Boot me..

Another entry to celebrate music being acquired in a different way than usual.. Not from a store.. Most of this entry is centered around getting music from various "fan" sites..  :

I love it when someone takes the time and extreme effort to make collections like the one above..  Running at 1.63GB there are demo out takes from their Wicked Lester days, the Elder and Psycho Circus as well as a few cool odds and ends.. I also consider the interview folder to be part of this and will be packaged with it.. Adding this new disc with a disc of the extra disc that was included with the KISSTORY set and the concert books will make that set incredible..

The Van Halen set here I already had in part.. It's odd how every time this set gets released there are not only better sounding songs, but more.. For an example, the original was a single disc, and now it is a double disc..

Some of the songs made it to as far as the 1984 album, titled different here but the idea was there..

Pink Floyd 40th anniversary of the release of Dark Side Of The Moon.. This was a bit of a worry for me because it is a remix of  a classic album and remixes are usually reserved for that dub step movement that is to say take any classic song and ruin it with their 20 minute formula keyboard and dub step (think disco) beat thing, add drill and stop clip .. What I'm trying to say is in a word BARF.. But this isn't at all that way.. Check out the description on the inner book..

The album reminds me of the early live version of bootleg concerts of which I have quite the lot..

I'd like to find the Wish You Were Here version.. This album here is extremely good from what I've heard of it so far..

The part that says who doesn't have a copy of original  album?  Seriously it's an album that people should be given at birth.. IT'S THAT DAMN GOOD!!

The Power of The Darkside.. Not sold anywhere albums are sold.. It is a FAN  produced album..

Tangerine Dream has released how many albums recently??   I would say a good lot.. Lost In Strings is  a feature album that with Edgar the featured guitarist..  Includes the favorite Hamlet and Talking With Maddox..

Loom isn't Tangerine Dream, but does contain two past members with Edgar's son Jerome Frose, Johannes Schmoelling and Rob Waters.. Rob Waters being Roger Waters of Pink Floyd fame son..  It might not be Tagerine Dream in name but it sure sounds like them..

The early King Crimson was an acquired taste.. I never could get it.. But the same could be said for the later stuff.. I could tolerate some but for the most part it was just out of reach.. The greatest hits type of albums were a different story.. This is a quad disc set up as the first disc being studio, the second being live of the earlier disc music.. And the third being a little further on in and the forth being the live versions of that earlier disc (3) ....  The live versions of King Crimson I declared the default version but in reality the songs were never done the same way twice ever so far as I can tell..

In a word.. or more.. holy shit.. Now this set was just unbelievable.. Six discs on this lot but what I was really after was the demo disc.. I have three versions of this set with this just being another one.. In fact I might already have it but you can never have too many versions of this classic album..

All I could say was WOW... 

Badge Henry

AND THEN IT RES(E)T EVERYTHING.. AGAIN!!!

 So Sunday I'm trying to use the golden browser.. The golden boy of browsers.. The Firefox browser as either Firefox proper or Aurora which is pretty much identical with the exception that Aurora is the developers version.. right.. Anyway my home page is the speed dial extension/addon FVD speed dial.. What that really is, is  a fancy way of saying I couldn't decide which homepage I wanted so I have he speed dial to just move from every page I want to see rather than try to have a homepage exclusively.. What happened on Sunday was this... I don't know what happened.. It was working and then it wasn't.. It went black, blank and black.. The black is the background colour and I changed it to white and nothing changed.. They have a recovery and simple enough I got the recovery set, got the dials loaded.. Nothing.. Still nothing  and trying everything I normally do including a scan with my security program.. then as I'm giving up, the last drastic move, the one no one wants to do.. I deleted the browsers.. Not just delete them but DELETE them.. Which means it takes everything out.. Then adding Firefox only for now, if this works maybe adding Aurora.. And ten minutes of redownload and getting the FVD extension ..  it worked..  It's back up and flying again.. But that wasn't all that happened on black Monday.. My ability to access Netflix went away.. Or I should say their ability to send emails to the account I have set up stopped on their end.. I have a site that tells me when there are problems with sites, mostly for having the Roku, to know weather it is my box or Netflix.. And i have gotten notifications that Yahoo mail was down.. And I've heard Yahoo is having troubles more and more lately.. So that was the only thing I could think was the issue.. I hate calling places because you never know what country you are calling and what the voice is going to sound like.. In this case it sounded American.. Got that straitened out..

