The Generations' Story
If you want to go WAY back, here’s where it all started. I was in the 4th grade at Ella B. Allen Elementary School in Bonita, California where I had a classmate named Errol Lisonbee. We were "acquaintances." Not really friends, but I knew where Errol lived and would see him around school and in the neighborhood occasionally. We both played on baseball teams in the same Little League.
My following year at Allen Elementary would prove to be a very unique experience. My 5th grade class was a mixed class. Half 5th graders and half 6th graders. It was kind of a mesh between the smarter kids of the 5th grade and the not-so-bright, more "difficult" kids, of the 6th grade. I guess they thought that some of the "smarts" of the 5th graders would rub off on the lower echelon of the 6th graders. (Ah the wonders of public education!) Anyway, the teacher for this class was non-other than Mr. Thearle Lisonbee, Errol’s father. Errol was not in this class, but I definitely got an insight into Errol’s life by being in his father’s classroom.
"Mr. Lisonbee" quickly acquired the reputation of being quite a tyrant. I vividly recall a sign he had posted in the room on the first day of the 5th grade. It read, "Be responsible for your actions. Think self-discipline". At that time, I had NO idea what "discipline" was. But I learned VERY quickly. Mr. Lisonbee became very famous for breaking rulers on the edge of his desk. Keep in mind that we had a good share of the juvenile delinquent types from the 6th grade and these kids could cause a real raucous! This pretty much happened daily. When it did, we all knew to take cover because shards of rulers would go flying about the room! Mr. Lisonbee would freak out and demolish a ruler and the room would instantly become silent and still. These events would usually end up with one or more of my fellow students getting transported to the principal’s office. I recall thinking that this guy would not be fun to live with and Errol was doing just that.
I had lost touch with Errol after that year. I believe that the Lisonbee family moved to a different area and Errol attended a different school. I didn’t see him again until I started the fall of 1964, where we both attended 7th grade at Hilltop Junior High School in Chula Vista.
During the summer of 1964, I bought my first drum set for $50. This "set" consisted of an old WFL (later to become Ludwig) "blue-with-a-silver-stripe" bass drum and a snare drum and one very poor excuse for a cymbal. Beatlemania was in full form at the time and I was trying to find someone….ANYONE that was interested in starting a band.
I had heard that there was a guy in the neighborhood that was a guitar player. His name was George Barrett. George was much older than me. He was 16, and going into his junior year in high school, and he already had a driver’s license. It was not too cool for a 16 year old to hang around with a 12 year old. But word got around the neighborhood that I had some drums. George was one of those scary "older" guys that had real long hair (by the standards of the day) and looked like he’d beat the shit out of you if you looked at him the wrong way. All of the kids that were my age were scared to death of him.
I had heard from one of George’s neighbors that George was saving up to buy an electric guitar and amplifier. One day I got the nerve to approach George and I told him that I had some drums and asked him if he wanted to start a band. At this time he only had an old, beat up acoustic guitar. All he said to me was something like "Yeah, maybe." and that he had to wait until he got his electric guitar. I kept bugging him for weeks and he finally told me he had put a guitar and an amp on lay-away at a music store in downtown San Diego. He had to come up with some cash in order to bail out his new equipment. I had some money available so I kicked in a few bucks and soon George and I were the proud co-owners of a blond Gretsch Single Anniversary guitar and a Supro amplifier (I still have this guitar, by the way). This was actually a real good guitar. The amp left a little to be desired, but as far as we were concerned, we had hit the big time!
As I got to know George, I realized that he was actually a very likable, meek guy, nothing like his reputation around the neighborhood. All of my other friends were flabbergasted that I even had the nerve to approach him. I had been playing guitar for a couple of years, and I had learned ukulele prior to that, so I showed George some of the guitar licks I knew and he shared his experience with me. We quickly became good friends. It was now time to find some more band members. The trouble was, not too many kids in the neighborhood had electric instruments. We recruited two friends that had acoustic guitars, Steve Barnett and Alan Friedlund . Neither of these guys could play guitar anywhere near as well as George or I, but we formed a very short-lived band called "The Coachmen". This band never played anywhere other than George’s living room, mainly because Steve and Alan couldn’t play very well. We tried to learn some of the surf guitar songs of the day like "Pipeline" and "Walk-Don’t Run", but we sounded pretty bad and the "band" only lasted a matter of weeks.
George was a decent guitar player and he knew most of the chords that were used in the music of the day. We spent most of our time together learning Beatles songs. George’s family had an actual "stereo" hi-fi system, so we could play the new stereo Beatles LP’s and listen to only the instrumental tracks, without the vocals and tried to figure out what chords they were playing. We did this for months, just waiting for an opportunity to start or join a "real" band.
