Music Will Be My Life

Part 1 - Making Music (the early years)

Way back in '74, I wrote a song called "Music Will Be My Life" as a part of my rock opera, "Only Golden Fingers Could Play So Heavy". Little did I know that it would be so prophetic, at least in a somewhat indirect way. Nearly 35 years later, music is as important, if not more so, than it was back then. This is the first in a short series of how music has been, and will continue to be a major part of my life.

Going back to elementary school, I was interested in music. I joined the chorus. I learned to play the recorder. I tried to play my father's guitar, though my fingers were too short to finger chords. I played around a bit on the family piano. I played my grandmother's Silvertone organ (which I acquired for myself after she died.) I wrote my first song on that organ about a 6th grade classmate that I was madly in love with:

Brenda Eberle
I love you so
You're for me
Yes-sir-ee
Brenda, Brenda
The melody of that name
Brenda, Brenda
The melody of that name, oh yeah, the melody of that name.

She never knew.

In Junior High I took up the clarinet (see "Clarinet Player") and that was my primary instrument through High School. I gained the valuable skill of reading music. During my senior year I acquired my first guitar, an Aria Electric and Fender Champ Amp that I bought from my friend Jeff Schnaidt for about $50. At the end of my senior year I bought my Yamaha 12-string guitar at Highlands Music. During the summer following graduation, I bought my Aria bass and an amplifier at Jack's House of Music. I have purchased no guitar since then (1971) and still have all three. I did upgrade the amp a few months later and would still have the original if it hadn't been stolen in a break-in at my church in 1998.

In late summer of 1971, I got together with some friends I met at a College Kick-Off week preceding my Freshman year at Sacramento State College. I had met Joe Spradlin and Roger Smith the previous May at another college orientation day, and met Jeff Mulford at the CKO. Joe had brought his saxophone and Roger S. had brought his drum kit. Introducing them to Jeff, we discovered that we all had a common interest in music. Jeff and I each arranged for our instruments to be delivered to the site (his guitar, my bass) and we set up and jammed together in front of a small crowd of about 30 folks. Poor Joe had to blow his brains out on the sax to compensate for the fact that we had our amps turned "up to 11."

We must have hit it off pretty well because before you knew it, we decided to form a band together. We named ourselves "Ambush" after a popular perfume of the day (Why? I think one of the guys liked the smell of it.) Not too manly a name when you consider the source, but not knowing its origin, it was a pretty decent name. We got together at each others' houses to learn a few songs, and even worked up an original called "Run" that was more or less an extended jam. We covered America's "A Horse With No Name", The Who's "Behind Blue Eyes" (I sang lead), The Animals' "House of the Rising Sun", Grand Funk's "I'm Your Captain" and "Mean Mistreater", Cat Steven's "Peace Train", The Beatles "Something" and a few others that I can no longer recall. In our short time together we managed three gigs: a Girl Scout troop dance, a Junior High Dance and a High School Dance. We tried to add another guitarist, Bob Kobrock, a friend of Jeff's (Bob also became a good friend to Cece and I, and is the only one of the group that I see to this day), but it just didn't click. The summer came and Roger S. moved to Utah. We tried another drummer, I think his name was Jim, but it just didn't work out, and the band split. I had recorded one of the rehearsals during our heyday, then sent my one and only copy to a friend stationed overseas. Why didn't I keep a copy?

During the tenure of the band I adopted the moniker of Borf Entlinder. Upon meeting us, a friend of one of the band's members took a look at me and said he knew that I was on drugs. The thing was, I never was and never have. But I thought it was funny, so Borf stood for "Burnt Out Red Freak." The Entlinder was a tribute to Who bassist John Entwistle, my idol at the time. I wore these platform shoes that had a sort of wooden sole, and stomped my feet on the stage during a performance. It all seems so silly looking back. I think I may have done a few attempts at Pete Townshend leaps as well. The Who's Woodstock movie appearance really had an effect on me.

After the band split, I had to fill my music void so I started composing songs. Over the next three or four years, I managed to write about 50 songs, including the entire score to the aforementioned rock opera. The only problem was: no band to perform them. I recorded some of them on a cheap cassette recorder and eventually my friend Jeff Schnaidt, he of the Aria seller fame, and I got together and recorded a couple of songs: my original "Hurts So Bad" and a song we jointly wrote that night called "Leave Me Alone." Somewhere in Jeff's tape archives are the original recordings. I have a really crappy cassette version, recorded from the tape playback over the cassette mic, while the recorder was sitting on a waterbed. The tape wasn't so good either. Someday, I'll hear that original version again.

By late 1975, I suddenly stopped writing. I was in a pretty good place, with a girlfriend who in the next year would become my wife, and was spending time wrapping up my Bachelor's Degree in Math. Making music was still important, but the inspiration for creativity was being channeled elsewhere. It would come back, but not for many years.

Next up: The Collecting Years