But this is what I'm writing about, the main subject.. Someone friended me on Facebook recently, and I know the guy and everything and so I figured he knew me and everything.. I post a lot of stuff on my FB account and he would reply and I would reply to his and whatever.. Anyway I have a general sense of humour on everything.. I make fun of everything from the president to sex.. I'm sorry  SEX.. And religion.. and I put something in quotations and even said where it was from.. His response was as if I wrote it and it was my idea.. It pertained to religion and while it wasn't my idea, it was my vision to a certain extent.. I thought it was a good thing to post and he was the only one who went off his nut towards me.. Sorry dude.. He unfriended me.. No big loss but if he thought he knew me and that happened.. Oh well... Made me go back and remove that post as well as a few others that were addressed to him.. My sense of humour gets me in trouble sometimes and sometimes my replies to certain political sites via FB make me think I'm just one step away from joining Snowden in exile somewhere..

Badge Henry

(P.S. I knew it was going to be one of those days when I got out of the shower and shook the deodorant to put it on and then realized it was a stick, and has been for the past seven years..  )

munster

Ahh... As the big viewership numbers fade from view,  say what a week of fun that was.. Now back to the reality of unpreset entries..   yep that was fun wasn't it.. For a week or two that project to president over everything else.. When I said it would start around the 18th of January I thought no problem, I'll just clip it up and set them in sore order.. Thought about one a week but I wanted it to be uninterupted, so it was set to go from Tuesday through the following Tuesday.. With the videos to be done as a last minute, nearly last  second, as the videos were started to be worked on on that Tuesday, the first entry that went "live".. Talk about cutting it close.. The start of the last 8 songs and then the decision to add the three from the demo Ernie worked on, those videos were all done on the Friday before they were set to go live on that Tuesday.. Luckily the computer cooperated and also the internet as uploading five minutes takes about an hour so all the videos together cost twelve hours to upload... All in all quite the project as far as the videos were concerned.. Like I said I didn't think I would do anymore videos, the memories of the songs are still in my head.. The writing sessions which were just a matter of jam sessions.. Playing them live was easy..  It was just a great time back then.. As much as I might have sounded like I was complaining it was just the best time of my life.. The were regrets, the women that I didn't bother with, I didn't want that to be a distraction.. Thinking back I wish I would have let things like that happen.. I watched Frank get roped into that and really didn't want that to happen to me.. Not much chance of that... Still it was fun and I do let myself look back in fond memory of a time that really I question if it ever really happened.. As early as the early 90's I wondered if it really all happened at all..  Well did it??   How quickly it fades into the back of the memory.. Wishing that I had  a diary of some sort, even if it were to say this date I joined this band.. This date we almost fell apart.. Five year (almost to the day) was..  well it just was.. Until Ernie passed away I hadn't even thought of the band since ....  Whenever it was.. I know I forgot certain events and some I omitted on purpose...  There was a bit of a rush but still when the memories came out it was just..  A great writing situation.. Sorry for the inspiration that caused it but it seemed to jar memories that I had forgotten.. I wish I had a diary to check on but I had to go with my memory exclusively..  Not bad for swiss cheese... 

Badge Henry

Rock Legend : Apendix 2 (more songs & stuff)

Three songs from the demo that Ernie made in late 88 or early 89:

Red Hot Love In The City:  This was a song he wrote completely out of the band.. Or at least I don't remember playing any of it.. If I did it was one of those jam sessions that it came from.. Saying that however I can't recall ever working on the song at all.. Pretty much the story behind the demo tape that he made goes like this; from the final gig of '88 and the first practices for what would ultimately be my final gig with the band, he recorded a few songs.. More than likely the entire of the song catalog knowing how he probably did things, it would be what I would do, and then pick the best cuts for a tape like that.. Trouble is when I listened to it the first time I didn't know what to think.. Was it good??  Yes and no.. If I would have played on it then sure enough I would say it was good.. I wasn't the drummer at all.. Not a single note was played by me on the tape and I was afraid that people wouldn't be able to tell the difference.. I would hope they could.. The drummer on all three of these songs  was a computer drum machine..

Down On Your Luck: This one was Joe on the vocals and was worked on during the writing phase by the band with Rob playing the keyboard part live.. However Ernie "wrote" the keyboard part and then showed Rob what to play..  This was a fun song to play live, as most of the original songs were..

