History Lesson-Paraphernalia 1982

Time...where does it go?




I've been scanning pictures of the bands that I used to be in, but very little can be found of the Routers, the 1991 project with Greg Nutter and of course The Townedgers which basically is myself most of the time. This photo you see of me is from January of 1982 when we were recording an EP with some of our favorite bar tunes.  The cymbals are incredibly high, especially the 20 inch Pang in the background.  One of our guitar players' Girlfriend snapped this shot and it perhaps this picture best describes the intensive look on my face.



I didn't play drums as per-say as you're supposed to, I basically came home after working at the gas station and took my frustrations out on my Zickos when we recorded.  There were gasps in the above ceiling when errant drumsticks would carve a hole into those asbestos type above me and the guys in the band would have be on the lookout for broken drumtips or cymbals falling on the floor.  I'm surprised I didn't behead anybody at that time.  The spirit of Keith Moon was alive and smashing cymbals left and right on this EP that we tore through Rock Me Baby, Take It On The Run, Loving Touchin And Squeezing, Highway To Hell and two deconstruction takes of Rocky Mountain Way and I still don't think we ever got it right. 

I know prior to 1981, that Russ and I screwed around, just getting our instruments and figuring out ways to conquer the world and be the best rock band ever (everybody dreams that  before MTV and autotuner and Corporate radio killed the rock dream), and I knew that Russ was looking for something to do once his time with Uncle Sam came to an end but I figured I had to wow him by playing Anytime by Journey including the boasting drum breaks at the end but I still never fit in with the music scene in Cedar Rapids.  I barely knew how to keep a beat after fucking around most of my youth and high school and just tore apart two toy drumsets before my parents said Hell No to a real drum set.  So most of 1980 I self taught myself although with a few choice rock albums of note and took it from there.  The major influence was of course the rock drummers (John Bonham, Keith Moon but also Jerry Shirley figured a great deal upon this and Dave Mattacks of Fairport Convention fame)  but in high school hearing a local dude Lonnie Washburn pound away on the drums, he basically kicked me in the ass to get going into the music career that doesn't pay bills but remains a closet cult artist at best.   Even later in life I may have ran circles around him, I still believe that Lonnie had he kept at it would have been just as famous of drummer as Don Timmons was.  But I guess what Lon started, I finished.



Russ's cousin is Mike Swearingen, a fun guy that would love to tell jokes as much as sing the blues or rock out.  I fear that we may have blown his voice out in some of the covers that we did or trying to shout over loud guitars and crashing 20 inch cymbals left and right. But with a Marlboro Menthol bellow, Mike was simply the best vocalist that I ever worked with.  From time to time after the end of Paraphernalia we continue to work in other bands and country and blues jams across Cedar Rapids.  But I never considered us to be a bar band but rather a work in progress to do our own songs but since we were born into the great wasteland, it was learn to do the hits and bar favorites. 

In January of 1982, we did this EP of sorts and I kinda wished we could have done a bit more. But it would be a start but it also be a start of a reputation that would be bestowed upon me the title of BIG CRASH, for all those damn seven cymbals left and right.   And it really hasn't changed all that much since then although The Townedgers are not as reckless as Paraphernalia once was.  I'd end up with a heart attack if I approached the drums like I did 34 years ago.  But I'd never trade it in for one minute.  It was a start and I kicked the damn door off the hinges in a music odyssey that continues to this day.

Thank you Mike, DeWayne, Doug and Russ for sharing it with me.  I love you all.