I was posting some photos on Facebook of old bands I'd been in. It was pretty fun and (to me) somewhat interesting.

Thought I'd recap it here, if only for my own fun.

The first real band I was in was a high school project, probably started between sophomore and junior year. We originally called it "Jade" but the name was "Tangent" by the time we actually played out. That was an indicator of things to come, probably. "Jade" was my choice, and I more or less "started" the band, but it soon became "not mine". The members included two guys on lead guitar and drums, who were from my high school class, a guy from Joliet Catholic HS on rhythm guitar, who I became friends with, another guy from JCHS who was our lead singer, and an older guy (senior when we had been freshmen) on bass.

We were doing a fun set, including songs by Queen (Tie Your Mother Down), Styx (Best Thing, Suite Madame Blue), REO (Music Man), the Beatles (Birthday), Led Zeppelin (Custard Pie, Communications Breakdown, Immigrants' Song), Deep Purple (Love Child), Humble Pie (I Don't Need No Doctor), Boston (Smokin'), and lots of others. But pretty soon, Jim (the rhythm player from Joliet Catholic) wasn't "good" enough for the others, and he got the boot. They (we?) tried to replace him with a guitar player named Greg Bouchard, who was older also, but that didn't work, so we ended up going into our senior year in HS with a five piece, including a girl singer. I was the next guy to get the boot, and they replaced me with a better musician, both vocally and on keyboards.

Jim and I tried to put something together with a drummer from a couple classes behind me, and a pair of twins on bass and guitar. We actually did one gig, at my old grade school for a "sock hop" there. I don't even know what we called that group. But we did some of the same songs that Tangent did, and added some Kiss and Bad Company to the repertoire. I recall that Jim did a solo version of the Led Zep song "Tangerine". And I don't recall much else.

In the summer, I began playing with a popular band while I was in HS, called Exodus. Exodus was mostly a guy named Ed Blowers and whoever was playing with him then. At that time, it had Tom Johnson on bass and Eric Larson on drums. They were all very good musicians, but this band needed a keyboardist like one might need an umbrella in the Sahara. In other words, not much. They were doing Led Zeppelin songs (tons of them!), Paranoid by Black Sabbath, a handful of Montrose songs, a couple of Beatles songs, a couple of Stones songs, etc etc. At the time, I really didn't know my Beatles catalog very well, and even though I could have added some nice keyboards to a song like "Oh Darlin'", I didn't because I simply didn't know the song well.

We played a couple of gigs here and there, parties and such, but nothing that really made me any cash or helped me become a better musician.

Between my freshman and sophomore years in college, I joined back up with Jim (who was back from a year at Marquette in Milwaukee), and we added a lead player named Tim Moran, a drummer named Jim Engelman, and a bass player named Steve Harvey. We did a rather fun set with stuff by REO (Roll With The Changes, Time For Me To Fly), the Cars (Best Friend's Girl, Just What I Needed), and some Stones and Bad Company. We only played one gig with this, a party at our lead player's house out in the middle of nowhere.

I don't think I played with any bands sophomore year in college, but I did during my junior year. I joined with some guys who were doing sort of a comedy act with some music thrown in. I pushed them in a more musical direction, which I think the musicians in the band really liked. We added a real bass player (Greg Guest) and a real drummer (Greg Beabout) to a lineup that included lead guitarist Barry Cash, rhythm guitarist John Diamond, lead singer and comedian Joe Fanelli, and assorted bit players. We went on to play numerous shows and parties around campus, including Loyola's 'The Cellar', and even some bars around the campus. We weren't great, but we were fun. We were doing Doors (LA Woman, Roadhouse Blues, Love Me Two Times), Who (My Generation), Stones (Get Off of My Cloud), and a lot of basic rock and roll like Johnny Be Good and the Detroit Medley that Springsteen was doing.

When I went to dental school, I was sans band for two years, but finally during my junior year, I joined up with two seniors and another junior in a four piece that we called Nitrous Roxide. We did Talking Heads, Elvis Costello, David Bowie, Beatles, Cars, Stray Cats, Rockpile, and some originals. We played mostly talent shows on campus and frat parties, but we did do one gig at a bar in downtown Chicago called Streeter's.

When I got out of dent school, I did a reunion show with N2R (the chemical symbol for nitrous roxide ), and then joined up with drummer John Bennett, rhythm player and vocalist Steve Smithberg, bassist Mike Guinto, and lead player Bill Ingram. We called the band "Buster" and we ended up playing dozens of shows at bars and private parties around the Joliet area. We had a lot of fun with this band. We did songs by John Mellencamp, Bob Seger, the Beatles, the Stones, Cars, Mike Jordan and the Rockamatics, Billy Joel, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Lovin' Spoonful, Split Enz, Crowded House, Stray Cats, Elvis Costello, the Escape Club, Prince, and a bunch of others. Some of them we're still playing today.

The drummer and I got talked into joining another band called Night School. They were an established band looking for a new drummer, and they decided that I added enough to add a live keyboardist to the mix. (Previously they had sequenced all of their keyboards.) They were top flight musicians, and the chance to go back and play with some really great musicians was enough to entice me. Not that the guys in Buster weren't good...they just weren't as good as these guys. Al Sefcik still might be the best bass player I've played with, and Rick Colclasure and Ray Womack were as good a tandem of guitarists as I've played with.

Night School did a pretty cool set, with stuff by INXS (Bitter Tears, Disappear, What You Need), Crowded House (Something So Strong, Better Be Home Soon), Cars (Best Friend's Girl, You're All I've Got Tonight), the Cure (Just Like Heaven, Love Song), the Rembrandts (Just The Way It Is Baby), Jude Cole (Time For Lettin' Go), the Outsiders (Time Won't Let Me), the Elvis Brothers (You Got Me, Hey Tina) and Springsteen (Glory Days, Brilliant Disguise), among others. Trouble was, the bars we were playing had clientele who didn't know most of the stuff we were doing. So we were more or less doing a lot of it for ourselves, and hoping that we could comvey our own enjoyment to the crowds. Sometimes it worked, sometimes not so much.

When Night School disbanded, John and I went back with the guys from Buster, but pretty soon Steve was out of the picture because he was too busy with his kids. So Bill, Mike, John and I added a female lead vocalist (Linda Rose) and her husband Lance on guitar. We called the new band Zig Zag, and we still did a bunch of the old Buster stuff that I sang, a few of the Night School tunes that I sang, and a slew of female vocals songs, including some of Linda Ronstadt's stuff, Wynonna Judd (No One Else On Earth), Bonnie Raitt, Sass Jordan, and Mary Chapin Carpenter. My favorite song that we began doing was Paul McCartney's Maybe I'm Amazed, on which I split the vocals with Linda.

Zig Zag started to get serious, too serious for my tastes, so I quit. They replaced me with a better keyboardist, and they kept playing. I had decided that at the stage of my dental practice that I was at, it did not make much sense to play on a Friday night and not get home till 3 or 4 am, when I could work on Saturdays for 4 or 5 hours and make maybe 3 or 4 times as much. (Consider that we were only getting about 50 bucks each in the bars.) And I've never gone back to playing regularly.

Since then I've jammed with a bunch of different guys, and played on two CD's for my friends in the Exit Specialists. But I don't play regularly any more. I do miss it, that's for certain.

Long entry. If you got to the end, thanks for reading it!