Breakdown re :  This is where it got ... dicey for me.. Why did he redo the song Break Down  for??  I didn't know why he redid this one and others..  When I went to set the songs to compact disc I couldn't fit every song onto a single disc and I didn't want to split it and have a second disc so I picked which songs went on the disc and which didn't.. This I put on because even though it isn't my playing, it is still a favorite song that we did.. But the question remained for me, was this the definitive version of the song?? Would I have to conform my playing to an extremely simple playing style??  Was I even going to be in the band anymore??

 The negatives from the "pasture" photo session.. How I got these; well my older brother was working with the ambulance service back in the early nineties, and they were moving into a new building and they were exploring the desks that were there (or storage cabinets.. whatever) and these were found there... Bob looked at them and recognized the guys in them, and then asked if I might want them. I said sure.. I thought about asking the guys if they wanted to have them but then never did.. There are some fifty proofs, and with them the negatives.. I tied to figure a way to make the pictures be able to show from the negatives but.. Never could figure it out.. 

 A small attempt to make the negatives into the picture ..

One of the proofs from that session.. Starship to the stars ...  rock your ass...

 A snake!!!!  WHERE??

In all there were around fifty proofs from that session.. I wasn't sure if they ever saw them or if they did if they got a few of them.. I was able to obtain the proofs and  the negatives..  


Badge Henry

(P.S. The Wrath was another song that was on the disc that I didn't include here.. The reason is we were starting to work on it before the final gigs in '88..  The song just didn't come together before that gig, and might have been interesting to see how it would have turned out as a band effort..  It ended up being around seven minutes when he completed it on his demo tape from 88-89..  While it was an interesting song it is a marathon to listen to.. )

Rock Legend : the APPENDIX section of the entry (songs & stuff)

 The only way to add music is to set the songs to video.. These are not official videos by any imagination..  It is just a way to get the music to be heard.. So here are the entire demo tape.. To start ..  Don't Be Afraid :

Don't Be Afraid..  The final track on the demo...A video put together with the type the title of the song into Google images search and see what you get..
A bout the song "Don't Be Afraid", most nights we played this song it was a nice song to play.. It was usually a "end is in sight" type of number for me.. As in the show is about over, a breather song in that it was a mid tempo song, and extremely easy, strait forward formula song in the verse chorus, verse, chorus guitar break verse, chorus ending.. Not like the others weren't this way, but it was just a nice flowing song.. But there were nights the song got pushed, or axed from the lineup.. Joe was the lead vocalist on this one I think..

Where Did I Go Wrong:  If there was a hit to be had this seemed destine to be it.. I thought it had the "hook"  that might have made it work big for us.. The song was written in fairly quick order one evening at the practice session..

If there was a "hit" by Destiny this was it. BREAKDOWN..  This one was written fairly early, in fact I would willing to bet it was written when the band was still Rizzen..  Not sure when it was written exactly but the rhythm is definitely the selling point on this.. The off beat sound or up beat was what I liked about this song.. It doesn't take a genius to play it, as with most songs that get you going.. The simple (ness) is what makes most rock songs jive.. This was a little more involved but still fairly easy once you get that uptake sound.. This was always a highlight of the night no matter if it got played once twice or on request more often.. 

 

THINKING OF YOU: Fairly strait forward song.. They evolved over time very little.. In other words the song you hear here was pretty much the same from the day it was written, musically.. Lyrically the song might change, but as I said in the entry, I rarely could hear the vocals so it didn't matter.. I wasn't listening to the vocals anyway.. 

 

TAKE IT OR LEAVE IT: My feeling on the start of this song is that there is a  bit of a Steve Negus feeling to the drumming.. Steve Negus was the original drummer in Saga, and their Worlds Apart album was big just before we got together.. We did the song On The Loose and that has that sixteenth note sound on the high hat..  This has about the same starting there.. 

 

STOPPIN' US NOW:  For me there was no obscure gem in the entire song catalogue written by any of the members.. There isn't a song that we had on this demo that I dreaded playing at all they were all involved songs.. They all had parts for every member of the band.. This was another one, although I can't recall when the song was written, there was very rare time when more than one song was written on a practice session..

IT'S OVER NOW: This was the second track recorded in the studio..  I think it was January.. Maybe.. I can't remember, but it is a keyboard heavy track as most of the songs would evolve towards keyboard.. It was the 80's and that was the direction pop music was going in.. And with us in the very early days it was guitar heavy tracks..  Gradually as we evolved away from the heavy sound we would gravitate towards a keyboard heavy sound, and when Darren bought his first polyphonic keyboard Ernie would start learning how to play the keyboard as well.. Was there friction from this move??  Hard to say..

