The Night Shift... Continues!

[WildcatOne]

Thank you, Billy...a couple of photos turned up on the net from the Chelsea Pub Wednesday night jam...I was playing keyboards but Little Terry showed up and needed a blues guitar backup. Scott Gamlen, the leader of On Time Airline, came over and asked me to sub for him with Little Terry, using his Gretsch guitar and Fender amp so I said OK...Little Terry is a Blues Monster, and he put on a whale of a show. Karen, the bass player Joe's wife, took a couple of shots of us playing. I usually expect the unexpected at any given time, especially at an open mic deal like this was, but I was completely surprised by this and I think I threw in every blues lick I ever learned and then some. It was fun! Life is good! Cheers, WC1

[draglist]

Cool stuff, John. bp

[pro70z28]

[bojangies46]

Cat I was thinking about you yesterday and wondered who influenced you to begin your musical carrer and who were several of your favorite players of the different insturments you use? You may have stated it in the past but humor me, I'm old!!!!!!!!!!!!

ME too OLD ALSO

[WildcatOne]

I should give as brief of an outline as possible on how that all came together before I name them all...my influences appeared and went away in phases over the years; the last came and went 30 or so years ago, when I finally completed the build of the "other guy" that I send out to play live gigs...he has been given nicknames by folks that he played music with and for from that time to the present. "Johnny B", shortened to "B" in the mid-80s, "Johnny Keys" in the 90s when I rode on a tip from an ice house buddy (Rusty Coon) who had seen me play keyboards a couple of years earlier...he pulled me aside one night and said "Johnny B, you oughta bring your keyboards. Look. You got a dozen guitar players here to sit in but there ain't one of 'em can play keys. THAT's what you oughta be doing..." I brought in my keyboard next time, and ended up with 5 solid years of gigs from that one night...thanks, Rusty...and I should also include "WildcatOne", the guy who belongs to DragList, who is named after the band I had when I joined, Johnny B and the Wildcats...that name has been shortened to WC, and Cat. That guy, making those posts, is one of John Bockelman's alter-egos. Pee Wee Bowen and his crowd call me "Big Bad John"...I like it...John is supervising the festivities and keeping WC in his place, often having to resort to rev limiters and duct tape to keep the Cat from blowing up on the top end...
In Galveston, during the summer of 1956, I was at the roller skating rink on Stewart's Beach in the back seat of my kid-sitter's boyfriend's car and they were listening to the radio and had it turned up loud enough for me to hear it. Out of nowhere, the opening piano riff to "Blueberry Hill" by Fats Domino came out of the dashboard speaker, and in my world, everything stopped. I heard that riff, and that song, and my life changed forever. Up to that point, I had been in a year-round classical piano regimen of study at the Dominican convent and conservatory, going in weekly for 2-3 hours at a time, learning music theory, technique and being taught symphonics by Tschaicovsky, Bach, Ravel and Mozart by Sisters Dominic and the one who reached me deeper and more profoundly than anyone else in my life ever has, Sister Bernard. Sister Bernard was a multi-instrumentalist with a flair for the abstract and absurd, outspoken of Catholicism and profanity all at once, and she posessed a musical gift of artistry and magnetism combined that took me into her world of crazy and beautiful music and knowledge...I don't know if there has ever been another human being of her makeup and content before or since, but I had her as my teacher for 10 years...anyway, once I heard that song on the radio, my entire destiny changed. I knew what I was put on this earth for. I no longer wanted to be like Liberace or Van Cliburn. I wanted to be like Fats Domino, the coolest guy ever to slide into a zoot suit and kick a set of keys that I have ever heard. The next 50 years of my musical life was spent walking in that man's shadow. 10 years later, I heard a group from England on the radio called The Animals with a keyboard player by the name of Alan Price...his style of playing matched up with my ability in the rock n' roll and blues that I was hearing in my head but hadn't yet come out with (I was still in music lessons at that time and I'd better not blow my cover)...but one day my Dad came in while I was playing an Alan Price Blues lick on the piano and he said "No more music lessons." I said OK and from age 16 until now, I've been "self-taught". I picked up guitar at the age of 19 (it was portable, adaptable to the music theory I had already learned on piano, and it was a great way to meet girls)...got my first electric at the age of 22, and I've been going back and forth between the two, with a 10-year span of playing bass, which I somehow automatically knew how to play without ever having touched one before. The key factor for me in having a career in music has been the creation of another guy...the cool guy. The guy who is totally confident in his musical ability and his personality and who is always smiling and having the time of his life...not cocky, not arrogant, just easy-going, almost effortlessly refined and smooth...because when John tried to do it, he sucked because he is a quiet, shy, often deeply preoccupied person with walls around him, and he'd get sick before a gig because of the pressure and the buildup and was not a very happy guy...a lot of which is due to the fact that he spent more than half his life alone in a room with a piano, a guitar and a set of books and illustration tools and missed out on so much that "normal" folks were doing, and when he did go out and mix with people, he was pretty much clueless and confused about how to have a good time being around other people. John made a few friends, but not many, and they can be counted on one hand. The influences that I absorbed and to this day hold up and adhere to are as follows: Fats Domino. Jerry Lee Lewis. Roy Orbison. Gene Vincent. Eddie Cochran. Buddy Holly. The Everly Brothers. Chuck Berry. Duane Eddy. Rick Nelson. Carl Perkins. Those are the early rock n' roll influences I dug and still do. I saw Elvis from the waist-up on Ed Sullivan live at my kid-sitter's house...she had multiple orgasms in front of the TV while her boyfriend, Duke, sat bemused by all of it, figuring out ways to acquire new parts for his hot rod...Elvis didn't impress me much, but watching what she did when Elvis played sure did...Then, Motown (anything they did), The British Invasion, The Rascals, and The Beach Boys. I became enamored with Blues in the late 60s and I turned left down that road and I'm still on it. My favorite blues bands were the original Fleetwood Mac, John Mayall, and Savoy Brown which later mutated into Foghat. Jimi Hendrix (the greatest ever), Johnny Winter, Robin Trower, Lord Sutch, Peter Green and Kim Simmonds are the 2 most prominent guitar influences I've ever had...Eric Burdon, Rod Argent, there is a long list...Jimmy Page, to somewhat of an extent, Eric Clapton and The Beatles, but although I enjoyed their music and could see a lot of potential in their style, I knew how to play all their stuff but I didn't come from that scene...I was more hot rod, hard road and blues...right now I have to stop because Ludwig (van) needs a new battery and I have to go get one so I can drive to the gig tonight...back later. Thanks for this...I haven't really sat down and thought about any of this in a long time...Cheers, WC1

