’s time. I will be content that, as my late friend Paul Thomas said at the close of a successful gig, “Rock ‘n’ roll happened.” Miguel knew I was partial to that phrase, and the last time Seduction played, at the close he put a hand on my shoulder and quoted Paul Thomas: “Rock ‘n’ roll happened.”
Yes it did.
The last three Crusin’ dates, all in Muscatine, Iowa (or nearby), are June 21 at Ardon Creek Vineyard & Winery, 6:00 P.M. to 8:00 p.m., Independence Ave., Letts, IA 52754; June 30, Muscatine Art Center’s Ice Cream Social, 1:00 pm – 4:00 pm; and 1314 Mulberry Ave, Muscatine, IA 52761; and Sunday August 11, Second Sunday Concert Series, 6:00 pm to 8:00 p.m. at the Musser Public Library and HNI Community Center located at 408 E 2nd Street, Muscatine, IA. These are all outdoor events and subject to rain.
There is a chance we may do one last gig after that, but it’s not firmed up (it would likely be in September).
Nothing lasts forever. Here is the state of Muscatine High School as of today.
I am pleased to see myself listed as a “genre giant” here.
On the other hand, I never forget what Noah Cross said to Jake Gittes in Chinatown: “Politicians, ugly buildings, and whores all get respectable if they last long enough.”
M.A.C.
