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This
photo is one from the professional shoot by Gary Brown
in 1973. I borrowed the duds I'm wearing here -
which I subsequently bought - from John
Wilhite's clothes boutique. Plaid
bellbottoms, dude! |
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Here's
the band playing at Potter's Lake on the K.U. campus,
in front of our bus. This must have been Spring
or Summer of 1973 because a) Darrell's crutches are
visible at the lower right corner, b) Brad's playing a
Fender Rhodes, and c) we were using one of the Shure
Vocal Master columns as a monitor, meaning we had
already acquired our JBL "scoops" as main speakers. |
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Becky, Andy, and most of
Bud's drums, on stage at the Red Baron in 1972. |
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Becky,
Bud, and Andy on stage at the Red Dog. This has
to be "late" Penetrations 'cause I had my hair in a
shag cut. I like this photo for the composition,
angle, and lighting. |
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We get a break, of sorts. In the Summer of '73, Michael Duby was in Kansas's fine penal institution at Hutchinson, and we didn't really know how, or want to do, the work of booking gigs. Steve Dahl, a successful booking agent and formerly a horn player in the Red Dogs, happened to catch an outdoor gig we did on the K.U. campus. Perhaps influenced by something he may or may not have smoked, Steve thought we were ready for his increased attention (he told me this a few years later when he was the primary booking agent for the Billy Spears Band). Here's Becky singing outdoors on the K.U. campus, must have been Fall of '73. I believe this was the gig where Steve Dahl heard us. Two things to notice: One is John Lomas in the background, leaning against the bus. John was playing with Michael Duby's band "Polio" at the time and would later become one of the Used Parts. The other is Becky's "Big Eat 73" button. The Big Eat was something of a tradition among local hippies for a few years, a mini-mini-Woodstock on Robbie Schall's farm. Substances were consumed. Becky would later marry Robbie when she came back from Oakland, have a child, and divorce him. Robbie died in the early 1980s from a gunshot wound. |
Steve Dahl worked for Mid
Continent Entertainment, the "big dog" among booking
agencies in Lawrence. Mid Continent was the agency
started by John Brown, who had handled the Fabulous
Flippers, the Red Dogs, Rising Suns, the Blue Things, etc.,
in the late sixties. Steve knew of us and had heard us
before, but for some reason something clicked for him in
hearing us at that particular time and place. He began
to get us some gigs, but they were a little different from
what we were used to. He sent us to bars in Omaha and
Lincoln, where we were expected to dress up a little more
and play a little more contemporary music. We bought
ourselves used tuxedoes with pink ruffled shirts.
