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A Midwesterner Under the Influence of Rock and Roll (Influence #5 - The Classic Rock Indoctrination)

by tonydoug wright

If you’ve read my previous articles, then you’re aware that while the story remains the same, the names have been changed to protect the innocent.

There are a few mornings when Alex Clod, a friend at work, walks in to the office and says to me, “You know what’s a jam? ‘Panama’ by Van Halen” or “Do you know what they can stop playing on the radio? Anything ever recorded by Boston”. Clod’s statements usually lead to in-depth discussions of the greatness of ‘Panama’ and why Van Halen decided to fire Diamond Dave and then fire Sammy Hagar. Was it that necessary to have a Gary Cherone version of Van Halen? Also, we spend our mornings discussing how Boston’s “hits” vary from good rockers to mind-numbing efforts. Clod and I are fans of classic rock radio and a portion of my rock and roll education was provided via those magnificent airwaves while the remainder was provided by tapes and friends at work and school.

It was 1986; I was a thirteen year old kid in Springfield, Ohio; and I had discovered two fantastic classic rock bands: Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin. Charlie ‘Dusty’ Rhodes, a good friend from St. Antoninus the Beheaded Catholic School, let me borrow Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon and Zeppelin’s Led Zeppelin IV. The classic rock door was opened and I walked in only to discover there were numerous artists waiting for me.

A year later, Rhodes and I parted ways as friends, so I decided to see what I could borrow classic rock wise from my classmates. Johnny Pleather, another friend at St. Antoninus the Beheaded Catholic School, informed me that there were two classic rock stations on the radio, and being a teenager with a meager allowance, I tuned in for a free dose of classic rock. Pleather was wrong about there being two classic rock stations because there was only one. The other station moved to a soft rock format. Pleather claimed it was due to the fact that the old station had commercials for rolling papers, but Pleather’s source of information was his brother, Roscoe. Let’s just say that the Pleather brothers were by no means the fountains of knowledge in Springfield.

By the time I entered The Blessed Holy Bingo Catholic High School in 1988, I fancied myself a rock expert but soon discovered that my extensive knowledge was nothing more than a pitiful collection of bits of information about Dark Side of the Moon and Led Zeppelin IV. My dad drove Pleather, Billy Fruit, and myself to high school during our freshman year. On the way to school, we’d listen to the classic rock station, I would hear a song that I had not heard before, and I immediately inquired on the artist. My dad was more of a Lionel Ritchie fan; Fruit was into astronomy and trains; so my classic rock inquiries were answered by Pleather. I’d ask him, “Who was that, Pleather?” and he’d reply “That was Bad Company” or “That’s Steppenwolf, man”. My follow-up question would be “Do you own anything from Bad Company or Steppenwolf?” A day or two later, Pleather handed me a tape with Bad Company’s Bad Company on Side A and Steppenwolf’s Greatest Hits on Side B. I was grateful that he took the time to tape those albums for me and I knew that Pleather’s musical collection was better than Rhodes’ because Roscoe, Pleather’s brother, gave him all of his rock tapes when we were freshman.

One morning, we discovered that the local classic rock station was passing out gifts at a location on the way to The Blessed Holy Bingo Catholic High School. My dad pulled over and a guy from the radio station handed us bumper stickers and a cassette. Being the greedy little bastard that I was, I took the cassette while Pleather and Fruit were given the bumper stickers. The tape featured songs from artists that were new to me: Lynyrd Skynyrd, Cream, Grand Funk Railroad, Them, Canned Heat, The James Gang, Bachman Turner Overdrive, and Sugarloaf.

The first song on the tape was ‘Freebird’ by Skynyrd and I was instantly sold on the southern rock classic. ‘White Room’ by Cream and ‘Walk Away’ by the James Gang were always played at the maximum volume. “On The Road Again” by Canned Heat was weird but very cool. My life was made better by listening to ‘Taking Care of Business’ by Bachman Turner Overdrive, while ‘Green Eyed Lady’ by Sugarloaf was one of those songs that automatically had me looking for the fast forward button. Fortunately, my high school had an encyclopedia of hard rock and heavy metal available at the library because I wanted to learn some more about the aforementioned artists.

Although I felt a tad bit wiser, I soon discovered that there were additional classic rock artists that were popular at The Blessed Holy Bingo Catholic High School. It was during study hall my freshman year that a guy asked if I liked The Who. I had no idea who they were and he said, “Jesus, Wright, you don’t know The Who”? Then I discovered that some of my classmates were fans of another band that I knew nothing about, The Doors. Also, my high school had a strange fascination with the Grateful Dead. My research list was growing daily, I was overwhelmed, but I was up to the task.

Pleather had a greatest hits tape from The Doors, and he made me a copy, so that took care of that request. During my freshman year, I was earning some spending cash working odd jobs. For a couple of weeks I was a maintenance man, paid under the table, at a fabric store. I also worked the scoreboard for middle school basketball games. One of my favorite games was a mighty 2-0 battle. My boost in income allowed me to purchase some classic rock tapes. Although I wanted to hear more of The Who and Lynyrd Skynyrd I did not have the cash to purchase anything and everything. Greatest hits albums and compilations from K-Tel Records were my savior and I slowly amassed a classic rock tape collection.