 

I'M READY: Another keyboard heavy track.. again another song written early on.. The drumming on some of the tracks seem so easy.. There was a reason for that.. I didn't want to get too involved with any hard playing passages mostly for my benefit that anyone else.. I didn't want to have to remember "now I put that one off beat nub bit fill here" because I learned a few things from the early gigs and that was I was a nervous wreck before the gigs and that would carry through until the third set.. In the early day we played three and sometime four sets.. Towards the end we would play two sets, with an "encore" five or six song third set, a token third set by comparison to the first two sets.. I always wondered if Ernie did that because he was unsure of what to do between sets.. I personally would have rather played the show start to finish without taking a break.. I was quite shy off the stage and really hated going off.. I would do a "check list" if you will, I would "fix" things that weren't hanging together.. Truth is I hated the idea of a drum stand falling dating back to my high school days that I tightened everything just a little beyond tight.. 

 

HARD TO HOLD: Another heavy keyboard track.. We practiced very regularly.. Actually obsessively.. The amount we practiced was immense, and it was to get to be "perfect".. Perfect in practice doesn't equal the same live.. I wish it did.. There were practices where we would practice the same five songs over and over.. There was substance ... um.. use, maybe abuse but not really horrible.. But if there was any at all it meant the songs were going in one ear and out the other.. Joe would make mistakes at gig and Ernie would let him know about it.. The thinking might be well he was stoned when he learned it so get stoned and he would recall the song.. It doesn't work that way, and never does, the only time it works that way is in the movies.. I drank those wine coolers at the one gig I wish I never did, the home gig.. I swore I would never do that again.. I felt like I had to stay sober.. The acoustics  at different sights could make hearing anything difficult, add it that you have a buzz on anything and ...  Not fun at all.. And I had never been laughed off the stage and didn't want that to ever happen because of my playing.. 

YOU GOT MY LOVE: A straight forward rhythm song, driving it home and playing hard.. Another song where I think it was a keep it simple type of idea with me.. For no other reason than there was no reason to fancy it up.. I feared forgetting what came next..  

There really isn't a horrible song from that demo.. Truth is I really liked every damn song on that demo.  a song that wasn't included was Darrens song Nobody's Business which was a staple of the early Rizzen songs.. Rock and Roll Party was also  a fun song, written as a final introduction to each member ...  and a short solo thing where you had a eight count to do a fill three times.. I hated doing a solo but loved the fill riff solo thing..  Every one of our songs were pristine when done live, there was nary a mistake.. Unlike the cover songs that we did make mistakes on, ours were the closest to perfection.. We were in our element when we played originals.. 

Badge Henry

Rock Legend (final bits & pieces)

My musical influences were back then Alice Cooper, Aerosmith, KISS, Led Zeppelin, Chicago, UFO..  BOSTON.. Alright Chicago might seem like a stretch but really they were a favorite when I was in school and would serve as a base for my musical taste.. Boston for the Don't Look Back album that I listened to quite often to play to.. I also liked RUSH and thought that Neil Peart was beyond approach as far as being able to play like him, so I made it easy on myself, I didn't play like him at all.. Nor did we attempt any of their songs..

There were different times I would "channel" a different drummer for different songs when we were writing songs.. At one point I thought of Mick Fleetwood for one song and yet another drummer Micky Curry from the Hall & Oates band from about that same time..  I wasn't above trying to play like other drummers, listening to them and trying to emulate them.. My playing would evolve from the loud playing of striking the drum really hard, to playing more on the rims and heads simultaniously which relieved my hitting the drums so hard to just letting the stick flow to the target.. It took some doing to get to where i was consistently hitting the drum head and rim at the same time on every drum in the kit except for the bass drum..  I later experimented with getting that louder and found the perfect way that blew me away.. I always wondered if that would have been our defining sound but it was a year after leaving the band that I discovered this way.. What it was was taking the opening part from a coffee can and taping it where the bass drum peddle strikes the head.. It made my playing faster and increased the sound quite a bit and made it hard.. I can't explain it.. Other experiments came with arranging the cymbals where I could strike two at the same time rhythmically where the down stroke hit one cymbal and the upstroke hit the other.. It made playing 16th notes playable with one hand, sort of a cheat but something I had to practice to get right.. This again was after leaving the band.. Imagine the ease of playing some of the songs, I would only be left with I wonder what it would be like.. And then the day came when I just stopped playing..

