I’m going to start putting up a new series of posts… memorabilia from what seems like a bazillion shows, road trips, and other stuff. It seems very fitting that I start with a the upcoming link. In 1965-66, I played with a Longmont Colorado band called the Corrupters. Mostly weekends at the teen center and some miscellaneous gigs. Longmont had the place called the St. Vrain Memorial building where they Friday night dances. The stage was HUGE for the area, the dance floor was a basketball court. An absolute DREAM venue for a 15-16 year old kid with a guitar and a good old VOX amp. It seemed like one of those bands where we had twelve guitar players (though I think in reality it was maybe three at one time) so I switched to playing keyboards… a Doric combo organ (a cheap Farfisa competitor) and a Hohner Cembalet CF (man, do I wish I still had THAT thing…) my 62 Fender Jazzmaster kind of got put on the shelf and a played an old red something or other that eventually ended up being dragged over Trail Ridge Road in sacrifice to the guitar gods. In late 1966, a couple of us, Pete Fenner on guitar, Jim Hill on drums, and myself looked at the world around us and wanted a different direction. There was an incredible war on… that not only was being fought in Vietnam, but carried in tear-gas and night sticks to the streets of America. Playing top-40 rock and roll seemed trite, a waste of time and energy… Dave Kauffroath (now Guitarosaurus Dave) wasn’t political, but he loved to play guitar… and played it pretty darned well. He couldn’t envision the Corrupters without Pete, Jim and I, so he came along…
In reality, we were the “new” Corrupters, the rest of the band kind of came apart and we actually played a show or two in the new format under the old name. Again we looked at our surroundings, our proximity to the University of Colorado at Boulder, and became “Merry Jane” sort of a “code” I suppose… I think that lasted for two shows and one arrest for indecent language… we decided screw the code and change the name to “Mary Jane Bann’d” (as in banned or illegal). In my wisdom, I hung on to that name all the way until today, but that is a different story…
In Boulder, we had the good fortune to run across a kid about the same age, with an incredible photographic eye. I remember meeting him in the Red Barn restaurant on Canyon Bouldevard (about where Liquor Mart is today). I sat down at his table and lit up a Kent. “My dad smoked Kents,” he said. “And he’s dead.”
The kid was Stephen (Steve) Miles… who in the past forty years has photographed Janis Joplin, Mick Jagger, Crosby Stills and Nash, Allen Ginsberg, Duane Allman, Ginger Baker, Neil Young, and on… and on… and this kid was OUR OFFICIAL PHOTOGRAPHER!!! How cool is that?
So to start this memorabilia series I just have to put up this link to some of Steve’s work.
Quack!
