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This photo is one from the
professional shoot in 1973. I borrowed the duds I'm wearing here -
which I subsequently bought - from John Wilhite's clothes boutique.
Plaid bellbottoms, yeah! |
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Here's one of us playing
at Potter's Lake on the K.U. campus, playing in front of our bus. I
know 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 our JBLs 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 one of Kansas's fine penal institutions, and we didn't really know how, or want, to do the work of booking gigs. Steve Dahl, a successful booking agent and former member of the Red Dogs, happened to catch an outdoor gig we did on the K.U. campus and, perhaps influenced by something he may or may not have smoked, 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 don't know if this was the gig where Steve heard us or not, but it well could have been. 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. |
Steve 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.