Certain songs by artists that we covered, when they come on the radio even now bring back the memories of that time.. Bryan Adams, we covered more songs by him than just about anyone there.. Songs like Run To You..   Somebody and Heaven.. They weren't bad songs and were the vibe of the era.. Sunglasses at Night by Corey Hart wasn't a favorite of mine but seemed to be for the people at our shows..

The thing I liked about our light system is I couldn't see beyond the very front of the stage, it caused a blindness that was perfect, so I couldn't see beyond our monitors which meant if you weren't standing right at the immediate front of the stage I couldn't see you.. Until we got the back lighting and even with that I couldn't see, the back lights weren't as strong as the front lights were..

This isn't what I was after, I never wanted the band to end.. I wanted to shake things up a  bit, maybe hoping that starting the rumor would make it start up again.. Something, ANYTHING.. I wanted to gig again but then again, I was a little relieved that the phone didn't ring again.. Remembering that feeling from contest time in school when I would do a solo and have to get it just right.. It made me get torn up and nervous as hell. I wanted to do good not just for me but also for everyone.. Was that undue pressure??  I always over think things as far back as then.. And so now I was hoping for.. I don't know.. On the one hand I wanted to continue but I wanted it to be us getting busy and doing as much as we could.. The music scene was going to change over the next few years and I thought as it did we might have been left in the dusty wake that sometimes happens to bands that don't adapt..  Grunge was actually an interesting sound and expression.. We had adapted well from the heavy metal hair band sound of the mid eighties to a more pop oriented sound of the same period.. We had that coexist for a time before we became the pop version pretty much exclusively.. Everything we did, it seemed the perfect time to do it in..




The most remembered gigs we played together..

The first gig for the cramp in my calf that traveled to my thigh.. Massive disappointment for that and I would chase the perfect gig from that point on..

The gig at R.D.'s before Thanksgiving when we would pack the place..

The New Years eve/wedding reception gig, we played at the Silver Dollar .. It was strange that I had always wanted to play a new years eve gig.. Also a wedding reception and we got both in one night, the longest gig we ever played started around seven and ended around one in the morning with the after gig party going until around five..

The time we played at the Dalton legion hall and had five people show up, and a fight broke out..

The gig at Gurley where we played in a constant downpour rainstorm..

The prom at Ogallala was great, a nice way to have an over nighter type of thing where we partied in the hotel.. Tearing up the room wasn't my intention but sometimes shit happens when you're tired and then drunk added to that..

The gig at the Lodgepole legion hall for labor day weekend, the firemans dance and one of the last times it was held in the building.. Yea we were loud, didn't they know that??  Did someone not get the memo on this??

The prom in Sterling where we got booted three times before we got our equipment set up.. Sound restrictions weren't our strong point, and playing at a hotel out on the interstate meant weary travelers but they should have put people in the outer rooms knowing that a prom with a band could be trouble and we were.. in  a word  "LOUD"... Loud and proud of it.

 The dates might not jive.. From the very beginning to the end, there are dates that are completely a guess, and I even say so, that what might have happened at this time or that might be wrong or at the very least a guess.. Some of which was a stab. Literally a stab because I wasn't around the band that much, strange to say being in the band that I wasn't around them that much.. The off time when we weren't practicing which seemed like we were practicing all the time.. Towards the end of '88, before the final paying gig in October, it seemed like people weren't as interested in the band as they were possibly just the first part of the year.. Thinking back to that time I was sort of distancing myself from them.. I was never into that fan worship thing that most get into.. when I left the practice I was just me, and didn't expect any special treatment anywhere.. I wasn't ready for the end of the band, I wanted it to continue on but I wanted it to be a working band (gigging) not a studio or practicing band.. Practices within reason. It seemed like we practiced for weeks for each gig.. Perfection was never going to be reached, not when there is any substance use or abuse.. I can't say if there was a substance issue, abuse to the point where we couldn't practice because when we did practice mistakes were made but that was to be expected.. The band wasn't a professional  band, it was a hobby that everyone took fairly seriously at least at one point.. But by the end of '88 it seems like the reason to continue was changing.. We weren't huge, in fact if anything we were falling out of favor amongst the throng of locals.. We were almost in begging mode, as I said, what with the buttons that were sold by '88 were being tossed into the crowd as a way to get rid of them.. How many had my face on them??  None if it were up to me to make them.. That was the one promotional thing we (they) did that I didn't believe in AT ALL... It felt too teenie boppery as it were.. I know our crowd was the 18-24 crowd where earlier it might have been the 21-27 crowd.. We were more going after the highschool crowd which I didn't care either way as long as we played.. But later I did regret that move but.. And it might have been the end of the band.. In the early going of the band Ernie wanted to get pictures to make posters and at the beginning I was reserved but decided it was the thing to do.. We had several photo sessions and I went along until the last one, or a very nearly last one.. I think it was the band as the core with Ernie, Joe, Rob, Dale and myself but I felt that Dale wasn't really long for the band and was proven right shortly after he was booted or left.. I felt that photo session was a waste of time, so I didn't show up..



