My cousin Tommy had an electric guitar, and he tried to show me a couple of things. He knew some basic chords and parts of various songs. I think he showed me his versions of the G-Bf-C Smoke on the Water riff and the D-C-G Sweet Home Alabama riff.
Chords were hard to play, hard to remember, and they made your fingers hurt like hell. I could make both riffs sound so fucking awful with the Electra Les Paul, flanger and Yamaha amp, it was almost unbelievable. A ton of distortion and flanger did not make things sound any better. What I lacked in talent, I made up for in volume. When I would get discouraged, I would turn the amp off, turn on the trusty stereo, and fake jam along to Rainbow, Purple, or Skynyrd.
Dad hooked me up with some guitar lessons with Mike at the Music Man Music store where he bought our instruments the previous Christmas. Mike was a cool guy and a hell of a guitar player, but when he asked me what I wanted to learn and I said, “Heavy Metal,” he said, “What’s that?”
I mean ... really? Are you fucking kidding me?
I thought this to myself.
He asked me what kind of bands I was into, and I told him. He rolled his eyes at KISS, he didn’t know who Rainbow was, and he “didn’t really dig Deep Purple.”
What the fuck? Hey Mike, if you are around and you ever read this, I always meant to ask you... How in the hell does somebody who played guitar in the seventies not like Deep Purple? What the fuck was wrong with you, man?
Apparently, he loved “Mary Had a Little Lamb,” though, because he sent me home with a book to learn how to note read that bad-ass rocker. (The lamb's head wasn't even in a pentagram!)
Look, I’m not against learning how to read music properly and all of that action. It’s just, the timing was not right for me then. I was locked and loaded man, I didn’t need Mary or her fucking lamb; I needed to rock!
I went back for one more lesson then quit in frustration.
I thank the Gods of Rock for my buddy Todd Wiseman.
Todd was a couple of years older than me, and he lived across the creek behind our house. We didn’t hang out much because he was an older kid, but he was always cool to Paulie and me. He was good on a bicycle, too! That was how we became acquainted and eventually became friends in the neighborhood.
Come to find out, Todd also played guitar. He must have heard some of the cacophony coming from the Simmons house one spring afternoon and stopped off at the living room, home of the jams. He admired our gear and thought it was awesome that Dad had thrown it down for us at Christmas. Unlike my lessons, Paulie’s were paying off, and he could lay down a few grooves.
I, on the other hand, was just flailing away, making sure no cats or dogs came within a mile of our house.
Todd was cool, he saw my predicament, and he said, “Hey Mikey, I can show you some stuff if you want.”
I was all eyes and ears.
Todd grabbed my guitar and started jamming on some cool riffs. I was amazed! My guitar and amp actually could sound good! He ran through a few things and even jammed some grooves with Paulie, who seemed happy to be playing something besides bullshit.
He showed me the barre chord.
The fucking barre chord was about to change my life.
Now, the full barre chord was a beast from hell, but the half barre chord and partial barre chord were not that hard to hold. The magic of these chords was that you could hold your hand the same way and move it up and down the neck. This, my friends, was the key to rock-n-roll, and I gotta tell ya, I was stoked! I practiced that fucker late into the evening, moving all over the neck of the guitar finding patterns that sounded good until mom shut me down.
This was huge! I figured something out! From what Todd showed me earlier in the day, I had fucked around and stumbled upon the holy grail of rock... The one-four-five chord progression.
I wrote my first song that night. It was A to C to G with some different accents and variations, but all barre chords. It was played with fire and purpose, and a lot of shitty Yamaha distortion. I was very proud of myself! I went to bed with a sore hand, but I was so excited I couldn’t sleep for a while.
I met a guy at Cameron Middle School at the beginning of the second semester, and we were becoming good friends. We were in homeroom together, and I was dabbling in one of my favorite pastimes in class when I should have been doing school work... drawing Gene Simmons and badass heavy metal concert stages. We struck up a conversation on our favorite pastime, rock and fucking roll, and I found out he was an aspiring drummer. His name was Joey, and we are still friends today. Joey was not only aspiring; he could play the shit out of the drums. I remember him coming over to spend the night the first time and jamming on Paulie’s kit. He blew us away! I think he showed Paulie some shit on the drums, if I’m not mistaken.
I heard about the ninth-grade talent show tryouts the day my friend Drew showed me the Rush 2112 album at school. (Drew and I got busted for weed once while we were skipping school. We went to juvenile and everything! Good times.) It’s weird how you remember stuff like that. I had three or four songs that I made up since learning the miraculous barre chord. I also did my first ever trade-in at a music store, trading the MXR Flanger for a Morley Wah pedal. (One of many trades that I still regret!) One riff I had, which would eventually become known as the infamous “Water Song,” featured the Morley Wah and three chords played over and over with passion and fire for five or six minutes. I thought it was damn good, and I figured it, combined with two of my other bits, would get me in the talent show for sure!
I signed up.
I practiced my performance diligently for two weeks before the big tryout. I was kicking ass, man! I just knew I would make it and finally realize my dream, playing my heart out in front of the whole school. Dad took me to school that morning and dropped me off. I loaded in my Les Paul, Morley, and the Yamaha amp for our first gig ever. I think dad said something like: “Don’t worry if you don’t make it, Mikey, I’m just glad you are trying out. Have fun!”