One day we made arrangements to get together with some guys that said they wanted to start a band. These guys were Chris Drake (more on Chris later) and Mike Gould, who lived in Chula Vista. Since George had to borrow his mother’s car whenever he wanted to go somewhere, we had limited access to the outside world. Picking up two guys in Chula Vista was a major logistics issue. One Saturday morning we picked up Mike and Chris and brought them to George’s house for a "rehearsal". As I remember it, Chris and Mike were much better players than their predecessors. We spent an entire day playing songs that we all knew. The problem we ran into was that we were never able to get together again because we lived too far apart.
By this time I was into my first year of Junior High School. Hilltop Junior was an interesting place to go to school. Academically, I did very poorly that first semester, mainly because I had become extremely near-sighted and told no one about it. I couldn’t see but a few feet in front of me! I had no idea what the teachers were writing on the blackboards. Hence, my grades plummeted.
There was a bevy of musical activity at Hilltop Junior. Interestingly enough, there were two trumpet players that would play some kind of military ditty through the school’s intercom system every morning when the flag was raised. One of these "trumpetiers" was named Clifford Jones. Clifford was the epitome of a geek. Black, horn-rimmed glasses, (probably held together with a piece of adhesive tape at the nose-bridge), gray flannel pants, way up above his waist-line, a white short sleeve shirt with the top button buttoned and the geek-prerequisite white socks and wing-tips. Clifford was a work of art.
Here’s the interesting part of this story. Along with Clifford was another trumpet player by the name of Tom Waits. Yup. THE Tom Waits! AND he was dressed pretty much the same as Clifford, at that time! Apparently, Tom went through some changes later on during his High School years and beyond, and he probably wouldn’t want anyone to discuss his Junior High years, but I remembered Tom vividly because he always reminded me of "Herman" (Peter Noone) from "Herman’s Hermits"!
During that first year of Junior High School, I must have played with a half dozen different "bands" that got together for a practice or two, then quickly dissolved. It was around May of 1965 that Rick Randle asked me if I wanted to be in a band with him. Rick had heard from some other players that I could play drums and guitar. Rick was a real rock star at Hilltop Junior. His "other" band, The ManDells, had recorded a single and were becoming very popular in the San Diego area. I thought that this was the opportunity of my lifetime. I was going to play with a real-live professional musician. By the way, Rick was 13 years old at this time and so was I!
One day after school, my mother drove me and another guitar playing friend from Bonita, Phil Pierangelo, over to Rick’s house in Chula Vista. I remember carrying my drums into the "band room" behind Rick’s house. There was a kid playing a red Fender Mustang guitar while I brought my stuff in. I recognized him from school, where I had seen him during lunch period and between classes. Rick introduced me to Doug Latislaw. This was the beginning of a life-long friendship. I also brought my "common-law" Gretsch guitar along, thinking that I might play some guitar on some songs, but once I heard Rick and Doug play, I quickly realized that my guitar playing was not as good as I thought it was. I left the guitar in the case and stuck to what I was good at ….DRUMS!
Rick had made arrangements for us to play at school during the lunch break one day. This was in June during one of the last days of the school year, so things at school were pretty relaxed and easy-going. We learned about a half hour’s worth of songs and went to school that day as "Me and The Others" and became instant stars! Rick was a real good guitar player and a real good singer. He could have played by himself and probably done just as well. Doug and I were decent players as well. Phil wasn’t that good, but the rest of us were able to draw attention away from him and our first "gig" was under our belts.
During that summer, Rick was able to get us a few paying gigs at some parties and dances that were held by some kids that had heard us at school. We quickly replaced Phil with a kid from Doug and Rick’s neighborhood. His name was David Purdy. He actually had a real 4 string bass guitar! (Phil just played bass parts on a regular 6 string guitar). David’s parents also had a big room above their garage where we could practice when Rick’s brother’s band was practicing at his house. This was a very enjoyable summer for me. We were making money and playing music and girls were all around us! I even made enough money to buy a new drum set.
By September, Rick’s responsibilities with his other band, The ManDells, had increased, so we all went our separate ways. In the meantime, my friend and cohort, George Barrett, had met up with another guitar player from Bonita named John Franke. John was a couple of years older than me and he had some decent equipment. John and George had joined a group called "The JP5" which was formed by a organ player named Jim Peters. The group consisted of Jim Peters on Vox Organ, John Hogue on vocals, John Franke on guitar, George Barrett on guitar and Richard Doring on drums.