 After the extended break it gave me too much time to think.. I wasn't sure about things anymore..  I wasn't sure if I was in the band or if the band was still together.. There was no communication that I remember.. I felt that way in early 89.. And as we started practicing for my little brothers graduation  I thought this really has stopped feeling like a band anymore.. I wanted that final gig and Ernie tried everything he could to keep it from happening.. I would provide the transportation to get the gear to the building where the party would be.. The guys were just sure the electrical setup wouldn't be good enough to support our equipment.. But it was, no problem at all..   The gig itself was a crapfest and I swore that would be it for me.. The new demo tape made me feel like they wanted to move on without me in the band and that coupled with the shit storm unleashed on me that night made my deciding to leave that much easier..  I had doubts that the band would ever do anything, at least with me as the drummer..  It just seemed like it was over for me.. I was bored with the routine anyway..



There was a question by me, after the end.. After the graduation gig.. After I left the band.. Or did I leave??  Was I kicked out??  I never knew, was there an official end of some sort??  Was there a statement that read "We the management of Destiny regret to inform any fans or establishments wishing to book the band that we are no longer a working band due to everyone wanting to get on with their lives"  (aka our drummer fucked us over..)..  How did it end??  My thinking was, on my end the final three months of '88 were spent wondering if the band was over then..  By the time March rolled around I started the idea of us getting together to play my little brothers graduation. A free gig that would be kind of a payback for all the free gigs I agreed to play.. The gigs we did for charity weren't my problem, in fact I loved playing those gigs, it left us open to do what we wanted.. The free gigs I felt the need for getting even for were the gigs for friends going into the service.. No big deal there either but I felt like if we did that for friends of the band, why not for a family member.  Sadly the gig would be less than stellar as far as how good we were.. You can't turn off the machine and then turn it on again without a hiccup here or there... After that gig and being as pissed off as I was, and it wasn't just from that one singular gig, it was a culmination of all the five years, little things that added up to me saying enough.. Let's just call it a day..  So what did they say happened to the band??  What did I say happened to the band??  Interestingly enough no one here cared.. I knew few people, and they didn't care.. 

In '91 I stopped playing the drums.. COMPLETELY.. What happened??  I have no idea.. I just quit.  It was such a bother to set them up and play.. So why not leave them set up??  I did leave them set up for about a year but then took them down and stacked them.. And that was the end.. Except for that day in May 2001 after tearing my left elbow up to see if I could still play the drums, a ten minute tap session on my little brothers set, I hadn't played, and then when my nephew got his drumset I played his for a minute.. That was the most I played since '91..


Even now, when certain songs come on the radio that we played I get that feeling of anxious excitement from when we played.. We played that song??  Remember the feeling, the stomach tied in knots, that feeling of hoping the drumset would hang in there for the entire set.  I both hated and loved the feeling at the same time.. It was the best time of my life..  


I did want to play again, get into a band and play music that bars set the list for.. Play great old rock and roll.. The fun stuff.. The reason I played the drums in the first place..


Badge Henry

(about the author::  Well the author of this little piece (massive bit it is) is the drummer (A.K.A. Chuck Davis)  I don't use my real name on the internet..)

Rock Legend (part six)

Ernie put together a compact disc (CD) of some songs he had written and had it available at the record store I went to regularly.. I looked at it but never bought a copy.. I had heard some of the songs but they all had the same sound.. He still was using that four track demo recorder, sounded like to me..  By the late nineties I got the Who Live at Leeds rerelease on cd and while listening to that extended jam I was visioning us jamming like the good old days.. And really missed being in the band..

There was a question by me about the new technology and the internet about just what we might have been able to accomplish had we had this.. Facebook, YouTube and other social media made me wonder what we could have done, what we might have been able to do with that.. Knowing Justin Bieber got discovered on YouTube makes me wonder BUT.. In this day of here today gone tonight tastes in music we might have had a minute to be famous.. Followed by months of trying everything to get that little taste again..

