klickitat band camp

There were gigantic old walnut trees, pear and apple trees, and fields upon fields of corn crops, strawberries, blackberries, beans, filbert/hazelnut and walnut orchards, fish ponds, and the Willamette river about a mile off out back next to the giant Wildish gravel plant. We didn't farm, but we owned the farmhouse it all once belonged to. Combines and other farm vehicles and equipment were always parking next to our house. My parents spent about 7 years restoring that house from top to bottom, and I scraped a lot of paint.

Because my mom grew up in Mississippi with lots of brothers and sisters, she freely let me have several guns and even convinced my dad to get me a Honda XR 75 motorcycle. That was my ticket to freedom, zipping around the fields, muddying it up in the Coburg hills, and riding down along the river bank. I could even ride to Cal Young Junior High School about a mile or two closer in town by riding in irrigation ditches and through trails I helped create next to the road. I would leave for four hours at a stretch a lot. Summers smelled great.

Next door was an old shed owned by Doris Johnson of Johnson's Berry Farm. She had lots of older nearly grown men for sons, and they all farmed. One summer day I heard a rock band practicing in the shed. I was sitting at the piano probably trying to fake my way through another lesson. Like a siren, I ventured outside and sat next to the shed. The guitarist was good, and so was the drummer, but the keyboard player, on a Fender Rhodes, could barely play a lick. They were juniors and seniors in high school, and the closest I got to them was either a smack on the arm or a wet willy in my ear. I was "Stacy's little brother." Nonetheless, that was the first time I heard "Don't Fear the Reaper."

Meanwhile, about a month into eighth grade, our school had a talent show. Sitting in the audience, I watched as a new seventh grader, Nick Drapela, and his little band play Fleetwood Mac's Don't Stop and Crocodile Rock by Elton John. Nick played drums and sang. They brought down the gym. Nick invited me over to his house, and I met his mom, Patti Drapela. Patti was the drummer in an all-girl rock band called Sapphire. They were a working cover band but going all-original and trying to shop to Los Angeles labels.

I suppose Patti was in her 30s at the time. Their lead singer was none other than Meredith Brooks. They were set up in Nick's garage but nobody was home - a full kit of drums with hydraulic heads, Les Paul and Telecaster guitars, Fender Twin Reverb amps, a Fender Rhodes with a synthesizer sitting on top, plus mic stands all set up and stage monitors - the whole deal! The best part was that they didn't seem to mind if we played with their gear. Either that, or they never knew. They had to, though, because I'm sure either Nick or I got jelly on their guitar necks. We were always making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I immediately joined Nick's band, and we called ourselves Atlantis.

There were two amazing things about Nick Drapela. By the way, he is now a Professor of Chemistry teaching at Oregon State University. First, in seventh grade he already had a working knowledge of bands, gigs, set lists, light shows, p.a. systems, and what to expect being in a rock/pop band. I knew none of this and had no clue. Second, although I was trained and had played piano for eight years, Nick had never taken a lesson and was almost just as good as I was on the piano. Plus, Nick would yell out, "A Major," and I was like, "The scale?" "No, the chord." Nick taught me the basic structure of Major and minor triads so we could talk the same language, and I've never looked back.

I couldn't believe piano teachers never taught me that, and the moment when the light bulb went on for me is frozen in time. Nick was the musical Ying of my Yang. Probably the only other person I've felt such a musical connection is San Francisco's Paul Hoaglin, which I chat about below. Nick was an amazing guitarist, truly talented pop and orchestral composer, and a great drummer to boot. Like Paul (and hopefully me to some extent!), he can play about anything he picks up. Nick and I recruited Bill Limbocker on bass, and Nick eventually switched over to guitar, and so did I.

I sold my skis, a gun, and some golf clubs and bought a maroon SG copy at a pawn shop. This likely upset my parents, not because of the guitar, but because I hocked about $600 worth of stuff for a crappy $50 guitar that I immediately sanded down to wood because that's what Nick did. Nick's mom found him a pre-CBS Telecaster with the lowest action in the world, and Nick promptly sanded the thing down to raw wood and had it painted like a zebra. Yes, you read that right. The action was so low that you could literally play Van Halen's Eruption with only your left hand and no picking.

We learned somewhere between 35 and 45 cover tunes, neatly arranged in three sets, and Nick and I switched off singing lead and doing our best at harmonizing. We were a four piece and played The Beatles, Jackson Brown, Boston, Fleetwood Mac, Elton John, and loads more. I switched off playing electric piano and guitar.

By the ninth grade, we had gone through several drummers, plus Nick moved away to Mt. Lake Terrace, Washington near Seattle only to return, but we played dances for many junior high schools and events in the area. Sapphire's sound man and Meredith Brooks herself would show up and set up their p.a. and light show and run our sound just like professional dance bands do. We were lucky to have par cans flashing on us and two Community Sound horns to play through. I was never in it for the notoriety, but word did get around to other schools, and we played many middle school dances with our songs neatly arranged in three sets, compliments of Nick. We practiced in my parents’ basement, plus in our garage, and we gigged as much as Patti Drapela and our parents would allow. It was truly fun.

By high school, we slowly went all original, changed our name to Lucy Crank, and asked vocal genius Richard Babich to join as our lead singer. Richard was years ahead of his time and could sing as powerful as Freddie Mercury. He was into glam, long silk scarves, plus the New York Dolls, Brian Eno, David Bowie, and the Violent Femmes in the early 80s, way before I had ever heard of any of these artists. We later sort of switched to emulating British metal, plus a bit of Rush after dad sprung for a Roland Jupiter IV synthesizer. Nick quit the band after a year of high school, and we broke up.

This was a turning point for me. My only clear plan in life at the time was to write music in order to release the non-stop stream of tunes from my head. Fame and mass approval has never had anything to do with music for me. I was just a kid full of hormones with an inability to stop the music in my head. Years later VH1's Behind the Music series proved Nick made the right choice for all of us. Our drummer, Tim Donahue, was a virtuoso and now plays with The Daddies. Bill Limbocker is a freelance Avid video editor at Nike film & video, and he is a friggin' MONSTER on bass. Wow! You shold hear him! It's sick.

Just as soon as I hook up with Nick, I'll post a picture of us playing Spring Fling in 1977. The picture is priceless. I'll also post an MP3 of one of our tunes with Richard Babich singing.