1. Dickie Johnson
It was the beginning of my last semester of High School 1995. I had been playing drums since Grandma and Grandpa Frutiger bought me a little three-piece, baby blue Royce drum set for my 11th birthday. Before that, I had been tapping on a little rubber practice pad and was taking lessons from a guy named Bob White at Rick’s Drum Shop on Sylvania Ave in Toledo, Ohio. Before that, I tried to play my best friend Jake’s black, five-piece drum set every chance I got.
Jake and I figured that drummers were the coolest people in the world so we both started taking lessons around the same time. Instead of learning Metallica songs right away like we wanted to, Bob had us learning from a basic fundamentals book. During practice sessions, I sat over the snare drum and Bob sat over the floor tom in a room that wasn’t much bigger than the small drum set we were sitting at.
The lessons got a bit better when we learned how to play “Stairway to Heaven” by Led Zeppelin but following that was another boring fundamentals book. Jake and I figured we’d be better off playing what we wanted to play so we stopped taking lessons and did just that. We played a lot. Jake kept getting additions to his drum set and mine kept falling apart. Eventually we could play a few songs with Jake’s older brother who played guitar. According to us, we were getting pretty cool.
By my 13th birthday, Jake and I had stopped hanging out as much so I asked my mom and dad for my very own black, five-piece drum set. My cousin Scott was there the day I set up my brand new Mapex kit in the basement on Baybrook Ln. He also took drum lessons from Bob White…only he stuck with it and was also a member of his school band. I realized that he was getting better than me when Grandpa Frutiger invited both of us to practice with the Shrine band.
Scott and I stood side by side with an old fashioned snare drum placed in front of each of us. He was excited…I was nervous. I looked at the sheet music and knew I wouldn’t be able to follow it. I was right. I lost my place after the first few bars while Scott followed along perfectly. He also showed me up when he played my new drums but I still had fun nonetheless.
I played often, or as often as I could being that I wasn’t allowed to play when my dad was home. To become more familiar with writing and reading music I attempted to notate the drums to “Bringing on the Heartbreak” by Def Leppard. When I painfully got through the first verse and chorus I realized that I didn’t need sheet music to play Rock and Roll. That mindset made me content to jam out mindless rock beats…until I heard Dream Theater. A whole new way of playing rock beats was revealed to me…only it required using your mind.
Through High School my drum playing became less and less as my basketball playing with my neighbor, Chris, became more and more. Every once in a while I would still go down and play my drums and sometimes I would even play Jeff’s drums though I surely would’ve been murdered if I had been caught. Jeff was the drummer in my dad’s band and had a seven piece Ludwig kid with four Zildjian cymbals that sat temptingly under a dust cover on the “band side of the basement” which was off limits. I always made sure I covered them back up exactly the way they were.
My dad’s band, Great Lakes Rhythm, mainly played weddings but every summer they would play at “Rally by the River” in downtown Toledo. Back when I was still taking drum lessons, GLR had just finished playing for the day and they were tearing down their equipment on the stage by the river. During their bitching and moaning and laughing about how many times they have had to tear town and how much it wears on them, I asked if I could play Jeff’s drums. They let me! I started into a beat from “Stairway” because that was all I knew how to play at the time. Some of the crowd that was departing came back and started to tap their feet to my rhythm.
As the cymbals were pulled from under my sticks I was paraded with compliments from the band. Despite their kind remarks, I was upset because I had a crowd to entertain and my brief stint of stardom was being torn down and loaded into cases. I remember thinking that I would like to do that again someday.
Well, it was the beginning of my last semester of High School and drumming seemed a thing of the past…until I found out that my friend Jamie Durham played bass. When I told him that I play drums, we immediately arranged a jam session. Jaime invited Shaun Evans and Eric Johnson to play guitar. Shaun didn’t have an amp let alone a guitar case…Eric had the goods.
What to play? Pearl Jam, more Pearl Jam, a little Nirvana and Green Day followed by more Pearl Jam. They brought their friend Steve Gonder along to sing but he didn’t have a microphone so I hesitantly plugged one of my dad’s mics directly into my little brother Kevin’s mini Crate amp…I couldn’t find any mic cables. Steve had to get on his hands and knees to sing “This Is Not For You” by Pearl Jam. Listening back to the recording we made on my jam box, he didn’t do a bad job yelling but when it came to singing, the song title says it best.
It was time to come up with a band name. Durham was in the habit of saying the word “Dickie” before most anything he said and one day in the basement he was going through all of our names. Dickie Calmes, no…Dickie Gonder, no…Dickie Evans, nah… Dickie Durham, hmmm…when he said “Dickie Johnson” I heard a bell ring. Dickie Johnson it was. All were happy…until a problem arose.
Durham and I felt that Shaun and Steve were holding us back. That wasn’t the problem. The problem was that Shaun, Steve and Eric were tight friends and they had big plans of sticking together. Unconcerned with the other’s feelings on the matter, we decided that Shaun and Steve were out of the band. They didn’t have their own equipment anyway and I didn’t want to use my dad’s stuff anymore.