A “eureka!” moment of sorts occurred to me at this time. I realized I could tape music off the radio so I invested in blank tapes. I would spend my evenings in my room with the classic rock station on in hopes of getting a few good songs on tape. My little project paid off because I discovered more artists like Aerosmith, Black Sabbath, Jimi Hendrix, Foreigner, and Boston. I had the time to tape music off the radio due to another “eureka!” moment. I came to terms with the fact that I was not a cool kid at school. For some reason, Pleather and I were not part of the cool crowd at The Blessed Holy Bingo Catholic High School. Pleather never cared, or he did a good job hiding his emotions, but I was pretty frustrated with my status. Other students enjoyed copying my homework but that was not a good conversation piece. You can’t win over a cool kid by saying, “Wow, that second problem for algebra class was really tough. I thought the answer was negative two at first, but it was actually three. Isn’t that wild?” People knew I liked rock music so I used that to strike up conversations with the cool kids in hopes of resurrecting my social status. By the end of my freshman year, I was seen as a somewhat cool kid who knew a few things here and there about music.

My sophomore year involved a few more rock and roll discoveries. Study hall and the cafeteria were the places for me to strike up conversations about classic rock and the majority of the people I talked to were rock fans so I was given some insight to artists like Rush, Yes, and Jethro Tull. Yes seemed to be my favorite of the three and I made a vow never to listen to Jethro Tull again. Sadly, a college roommate later tested my boundaries by playing Thick As a Brick one too many times. I continued taping songs off the radio and I always made an effort to discuss rock music with my classmates.

It was during my sophomore year when my parents decided it was time for me to stop the maintenance man gig at the fabric store and get a regular part-time job. I was hired in 1989 by Stickman’s Restaurant as a bus boy and was immediately thrown into the customer service industry abyss. My fellow bussers were Booger, Useless, Little Greektown, and Future Felon of America. They were by no means rock fans. Booger, a poster boy for Dateline NBC’s “To Catch a Predator”, earned his varsity letter in choir and was under suspicion for having an IQ level in the low thirties; Useless was on parole and he was also on the verge of going postal; Little Greektown, like Useless, was by no means mentally stable and she made up her own songs, which were more than likely created by the multitude of voices in her head; and the Future Felon of America was something of a mystery because he was fired my first month at Stickman’s for calling an elderly customer a “bitch” because he carried a man purse.

The wait staff and cooks at Stickman’s were rockers, so they turned me on to several hard rock and heavy metal bands. Metallica and Aerosmith were the bands of choice for two of my waiter friends, Buddy Wolf and Arthur Lispman. Mason Spraggs, our beloved burnout cook, was a big classic rock fan. He had a love for heavy metal but he always wanted to talk to me about classic rock. Actually, he always wanted to discuss one classic rock band: Free. Spraggs was convinced that at one time he played in a band that covered a Free song called ‘Long Way Down’. I had never heard the song but Spraggs said it was an awesome song. The only problem with Spraggs’ claim was that when he sang ‘Long Way Down’, it was ‘All Right Now’. I tried many times explaining to Spraggs that the song was ‘All Right Now’ but he stuck to his ‘Long Way Down’ guns. The Stickman’s crew was valuable and there will be more stories about them later, especially Spraggs.

My junior and senior years were times of classic rock accomplishments. My music collection had grown into a respectable anthology and I had invested in the 1983 publication, The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock and Roll. This was also the time I spent as a disc jockey at a college radio station, but that too will be saved for another article.

Ryan Dellwood, a good friend in high school, was perhaps the lone indie hipster at The Blessed Holy Bingo Catholic High School. Dellwood was disgusted and somewhat amused by the fact that I was an unapologetic fan of 70s classic rock. Dellwood was into The Cure, The Smiths, and Cocteau Twins. We were in the same homeroom my junior and senior year so Dellwood would grab one of my notebooks and scribble various lyrics from The Cure or The Smiths. In retaliation, I would scribble various classic rock lyrics on his notebook. It must have been one too many references to the Eagles scribbled on Dellwood’s notebooks to throw him over the cliff. One morning, he demanded that I take home his copy of Rank by The Smiths. I told him that I didn’t want to listen to some whinny English shit, but I reluctantly took the tape home. I thought it sucked at the time and Dellwood was somewhat livid that I did not instantly convert to the church of Morrissey. He believed a steady diet of the Cocteau Twins would end my blasphemy but I refused. That was not the end of Dellwood’s interventions, my friends.

Looking back, I’m proud of the fact that I took the time to learn a great deal about classic rock. My education was primarily provided via classic rock radio, copies of albums, and my fellow classmates and co-workers. Sadly, I have not talked to Pleather or Spraggs since high school and Stickman’s is no longer in business. I still keep in touch with Dellwood but all of those wonderful notebooks were thrown away. To this day I still tune in to hear some favorites from high school. When they play ‘Walk Away’ by the James Gang I crank up the radio, but when the classic rock station plays something by Jethro Tull then a little piece of me dies from overexposure to what I refer to as “suckiness”.


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