AT
ABOUT SHOW NO. 300, the new material and pace of the show required changes.
We added a new drummer (current Glass Packs' drummer Mike Moore), who could
sing the high Beach Boys first tenor harmony parts in full voice (not falsetto),
and a piano player. Our new piano player was not just any piano player but
a Kissin' Cousin to the Killer himself, Larry Strawther -- the world's greatest
and only upside down, on his back, even sound asleep piano player.
Larry had been watching the Glass Packs from afar as a reporter for the San
Mateo Times, and, truth be told, was a fan. A fan of the music first and foremost.
If there was anyone other than The Big Fella and Butch, who knew exactly Who
put the Bomp, when, on what label and exactly where they were standing when
the song first charted (You tell us -- which is the better song? "Image
of a Girl" by the Safaris or "Once in A While" by the Chimes?
The argument rages today, no less passionately, and Butch always wins - its
the Safaris in a walk,) it was Larry Strawther. Larry was cut out for this
work in every way from his lean frame to his full mane of Jerry Lee Lewis
hair and he still sets the night on fire with "Whole Lotta Shakin"
today like he did in 1974.
Small
problem. There's always a small problem. Larry was spoken for. By the U.S.
Army. What Larry didn't tell us exactly was that he was actually still in
the Army, not just a veteran, when he joined the Glass Packs. That's right
Larry "commuted" . . . to Glass Pack gigs for at least six months
from Fort Ord. Yeah, that Fort Ord -- near Monterrey. Larry drove all night
for months to keep the beat alive. Needless to say, the Army newspaper suffered
for our benefit, and our country, apparently, was so much the worse for it.
Conflict surely awaited.
Now,
remember we already had a keyboard player - the Jazzman, Karl Cheesecake Young,
-- someone whose silhouette you would never confuse in a line up for Larry's,
and whose piano sylings . . . well, differed from Larry's pizza parlor shuffle
in the most fundamental of ways. Nonetheless, one night when Larry was on
leave from Glass Pack duty, the Military Police from Fort Ord showed up fully
armed at the Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium where we had just finished performing
on the same bill with Eric Burden, and with an over-amped former Monkee, Mickey
Dolenz, paying a strange visit in our dressing room. The M.P.'s were looking
for Larry who had apparently missed a deadline or two with the Fort Ord newspaper,
and were under orders to bring back alive the piano player from Butch Whacks
and the Glass Packs to get out that morning edition.
It was, thus, that the two befuddled M.P.'s grabbed Karl who had played piano
instead of sax during that set and were about to drag him back to the Brig
by the Sea. A violation of human rights? Surely. Was Karl pissed? You bet.
But not because the government had tread on him. No, only because the rest
of the Glass Pack crew roared laughing at the M. P.'s for confusing Karl's
playing for Larry's; only someone with a tin ear and a rifle could confuse
Karl's Erroll Garner for Larry's Huey Piano Smith or mistake a five foot eight
brunette jazzman for the fugitive six foot two blonde boogie woogie master.
"Can you imagine that? Those morons thought that was Larry playing",
shrugged Cheesecake. The whole ball of yarn got unwound to everyone's satisfaction,
except Karl's, as the U.S. Army freed Larry with honors for Glass Pack duty
forever.
Larry
added a visual dimension matched by new drummer Mike Moore's expanded vocal
range. Mike was a veteran of many L.A. psychedelic bands, and also formed
a band with Peter Tork (The Monkees) while attending the college of Marin.
A cool breeze right off the Sunset Strip; a studio drummer with recording
experience. He had shoulder length hair and a girl friend with a daughter
named Oracle. So why was he auditioning for the Sings-like-a-bird-fills-the-breaks-like-Hal
Blaine cornerstone we were searching for? What did he have in common with
Butch Whacks & the Glass Packs? Nothing. We were a gig.
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