Battle of the bands

Once upon a time, all you needed for teenage happiness was a garage and a name for the band.
Oh, and it was helpful if you could scrape up a few bucks to buy an electric guitar and an amplifier from Montgomery Ward or Sears.
Then again, if you really wanted to succeed, it helped to have talent.
Alas, I had no talent and the money from my paper route was already committed. There was no way I could afford an electric guitar that I couldn’t play, let alone an amplifier.
But somehow I had a talent for being on the fringe.
I was the guy whose parents had a station wagon. I was the guy who could handle a checkbook. And I was the guy who could help come up with a name for the band, even if our garage was too full to provide proper practice space.
My brief career as a rock impresario began in the Klopfenstein living room.
That’s where my buddy Jim and friends Phil Fleming, Phil Simons, Jim Steffy, and Leroy Rigby had gathered to make some noise thanks to Jim’s incredibly indulgent parents.
To say their repertoire was limited would be generous. But — in the era of the Beatles — their ambition was enormous.
In other words, they knew that if you were in a band it was easier to meet girls. The cooler the band, the prettier the girls. The equation was pretty simple.
So on that night in the Klopfenstein living room on Race Street, after I’d heard the band make some noise, I asked what my role might be. I could sing, but I didn’t have the confidence to sing in front of an audience. I’d taken piano lessons, but there was no way that “The March of the Siamese Children” from “The King and I” was going to be much use when it came to “Louie, Louie.”
And, besides, Jim Steffy was already on keyboards, though he seemed to know about four chords.
So what was I to do? Be the manager, they said.
The rest of the evening was spent with a great debate over the band’s name. Finally a decision was reached. The next day, I opened a checking account with $10 of my paper route money in the name of “The Outcast.” Later that day, I learned that the band had changed its name to “The Idleminds.” As in “an idle mind is the devil’s workshop.”
Nice name, but it didn’t match the checkbook.
Meanwhile, less than 100 yards away on the other side of Race Street, another band coalesced. They called themselves “The Wildes.” Why the extra E? Who knows? Maybe they thought it would help them meet more girls. That, after all, besides fame and fortune, was what this was all about.
“The Wildes” boasted some heavy personnel, and since nearly all of both bands were good friends of mine I was soon conflicted.
“The Wildes” in their earliest days included Don Starr on bass, Neil Frank on drums, Frank Kenyon on saxophone and vocals, Steve Arnold on vocals, Barry Fitzpatrick on lead guitar, and Mike Fitzpatrick on the organ.
From the get-go, “The Wildes” were better than the band I was “managing” on the other side of Race Street.
Mike Fitzpatrick was the reason why. Unlike most of the participants in this adolescent exercise, Mike had some talent.
He was older, having gone off to Indiana University and bounced back, and my memory of him is that he was more than a little peeved about being in a band with his little brother’s buddies.
But his musicianship and talent gave “The Wildes” an edge. In dances at “the rec” in Portland or the 4-H fairgrounds in Hartford City or the Conservation Club or “The Birdcage” in Redkey, he helped give the band musical credibility it would otherwise have lacked.
Mike died last week in North Carolina.
His tenure with “The Wildes” was pretty short. “The Idleminds” disbanded and the best of the band’s talent moved to “The Wildes.”
But in those years when all you seemed to need was a garage and a name for the band, Mike made some sweet music.[[In-content Ad]]