Richard Doring was a friend of mine that used to accompany me to drum lessons at Dave’s Music Store and Drum Clinic in downtown San Diego. We used to take our drumsticks and catch a bus to downtown San Diego and spend all day on Saturday’s hanging around a music store in the seedy part of town and taking drum lessons form a character named Ray Tejedas, who was a local jazz drummer that worked at the store teaching and selling drums as a day gig.
The JP5 wasn’t real happy with Richard’s drumming. Apparently he wasn’t paying attention during our Saturday lessons! As soon as George heard that I was available, he convinced the rest of the band to hire me on as their new drummer. Jim Peters was the son of the owner of the biggest hardware store in Chula Vista and his parents had LOTS of connections. We were playing paying gigs every weekend, everything from sales at super markets and car lots to country club parties. We were making a lot of money compared to a lot of other local bands.
Doug took a different route when "Me & The Others" disbanded. He was also a drummer and had filled an opening in a band called "The Generations", when their drummer, Richard Brereton, had to leave so the band wouldn’t interfere with his homework. Doug had been playing with The Generations for a few months when I received a frantic call from him shortly before Christmas of 1965. The Generations’ bass player, Errol Lisonbee, had cut one of his fingers off while working at a Christmas tree lot. They were able to sew his finger back on (it was the middle "bird" finger of his left hand) and the prognosis for his recovery was good, but The Generations were in a bind. They needed a bass player. If they could find a "spare" drummer while Errol healed, Doug could play bass. Doug asked me if I was available to play drums for a few upcoming gigs. Luckily, The JP5 was running low on gigs during the Christmas holiday time. I told Doug I could sit in for the gigs unless they conflicted with The JP5's dates.
At this time, The Generations were a 5-piece band and consisted of Doug on drums a singer, Rocky Stroup (brother of a popular surf-guitarist Rod Stroup of "The Dimensions," another band that Dwight Squibb managed), Chuck Pepitone on rhythm guitar, Errol on bass, and another a guitarist, whose name I can't remember. Everyone in this band attended Hilltop Junior High. The group had been started a year or so earlier as part of a Boy Scout Troop whose Scout Leader was Dwight Squibb, a local elementary school teacher that was also interested in electronics and audio.
Along with his teaching responsibilities, Dwight also had a company that built PA speakers along with his partner, Larry McSeaton, Sr., (Larry McSeaton, Jr. was the guitarist in the band that Rick Randle was in (The Man-Dells). Larry Sr. was this band's manager). The company was called "Riviera Sound." They built speaker cabinets that were about 4 feet tall and about 22" wide that had handles and wheels attached which contained of a pair of JBL 15" speakers. The cabinets were covered with a bright blue sparkle material that was similar to the material used on drum sets. This was a big deal in 1965, since most bands used to plug their microphones into the second channel of their guitar amps, which sounded pretty bad. Not too many bands had actual PA systems back then. Dwight was becoming popular with a lot of South Bay bands because he would rent out his PA systems to them. He used to use a 50-watt Bogen paging amplifier that had a four channel mic mixer built into it. We're talking "HI-FI," folks!
By the end of January, beginning of February, Errol's finger had healed enough that he could play bass well enough with the "good" fingers on his left hand. I'm not sure if Errol ever used that "bird" finger again to play bass. Every photo I've seen of him playing looks like he's flipping off the audience!
Between the end of December and the end of January, The Generations went through some big changes. Rocky Stroup had to quit the group for the same reason Richard Brereton left. His school work was suffering, and shortly after that, the other guitarist, whose name I can't remember (Rob? Ron? Somebody help!!!), left for the same reason. It seems that being in a band is a sure-fire way to make your school grades go down! That left the four of us, Chuck, Errol, Doug and myself.
It was during a gig at some VFW hall (or the like) in Imperial Beach, that Dwight came up to me and said something like, "Wayne, there's just got to be a way to get you to stay in this band. Those drum fills you've been doing are just great!" They were gigging a lot and the band sounded tight (by 1965 standards, anyway!). I decided to bail out of the JP5 and become a Generation.
It's funny, because I had heard The Generations practicing at Richard Brereton's house before Doug had joined them. Rick Randle lived right down the street from Richard and one night Rick, Doug, David Purdy and I decided to go check out the competition after "Me and The Others" had finished a rehearsal at Rick's house. I was not at all impressed with the way The Generations sounded at that time. But later, with all the personnel changes and after playing with them for a month or so, they were sounding a lot better.
By this time, Doug had already played drums and bass for the group, and we all knew he was a good guitar player, so with Errol's return he moved over to the lead guitar position and the four-piece version of "The Generations" was born!
On to PAGE TWO: The Generations ...
