Electric Shayland (1980-1982)
I don't remember much about my junior and senior years at Sheldon High School in Eugene, Oregon. My parents had somehow managed to enroll me in a program beginning in 10th grade where on average, all but 1 or 2 of my classes were music, where I could sing or play the piano or whatever instrument was needed. I played an 88 Rhodes electric piano for the stage band, and we managed to travel to the other high schools and rally our teams. We had four drummers and two electric guitar players who all alternated, which meant a different four guys had to sit still and do nothing behind the rhythm section for every tune and try to be "good." They, including me I admit, chewed tobacco in secret...
My other classes were playing piano, an electric Baldwin harpsichord and cello for the chamber orchestra, piano again for choir as needed (and singing a wheezy baritone), playing piano for the jazz choir, trumpet for orchestra, and trumpet, french horn, and percussion for the marching band. It was a gruelling schedule. God Bless Jim Borgeous. He gave me a B+ in music theory with 34 absences. He also taught me the blue notes in Oh Tannenbaum.
Outside of high school, even though nothing really ever was "outside of high school" back then, I continued to play guitar, by this time, an Ibanez artist. Given the scarcity of keyboard players in Eugene in 1980, and with The Cars soon making it "okay" once again to use portamento, I started playing with several groups at age 15, although not too seriously. This was likely the time Nick had moved away for a year or so. The band names escape me, but all had older hippie guitarists in their 20s and 30s.
I played a suitcase 73 Rhodes through an MXR phase (shifter) 100. For a time that year I was in a four piece group with two keyboardists. The other keyboardist, to my memory over age 30, played a Hammond B-3 with a minimoog on top. He hauled this into my parent's basement along with a Leslie speaker, and we practiced, including a full blown dueling organ-fest to The Doors, Light My Fire, from 6:30 pm to whenever, with my parents sitting three feet above the basement in their bedroom (which was literally right above where we were playing) watching television, flossing their teeth, and getting bounced around.
Around this time, I got a bee in my bonnet about making my very own engineering "snake" for the microphone cables (the three mics were the cheapest Radio Shack psuedo 58s, all high impedence). I bought about $50 worth of mono, hi impedence cables and duct taped all the connections together like an idiot. Back then, just being part of the music fantasy meant spending lots of extra hours in the basement studio putting duct tape on everything, the floor, all cables, and wrapping microphone cables way too many times around stands - like 100 times too many around one mic stand so it appears bound and gagged. But we were our own roadies, and going on the road meant just playing at a rival school. By 16, I discovered Rush's The Spirit of Radio, Kansas, Led Zeppelin, Queen, and my older sister's Eric Clapton album.
I'm sure to the high school community I was completely out-of-control. Full of hormones with blue jeans and tennis shoes, it was certainly not a time of reflection and solitude. My overwhelming feelings during these years were two: music felt like a faucet in my head, all the parts were there, and the music daydreams were intense, if only I had the equipment to capture those ideas; and going to classes felt like a waste of time because I was completely uninterested in anything but girls.
I was also broke, too impatient for working or studying, and fixated on the notion I could restore this 1968 Firebird I bought for $800. It had seats and an engine from a newer 1980 model, but only two of the seat bolts aligned with the floorboard holes - the front right and back left holes per bucket seat, so the driver's seat sat pointed slightly to the right, and the passenger's seat sat slightly to the left, and neither would bolt completely down. The seats titled and rocked a bit as well because even the two bolts didn't fit that great. It was half gray primer and half old blue, with rust coming out of the primer on the top and hood. Within no time, grass and weeds began poking up throught the remaining empty seat bolt holes. I kept having to pull the weeds because they were growing on the frame under the car and coming up through the back seat floorboards! The holes and rainy Oregon weather made the entire inside of the car permanently damp except during August, but it had a loud stereo and illegal T.A. radials that stuck out 3" beyond the mudflaps. Peeling out once I lost control and launched it over a curb, bending the right front wheel under the car. I was a dope. By this time, I was at the height of trying my parents' patience. The gas gauge rarely worked and acted freaky, staying on "Full" until the last gallon was almost gone, and then the meter suddenly dropped to below empty, usually on a back road 50 miles from Eugene. This is the first thing I ever tried to tame that kept me on my toes. Of course, I failed miserably.
Truthfully, I would definitely have flunked out of high school but for the grace of my American History instructor, Alice Jagger. I had her in sociology in eighth grade, and so it was nice to see that she had moved to Sheldon High School when I was there. As a senior, I likely skipped more of her classes than I went to, so when she passed out the final exam right before graduation, she skipped me and told me to leave the room. We went into her office, and I can remember it like it was yesterday.
She asked how I could do such a thing to her. I asked, "what?" And she explained that I had intentionally fell behind in class, missed something like most of the assignments, and had taken advantage of her "knowing that" she wouldn't fail me. Actually, I didn't know that. She said that I was too talented to waste my life. Alice Jagger then sternly ordered me to go home, read 100s of pages of American History in two days, and she said that in two days on Saturday morning I would come in at 9 am, turn in all of my missed assignments, and take the final. She said I would likely flunk it, but she would give me a D and I would graduate. She said that I owed her tickets to my shows and free copies of recordings forever into the future. She wasn't complimenting me. She was furious, but it seemed pretty apparent to her that I would be a musician, I guess.
I didn't exactly start rising to any occasion until a couple of years later. I sat in my room for two days, but I didn't read a whole lot. I took the test, definitely flunked it, and graduated in May 1982. Thank you, Alice Jagger.