What will follow is thoughts, ideas, and articles of interest. My life so far has covered everything from music and video production, to consumer product inventor. So this written journey may seem a bit disjointed but here goes.
While in junior high school I got hooked on being involved in the "creative process". I was involved in 4 man singing group that sang during the lunch period. I soon discovered that I could not sing very well and needed a basket to carry the tune. I think we covered an old Stereo's tune "I Really Love You" ,but after so many years who is to say. The only kid from the group that I remember is Tom Geistert. Needless to say the group never left the junior high school.
In high school I got involved with way to much. I was a radio DJ during my junior and senior year. You could have heard me on WJEF FM, or a fine arts FM station that I can even remember the call letters for, and of course WERX AM 1530. I worked Sundays and had the pleasure of playing Rock music. I also spun records at the "Go Show" Dances at the local National Guard Armory during the weekends but that is another story for another day. It was during this time that StingRay Productions was born and Discotheque Records came about. But I get ahead of myself. I also worked on the high school stage crew with my two best friends AQ (Allan Quandee) and RAG (Robert "Bob" Granstra) along with the incredible William "Bill " Morris. I assure the reader we were a force to be reckoned with. Bill was a electronics genius and had a pirate FM radio station in high school that lots and lots of kids listen to but had no idea who was responsible. Who can forget the call-in contests that the station had that were impossible to win. Hey, who could afford prizes in high school? Bill was one of a handful of people that I remember that hated the Beatles when they first hit the airwaves. But we had fun. We were not part of the In Crowd but we controlled a lot of what they heard and saw during the high school years.
While in junior high school I got hooked on being involved in the "creative process". I was involved in 4 man singing group that sang during the lunch period. I soon discovered that I could not sing very well and needed a basket to carry the tune. I think we covered an old Stereo's tune "I Really Love You" ,but after so many years who is to say. The only kid from the group that I remember is Tom Geistert. Needless to say the group never left the junior high school.
In high school I got involved with way to much. I was a radio DJ during my junior and senior year. You could have heard me on WJEF FM, or a fine arts FM station that I can even remember the call letters for, and of course WERX AM 1530. I worked Sundays and had the pleasure of playing Rock music. I also spun records at the "Go Show" Dances at the local National Guard Armory during the weekends but that is another story for another day. It was during this time that StingRay Productions was born and Discotheque Records came about. But I get ahead of myself. I also worked on the high school stage crew with my two best friends AQ (Allan Quandee) and RAG (Robert "Bob" Granstra) along with the incredible William "Bill " Morris. I assure the reader we were a force to be reckoned with. Bill was a electronics genius and had a pirate FM radio station in high school that lots and lots of kids listen to but had no idea who was responsible. Who can forget the call-in contests that the station had that were impossible to win. Hey, who could afford prizes in high school? Bill was one of a handful of people that I remember that hated the Beatles when they first hit the airwaves. But we had fun. We were not part of the In Crowd but we controlled a lot of what they heard and saw during the high school years.
The sadist day of high school was the day JFK was shot. I was in chemistry. Enough said about that.
I was working at the local Lafayette Radio Associate Store part time and being exposed to electronics as well as retail. I must say I enjoyed both. It was a bit prior to this that SingRay Products was born. A good friend of mine Steve Beak designed the logo for the company it was an awesome custom StingRay car that never really existed except on the company letter head. I never really knew what I was going to do with the company but I had business cards and a letter head and that is all that counted during that time. I am not sure of the date or time but AQ suggested that we record some garage rock bands and make some records. I guess we were looking for a way to make some extra spending money and because we were all DJ's at local radio stations and we knew that getting air play for our records was no problem.
Of course you had to hook-up with a record company of some sort to press the records. CD's were a long way off in the future. I remember sending out letters to several companies that we thought might be willing to press our records but with no response. (ie Motown, Fujimo, Fenton, Captital) I was just about to give up and RCA in Chicago responded. They asked for a meeting and RAG and myself headed to Chicago by train. I am sure RAG's could tell a better story about what really happened during the meetings, all I remember is I was so sick and running a high fever. I remember signing a contract with them and I was not even 18years old yet. But we had ourselves a record pressing company and we were off to the races.
The first group we recorded was from Travers City Michigan and were called the The Rainmakers
I am sorry to say the record did not sell well and the air play was poor. We re-recorded the record for the guys at WMAX radio and tried again with the same results, it just did not sell. Back to the drawing boards.
I think it was RAG that suggested we build our own recording studio to save money and have a place to record the groups we would find. I might say at this point that all of us thought we could create another Motown on the Western side of the state. Fenton records was already well established in GR (Grand Rapids) but we felt we could do better. Also we all were on the radio and could get air play for our records so we where sure we had the wining formula. We built the studio in the back of the local Lafayette Radio store that I worked at, now part time. The owner of the Lafayette Store (Leo Tobian) was sure he saw dollar signs in what we were trying to do so he also jumped into the partnership. We finished the studio and recorded our next group "The Masters Of Stonehouse".
Several of my high school friends decided to start a Rock band and called themselves The Masters Of Stonehouse I got involved as the sound man and all around grunt. We had a blast during assemblies, high school dances, and during the Senior year stage production. Again AQ came up with the idea of recording them and trying to make a record. You know it is funny I do not remember anything that happened during that recording session. I do remember that after the session was over we though we had a hit. The record got air play and the group got several play dates from the record but it never sold more than the first pressing by RCA. But Discotheque Records now had two records out and we were on a roll. (or so we thought) StingRay Productions was doing well recording groups that appeared at the Go Show Dances for a future LP to be released later. AQ was moving up in the DJ world and was off to college. RAG and I hung around together but he also left for college and I was finishing high school and about to enter Junior College.
I think it was RAG that suggested we build our own recording studio to save money and have a place to record the groups we would find. I might say at this point that all of us thought we could create another Motown on the Western side of the state. Fenton records was already well established in GR (Grand Rapids) but we felt we could do better. Also we all were on the radio and could get air play for our records so we where sure we had the wining formula. We built the studio in the back of the local Lafayette Radio store that I worked at, now part time. The owner of the Lafayette Store (Leo Tobian) was sure he saw dollar signs in what we were trying to do so he also jumped into the partnership. We finished the studio and recorded our next group "The Masters Of Stonehouse".
Several of my high school friends decided to start a Rock band and called themselves The Masters Of Stonehouse I got involved as the sound man and all around grunt. We had a blast during assemblies, high school dances, and during the Senior year stage production. Again AQ came up with the idea of recording them and trying to make a record. You know it is funny I do not remember anything that happened during that recording session. I do remember that after the session was over we though we had a hit. The record got air play and the group got several play dates from the record but it never sold more than the first pressing by RCA. But Discotheque Records now had two records out and we were on a roll. (or so we thought) StingRay Productions was doing well recording groups that appeared at the Go Show Dances for a future LP to be released later. AQ was moving up in the DJ world and was off to college. RAG and I hung around together but he also left for college and I was finishing high school and about to enter Junior College.
No comments:
Post a Comment