I left the band more or less on good terms although with  more questions than answers.. Truthfully I had more questions than answers but answered them in my way.. Which is to say imagining what might be.. For instance when Darren left was he booted out or did he quit??  I heard only small things, bits of information and it felt like a who do you believe situation.. I think he was having marriage problems brought on by the band.. His wife was originally quite the prude although The reason seemed to be she wanted to have everything in her marriage be on the up and up.. I think she was from Sidney although I could be wrong,, Darren was from Kansas and was away visiting his family when things started to break down in the band.. We practiced without him and had a gig or two lined up.. It was around Easter time and Darren went home not only to visit but to make plans to go home.. If his marriage was falling apart it might have been because he was a partier (drugs involved) and she wasn't.. She did however  fall off the straight and narrow and seemed to go that way.. When Darren left under the cloud of suspicion that there was I thought about leaving then and took close to a month to rethink any hasty departure.. I decided to stay, Dale was the new keyboard player, and seemed adequate to the task at hand.. He also had an amazing resemblance to Darren in the looks department.. 

Dale moved to Denver, practices were now on the weekend exclusively for the next little bit.. Then Rob was our sound man but soon started playing keyboards.  The gig in Padroni would be Dales last and Robs first, the first time we had two keyboard players on stage at the same time..

The final paying gig in October of 88 spelled the beginning of the end although I didn't see it. I did feel that the band had changed sometime that year..  They wanted a new picture for the posters but by the time they did that I had a prior commitment although I could have gotten out of it.. The new photo session coincided with the second recording session for the song  "Where Did I Go Wrong" That session, as I already wrote' was an utter disaster, waste of time and money.. You don't drink or let any substances in the studio.. I left early before everything unfolded and was glad I did.. But I could see things unraveling.. I tried to ignore it but the band was quickly coming to an end.. That New Years Eve they called to do a practice and it pissed me off.. Mostly I couldn't think of a better excuse to not go.. I didn't even talk to them about "so what are we going to do?  or "Whats everyone been up to?"   I figured as much that while the excuse of the PA head being in the repair shop that there was no desire to get together..

While there was still some fan adulation I saw the smaller crowds at the last teen dance we did and figured we were on the way out.. Taking that much time off means people aren't seeing us play, aren't hearing our songs on the radio because we aren't out playing them.. We had songs on the radio in three places, Sterling, Sidney and Scottsbluff although we had never played there..  So my question would be what happened from October until March just before we got together for that (my final gig)?  My answer is, Ernie got the four track demo recorder tape deck, and then the computerized drumset.. He then rerecorded all the songs and some of the new songs we had just worked on before the final gig there in Kimball.. He also recorded a couple of new tracks that I didn't care for.. Again the reason was simple, I didn't play on them and if I had the drum part would have flowed smoothly rather than exactly..


In 88 or some point Ernie worked on a couple of songs for his little sister and she sang and it was just kind of a lark.. Then he asked them to play it on the radio.. Then during a break at one of our shows she sang it..  Singing to a backing tape.. I went to a lower setting of the building we were playing in and didn't watch her sing.. By this time I didn't care that this happened, it was their equipment, why should I care..

After I left and for the next few years I did miss being in the band, and there were times I wished we were back together but ..  There were times that it was beyond my comprehension as to how the band ever came together or worked as much as we did.. Everyone in the band wanted it to work until the October gigs.. Then I didn't hear from them about playing steady gigs.

Then in 2001 I tore my left arm up to the point where playing the drums was questionable.. I did try to play my little brothers drums for a short ten minute playing.. My arms were stronger than ever but weren't playing the drums strong..  I had troubles playing his drums and holding onto the sticks.. I had never had troubles playing the drums before.. A few years ago he bought a drumset for his son and I sat down and played it a little.. I'm not sure what the little guy thought about that, someone else knows how to play the drums? My nieces have never seen me play the drums.. The oldest was three when I left the band..

I did wish the band could get together and try to play a little.. Maybe we could give it a shot but then.. November 2, 2013 came.. Ernie was killed by his ex son in law..   Any chance of any kind of reunion was dashed there and then and really and truly there was a lot of doubt that we would ever get together  again anyway..  Truth is I was so seriously disappointed when I heard of this happening.. I didn't know him that well, even when I was in the band.. He was a bit of an enigma to me.. I was more disappointed in myself for not trying to reconnect with him.. There were any number of opportunities to reconnect but it just never felt right.. When I got on the internet when MySpace was huge he had a page and I got some pictures from it that I had never seen before.. I didn't connect there or Facebook or YouTube..  I wish I had.. I do wish we could have gotten it together about '95 or so.. But, what happened with me is I was no longer interested in the band, or even being in a band..  I figured I basically got what I wanted from the band, I played some gigs and was fairly happy with the situation.. Truth is I lost touch with everyone that I was in that line of work..