To Shaun and Steve’s disappointment, Eric kept playing with us and after about a month of after school jamming we felt it was time to put on a show. Why we felt that I have no idea. My mom and dad were out for the evening and the basement on Baybrook Ln. was filled with people wanting to party. Being that Dickie Johnson wasn’t much as far as entertainment was concerned, everyone watched Brad Oliger and Chris Barron professionally wrestle around the basement. I knew we weren’t any good but I couldn’t deny that performing as a group felt really cool…so I wanted to get good.
Matt Newbold was voted class of ’95 most likely to be an entertainer and was an amazing harmonica player. He had the lead rolls in the last few school plays and was learning how to play the keyboard. I knew who he was but I hadn’t met him until Durham invited him over to practice with the band.
We were in the middle of an Offspring riff when Newbold leaned in one of the basement windows and started head banging with his fist in the air. I let him in and we continued the Offspring riff. Newbold made up some perverted lyrics and sang them into one of my dad’s microphones for everyone in the house to hear. Kevin and our cousin Brian were upstairs in hysterics. For the first time we were actually entertaining people.
Matt decided to join the band so we gave him a tape of our six or seven original song ideas to put words and melodies to. We were anxious to hear what he would come up with. We were even more anxious to play in the comedy/music show that Matt was going to put on in the Whitmer auditorium at the end of the school year.
Rydman and Raffle were both drummers and best friends and they, being in the only two bands at Whitmer till now, were interested to see what we were all about so they invited Jamie and I over to jam. We were revealed…we were no good…their worries were over.
I figured it would be a good time to put the band name on my bass drum when we were asked to play at a friend’s party. Durham and I went to Food Town and bought mailbox reflector letters that spelled out “DICKIE JOHNSON” then went to the party to find out how not fun it is to set up and tear down our gear. It ended up being more of just a hangout than a party and of course we weren’t any good.
After spring break it was time to get serious. We were impressed with Newbold’s words and melodies but were disappointed that he decided not to put on the end of year show after all. With a little begging and pleading, we got him to change his mind. It was called “The Happy Show” and the bands were to be The Crazy Daizys, a band from Central Catholic called May Lover’s Box and, of course, DICKIE JOHNSON!
Our practices were full of motivation and we felt like things were slowly coming together. When choosing which two songs to play at The Happy Show we agreed on a noisy original song called “Dream Sound Theatre” (Matt hadn’t heard of the band Dream Theater when he wrote the song lyrics…it was just an undesirable coincidence) and “Comfortably Numb” by Pink Floyd. The original song was simple and sloppy so all of our practice time went into the Pink Floyd cover. I learned it by playing the air drums in my room late at night studying every crash of the cymbals and every beat of the bass. Durham did the same with the bass guitar. The reason we decided to play “Comfortably Numb” was because Matt’s older brother, Rob, knew how to play the guitar solos and could also sing the harmony.
It was time to advertise the show. By my error, all of the fliers said “Man Lover’s Box” instead of “May”…I could’ve swore Mosqueda, their drummer, said “Man.” Oh well, he wasn’t upset. Tickets went on sale for $2 with all proceeds supposedly going to the homeless. Who knows what the school actually did with the money…and there sure was a lot of it. We sold nearly 500 hand cut tickets with a smiley face sticker stuck on each one.
The day before The Happy Show my nerves began to build when we loaded everything onto the auditorium stage for a sound check. Brian Ray and crew were all hard at work on the sets for the comedy skits that hadn’t even been completely written yet. My drum set looked like a little beat up toy next to Raffle’s shiny Premier kit. Rydman was there to run the sound and lights and once we started to make some noise my nerves were replaced by excitement and anticipation.
There I was the day of The Happy Show and I was practicing my drums in the auditorium during school hours…that felt weird. After school Matt was busting his ass to finish the comedy skits and I was busting my ass to find my snare drum. Someone took it! I was furious but also sad. I loved that snare. It wasn’t the same junky Mapex snare that came with my set. I smashed that one to pieces and saved up for a beautiful, chrome Pearl snare drum that I bought at Peeler Drum Center just hours before Dickie’s first “show” in my basement. And I thought that was suspenseful.
I gave up looking in the auditorium and decided to go to the band room to see if I could borrow a snare drum. There I found Rydman and Raffle giggling and looking awfully guilty. I asked them if I could borrow a snare and Rydman said, “Look in the auditorium bathroom, there might be one in there.”
There it sat, on it’s side, alone in the corner of the boys bathroom in the auditorium lobby. My initial emotion of anger was overcome by relief so I held no grudges. Besides, it was just a stupid prank saying, “Welcome to the music world.” Curtains up!
The Happy Show was underway and the auditorium was full up to the balcony with people of all ages…but mainly students. I sat near the front as Newbold, Durham, Oliger and Barron performed their unrehearsed comedy. The curtains never closed on time and other than the little humor that showed through, it was more or less a mess. The Crazy Daizys and May Lovers Box performed well and without difficulty but the comedy continued to drag. Matt did a long, drawn out skit making fun of the lead singer of Rydman’s old band “Anna’s Mom” and it didn’t go over too well.