Oh, I was going to make it. There was no way they would not put me in after hearing the pure smoke I was about to unleash.
School seemed to take forever that day, but finally, 1:30 rolled around, and all the kids trying out were called to the auditorium. We listened as the two teachers in charge explained the process and were informed that out of the thirty or so students who were there, only ten finalists would be picked for the show in front of the whole school.
I looked around at the gathering of kids; only one guy looked like he was cool out of all of them. He had long hair over his ears like me and wore a beaded necklace, but... he had a mustache! He looked older, and he had big arms like he lifted weights or something. I wondered just what the hell his talent was going to be. Was he going to lift 200 pounds with one hand or something?
As the tryouts began, it was your typical deal; girls singing songs to canned music, somebody played piano, magic tricks; I think one dude recited a shitty poem he wrote.
I was going to kill!
The teacher called my name, and I ran up the steps, grabbed my guitar, and began hooking up my shit. As I was up there looking out off the stage while I plugged in my amp and wah pedal, a feeling came over me that I had felt before. It was the same kind of feeling I got when I was getting ready to do a big jump on my bike or stepped up to the plate when a fast pitcher was about to try to strike me out. My pulse quickened, and I could feel my heart pounding in my chest as the teacher announced... "Okay, next up is Mike Simmons on electric guitar."
I bent over and turned on my amp, barked an A chord, and adjusted the volume up to loud as hell! The teachers kind of cupped their ears, but they didn't make me turn it down, so I stepped forward to center stage. I looked out at the kids that were there in the near-empty auditorium, and with a squeak of feedback and shaking hands, I went on to play my first ever gig:
"Unaccompanied Rhythm Guitar in the key of A, accented by Wah Wah."
I ran through my three of four "compositions" nervously. I broke out in a sweat and started to feel a little dizzy. I was missing a few chords here and there, looking at my shoes the whole time, and before I knew it, I was done. I was like a deer in the headlights, man. It was the most terrifying and most exhilarating thing I had ever experienced. There was no applause when I was done, the teachers were just looking around, and I was wondering what the fuck just happened. Out of nowhere, the cool dude with the mustache came up and said in a friendly southern accent, "Hey man! That was great! I like those songs, man." I mumbled thanks while I packed up my shit. I noticed he was hooking up an amp and strapping on a guitar too. No way!
I looked at his guitar, an old Vox. It was cool as shit. It had buttons and switches everywhere, cigarette burns on the headstock, dirty and worn, a well-played instrument that had seen some action, unlike mine. The guy had a quiet confidence and a humble demeanor that didn't really match his rough exterior. I rolled my amp out of the way and took my guitar with me down to one of the seats a few rows back off of stage left.
"Okay, our last contestant also on electric guitar, Robbie Hale." The teacher announced.
From the very first note, Robbie Hale kicked fucking ass. He started playing a Hendrix kind of groove and interjected these awesome lead guitar trills, bends, and pull-offs throughout his performance. His Dingo boots tapped the whole time beneath his Levi bell-bottoms while his head bobbed in time with the music that was pouring out of him. He was a natural. Every eye in the house was on him, and he was a joy to watch and hear. The music flowed out of him in waves and crashed down upon us. It never really dawned on me that he was handing me my ass on guitar; I was just digging on the fucking jams he was laying down on the Cameron auditorium stage. He rocked! I was an instant fan.
The finale of his performance was incredible. He started playing this lick like Page plays in his "Heartbreaker" solo, faster and faster, his whole body moving, just fucking going wild! We all started yelling and clapping; even the teachers were digging it. He hit a big power chord, and he was done, and we all screamed and clapped. Robbie Hale had just smoked the ass of the Cameron talent show tryouts.
Damn!
As everything was winding down while the teachers compared notes to figure who the finalists were, all the kids started to get their various stuff together to go home. Robbie was putting his guitar in the case and talking to a couple of kids who were telling him how awesome he was when he saw me and said: "Hey Mike, it's Mike, right?"
I answered shyly: "Yeah, man, that was too cool."
"Thanks, man! I liked what you did too. You want to get together and jam sometime?"
"Really? Hell yeah, man!" I exclaimed.
"Yeah, man. I want to start a band, man." Robbie said. "I've tried a couple of times, but I can't ever find anybody who is cool and is serious. My parents will let us jam at my house if you wanna come over sometime, man."
"Fuck yeah, man!" I said. "I have wanted to start a band too!"
Right about that time, they announced the finalists for the talent show. I wasn’t surprised that Robbie was in, and I was not. I was a little bummed, and he could tell.
“Don’t worry about it, man. You are a good rhythm guitar player, Mike. You have some cool songs too! I’m a lead guitar player man, it will work out perfect for a band, man!”
We said man quite a bit in those days.
Robbie and I struck up a conversation while we were loading our gear into our parent's cars. We told each other where we lived, exchanged phone numbers, and he asked me if I smoked weed. Things were looking up. I wasn’t even bummed about not making the talent show anymore.
We made a plan to meet up during lunch the next day. I told him I knew a good drummer, and I would talk to him and see if he wanted to jam.
Mom asked me how it went on the drive home, and all I could talk about was Robbie Hale.
She said she was proud of me for at least trying out. I told her even though I didn’t make it, it was fun, and I really was going to try to make a go at being a rhythm guitar player.
“And by the way, me and Robbie Hale are going to start a band, Mom.”
“Oh, really?”
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