In the early 2000's my little brother was on the local radio and he invited me to guest on a show he did on Wednesday nights and I did.. I never thought to play any music from the band.. Never thought twice.. I don't know why, it just never occurred to me to  do that..

Through writing  this little story I thought of the good times and the bad and the rough.  We were a rock band that played a little regularly.. I always wanted  to play more until '88 when we played the October gigs I was tired of the stage freight I had and couldn't shake.. When we played three weekends in a row back in  the early days I got used to that and could have gotten used to playing like that..  All together we might have played around fifty gigs total... Over a nearly five year period that isn't very good..

I had a dream during the writing of this that I was dreaming that we were together and it was those days getting ready for a gig.. It was a happy dream, and then saddened by the thinking that Ernie was leaving the band, we are going to break up.. This is the end of the band.. Fading into oblivion..

This was the original  demo tape cover (I think)  (l-r) Ernie, Darren, Joe and me..

One of the last picture sessions that I went to.. At a farmers pasture west of town we drove out and spent a couple hours one Saturday afternoon in December.. Or May more than likely..

I think this was my last gig with the band there in Kimball..

I

der Schlagzeuger,
el baterista 

le batteur

All of the above

 Ernie Ward, Guitar, keyboard  vocals 

Joe Ward  Bass guitar vocals 

Rob Sandoval  keyboards.. 

One of the sets from a middle of the Destiny era gigs.. Not sure where or when..  In the air tonight by Phil Collins is the most boring song to play live as is Dancing in the dark by Bruuuce..  Sorry Bruce (Springsteen) that song might be a really cool song but it just about blows to play live.. 

             The demo cover.. The one with Rob on it.. Sadly every song on this demo were written with me and Darren in the band and yet he wasn't given a credit and neither was I..  The only reason I wanted a credit was so it was a band effort writing these songs.. I was there for every one of these, they were written during the tuning of the guitars at the start of practices..

Me being blurry.. So easy it is to be blurry.. The drums were taped for that stripper look that they were going for ....I guess..

This was with Deneane for whatever the reason.. That hat was my older brothers.. I woulda loved to wear that at gigs too but was really happy to get to wear it in the promotional posters..

Darren, Ernie, the drummer, Joelle and Joe.. The roto toms there, shows I think I got them first before the rest of the kit, that second kit mentioned in the story..  The original blue crystal.. I would take that stripped tape  off shortly before going to the electric drum set that Ernie bought.. Doesn't that sound better??

The proof, one of the first pics of the core of the band..

The one with us.. Destiny with me, Ernie, Joe and Rob  left to right..

Ricky J between Ernie and Joe, one of the only pictures I could find with Rick in it..

The original RIZZEN logo...  Someone had a little talent in the graphics department.. Joseph..

Joe drew some of the graphics of the band.. Ok he drew all of these.. one of the times we played at RD's..

From the proof to the poster.. ..Ernie's name spelled wrong.. This is what happens when you over think it..

Where Did I Go Wrong... . Hearing the song brought back those memories from that time.. A lot of emotions I had ignored all these years, I think I don't listen to the disc I made because of that reason.. I do miss those days, the fun and excitement of playing live.. This version was from the demo tape that was recorded at the practice site up under the old water tower..

Do I remember the writing of this song??  A little.. It came about during a practice session, we never had a writing session to just write songs, that likely would have produced shear crap.. Most of the time we got into a song writing mode after the tuning of the guitars and everything.. Ernie would jam  a little and I would join in and then Joe.. Darren was in the band at the time this was written as well as the recording session.. It more than likely took an hour, maybe less to write the music, Ernie wrote lyrics while writing the song then refined afterwards.  More often than not we wrote with a gig looming within a week or so.. I kinda hated that but it also gave us a new song but also meant we spent more time rehearsing that one song and neglecting the rest of the list..

 The video here I put together last year (2012) with some of the pictures that I had, some were mine (the old posters and a few other things) and some were from trolling MySpace sites when they were the Facebook of then (seven or some odd lot years  time back)..   I uploaded it to my YouTube site and left it called Track 7 because that was where it appeared on the disc of the  demo tape.. It is of course titled Breakdown and was one of three songs done in the studio.