Dickie Johnson was to be the closing act so before the last skit Eric and I made our way backstage. Eric tuned up his purple (though he claimed it was blue) guitar and set it by his amp. I wasn’t as nervous as I expected to be and was ready to get on with it. The last skit finally ended and Brad Oliger and Chris Barron introduced us. Butterflies.
Matt and Jaime joined Eric and I then we took our places on stage. The curtain opened to reveal more faces than I expected. Matt introduced the band individually with each of us getting an overwhelming amount of love from the crowd. Jaime fired up the intro bass line to “Dream Sound Theatre” and people went nuts. I came in enthusiastically with my drum fill that introduced Eric’s savagely out of tune purple guitar! He attempted to retune it while playing but that only made it worse.
Did someone bump it after he tuned it? Did Rydman and Raffle have something to do with it? Was someone from “Anna’s Mom” backstage? If it was intentional then the massage was this: “I hope you have a tough time and come away heart broken,” which is to say, “Welcome to the music world.” It was probably just an accident but “Anna’s Mom” got payback either way because, being that the noise was in no particular key, Newbold had a terrible time trying to find a key to sing in. To add to the fiasco, Durham’s mic stand kept sliding down and he had to kneel to sing the harmony that he never got quite right.
After that mess, the crowd clapped out of kindness…or relief and we waited for Eric to tune up and for Matt’s brother to take his place on stage. The crowd was patient, as they had been all night, then finally, out of the darkness, came our Pink Floyd cover!
When I realized that the song was going well, I lifted my head to look out at the crowd for the first time since the curtains opened. Everyone was swaying back and forth in unison! Other than minor discrepancies, we played “Comfortably Numb” without discrepancy. After the typical noisy big ending the crowd cheered as if saying, “That last one made it worth our two dollars!”
As we tore down we were paraded with compliments from friends but Eric just laid on the stage in sorrow. He was crushed. We were all a little crushed but it didn’t get us down because we were presented with an opportunity to redeem ourselves. The singer for May Lover’s Box invited us to open up for them that weekend at some bar. We accepted to play the show with enthusiasm then remembered that we didn’t have a show…we only had two songs! With only one day to become prepared, we became prepared by learning songs by Live, Bad Company, “Weird Al” and Stone Temple Pilots.
My dad’s band was in the process of learning “Interstate Love Song” by STP so he showed us the chords. Actually, the only time they ever played it was when I sat in at a practice because Jeff didn’t want to play it. That was cool.
Anyway, feeling good about what we had accomplished, I called the bar and asked what time we should arrive for sound check. The barman had never heard of May Lover’s Box and there was obviously a huge misunderstanding. I called Mosqueda to find out what was going on and he said that the show was cancelled. We couldn’t believe it! We were going to play…even if it meant setting up in the street!
We got out the phonebook and started calling other local bars to see if there were any openings that night. After being denied several times, the door opened up for us at a place called “Whit’s End.” I called Mosqueda and invited his band to play after us. They accepted with enthusiasm.
The small stage on the second floor of the bar was crowded and when Matt’s brother came up to play “Comfortably Numb” there was hardly room for movement. Our set was short, noisy and sweaty but also in tune. May Lover’s Box played and everyone was amused by their wild guitarist. I had a good experience that night except when I had to carry my drums up the narrow stairway just to carry them back down again immediately after our short set…at least we didn’t have a heavy PA system to carry.
Graduation came and went and it was time to buy a heavy PA system. Matt took it upon himself to look through the “Tradin’ Post” and found a PA for around $800. He, Eric and I drove up to Michigan to check it out. It was a Peavy and it amplified sound so we bought it. Eric and I each paid $200 and Matt paid the rest. Durham didn’t know anything about it but was excited when we he saw it in my basement.
We decided to move our stuff to Matt’s garage so we could practice whenever we wanted to. At first his old neighbors complained but they must’ve died or something because after that we got no more complaints. Matt had put words to a few more of our songs and once again we were impressed but the summer heat was causing us to practice less and less. Our musical interests were also starting to divide us a little.
Matt learned “Piano Man” by Billy Joel and added it to our set and, though he sounded good playing it, Jamie and Eric were not too fond of it. He also wrote a few songs of his own for us to learn. We recorded our set in Matt’s garage then moved our stuff back to my cool basement. By this time Matt was demanding that Jaime pay his share for the PA and to avoid a fight, Jamie hesitantly paid him.
Toward the end of the summer, our friend Carrie asked us to play at her party. Somehow over the past few months we had managed to acquire a couple microphones. My Uncle Skip gave me one for graduation but the others I’m not sure of. We worked up our Offspring parody just before the show so we would have one less song to repeat. As we played, people watched. As we continued to play, no one danced and some went upstairs. For our song “Stank Booty” Matt and I stripped down to our underwear but couldn’t convince Jamie and Eric to do it. Although it was a good time, it was obvious that our differences were bringing things to an end.
I was going away to Siena Heights College, Matt was going away to BGSU and Jamie and Eric were making no plans to keep things going when we were gone. Newbold never really liked our noise to begin with and I was always wishing we were better. After Carrie’s party, we tore down for the last time as Dickie Johnson.