[draglist]

A great trip through your past, John. Thanks... bp

[WildcatOne]

Thanks, BP...I got the battery at NAPA...I was headed to O'Reilly's but traffic was so bad due to half of the street lights being on flashing red because of the storm that blew through in the middle of the night yesterday...anyway, it hooked up fine. It might be that Ludwig actually could use a new alternator, but that's not #1 on the list of things to do for him right now...the old battery was 4 1/2 years old and it was time. It was not putting out cold-cranking amps like it used to and this new one is like a lightning bolt compared to how the old one was acting so Ludwig is good to go...

Getting back to my musical life...there was a time during the early-through-late 80s when Johnny B was running the whole life of John Bockelman, and it was a total train-wreck from dizzying top to wretched bottom...I finally had to take over and change it. John Bockelman is the guy who is responsible for keeping things in order, and Johnny B has to work for him so that all things elsewhere can function properly. I know this sounds crazy. It sounds like I'm a nice bunch of guys. Well, I am. I won't try to make it sound any different, because that's what goes on and did go on for years, except now it's run through a command center between the ears of John Bockelman and delegated appropriately according to the situation at hand. If Johnny B had kept control over this guys' life, I'm pretty sure there wouldn't be a life to control by now. When I took over and changed the way it was all set up, including giving up womanizing, drugs and drinking, 90% of my friends never called or came around again. Talk about a cold, hard slap in the face...but it was for the best. I enjoy life now. Last night we played outside at T-Bone Tom's down in Kemah. It was a lousy night, weather-wise. No breeze at all, hot and humid, and the mosquitos were hungry. I inhaled one while I was singing a song...gag...choke...spit...but it went all the way down my windpipe before I could regurgitate it...stuff like that is the most unpleasant stuff I have to deal with anymore, but nothing like what Johnny B was up to. There has to be a very clear separation of those guys and I do it all now without thinking about it because I did what was necessary 25 years ago and I'm used to the drill now. I still write my own music, and I still hear a non-stop soundtrack in my head, same as I did when I was a post-toddler. It'll never stop, and some day I hope to get it all down on tape, if I can ever find the time.

My story is not like a lot of others'. It's been hard but rewarding. I know guys who say that I am their biggest musical influence. It makes me proud to hear that, but I don't recommend being like me to folks. It took a while to get me sorted out and I'm still working on it. Yet in looking back, I wouldn't trade my story for another one. Thanks again. Cheers, WC1

[pro70z28]