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The Agency
originally started life as the Gobi Desert
Canoe Club Band. Inspired by Sgt. Pepper
and Ron's sense of humor that name was
used until a "serious" name was deemed
necessary. The name The Agency was also
Ron's idea. There was no significance to
the name other than the members wanted to
convey a sense of "organization" and that
name seemed to do just that. Carl and Ron
were the motivating force behind the
band's inception. They both went through
the process of learning guitar
simultaneously; getting together most
Sunday afternoons to trade licks and new
techniques learned during the week. At the
outset, before roles were cemented in
place, Carl was playing guitar. He had a
red solid body Kent guitar with two
pickups and a small 10 watt Kent
amplifier. Both were purchased at Alber's
in Boone.
Alber's sold what were for the most part
factory seconds at a very low price.
Naturally, the Alber's connection was
mentioned to Ron as at the time he still
had no guitar of his own. This is where
Ron purchased his first guitar with a
little help from his dad. It was a cherry
to yellow, thin semi-accoustic, Kent with
two pickups. Along with the guitar he got
a 15 watt Kent amp with tremolo.
For the band situation Carl switched over
to bass. He purchased a cherry solid body
Epiphone bass with double pickups and an
accompanying Kalamazoo Bass 30 amp from
Klockseim's Piano and Organ in Ogden. Ron
had decided to become the rhythm guitarist
for the band as he found chords easier to
play compared to notes. (Or so his
reasoning went). This left the two with a
lead guitar and drummer to find.
Carl made an acquaintance with Mike
through high school band where Mike was a
trombone player. Finding that Mike had a
definite desire to play lead, he was asked
to join. Mike's equipment at the start
consisted of a Gibson Melody Maker and a
small Gibson amp that resembled a cream
Fender Champ. The Melody Maker had a
sunburst finish and a single pickup. The
combination was wonderful. Later on Mike
"upgraded" to a semi-accoustic Conrad
guitar with two pickups finished in a
honey sunburst. He also purchased a
Heathkit amp that was a fairly blatant
copy of a Fender Twin Reverb. He bought
the amp as a kit. He and an older
engineering friend put the amp together.
It worked fairly well except for the
reverb, which worked off and on.
Both Ron and Carl talked Rich into
joining. Rich was also in high school
band. He was a good friend of Ron's too,
having met through church where Rich's dad
was a minister. Rich thought being a
drummer sounded cool and decided to join
up. Rich started out on cardboard boxes -
didn't everyone !?!?, but soon graduated
to real drums thanks to Greg Rinehart.
Greg sold Rich his kit which consisted of
kick, snare, shell mount tom, hi-hat, and
shell mounted crash/ride cymbal. The set
was finished in a royal blue sparkle.
Since Rich didn't know how to play he took
some lessons from the high school band
director along with tips from some of the
players in band too. Later on in The
Agency, Rich purchased a nice white pearl
finished set that added a floor tom,
another shell mount tom, and a couple
cymbal stands for separate ride and crash
cymbals.
Mike, Carl and Ron all did some lead
vocals along with background vocals too.
At the early stages of the Agency they ran
their mics through their guitar amps.
After playing through a dedicated PA
courtesy of The Revolvers at a battle of
the bands at the Boone Drive-in theatre it
was decided that they need to get a
similar set-up. Sounds Inc. a local music
store that sold TVs, stereos and records
along with musical instruments sold that
particular system they had used. Bob
Graybill, the store's owner, had been
trying to convince Ron that the band
needed a PA. So it was decided to purchase
the system from Sounds. It could be
configured to meet a certain budget which
was a big selling point. The Agency bought
a 35 watt Bogen amp along with one speaker
column. The speaker column was built by
Bob and was loaded with 4 Jensen Concert
series 12 inch speakers. It was covered
with black vinyl and hadorange/red grille
cloth.
The band practiced at least once a week.
The first practice was held in Ron's
garage. After that Carl and his mom talked
to Mr. Klockseim and secured his
"warehouse" facility for practice at no
cost to the band. The building was the
former office of the local lumberyard and
was located directly west of the Ogden
City Park. It had two rooms, both about
12x12, which worked out well. The deal was
that the boys could use the building as
long as they left the store stock alone.
The band could now practice without
bothering anyone.
Only one bad incident occurred when a
drunk individual happened to stumble in on
a practice. He threatened them all with
bodily harm if they didn't stop making all
that noise. Luckily, some of this guy's
friends who were less drunk than he coaxed
him back outside and, presumably, back to
the tavern he had wandered out of.
After using this building the band
practiced a couple of times in Rich's
basement, finally ending up in an upstairs
room at Carl's house. This was due to the
fact that the Klockseim building had very
little heat and the guys needed someplace
warm to practice in the winter. They
stayed in a small upper room at Carl's
until they broke up.
The Agency did
the usual popular tunes of the day. At
that time many bands did songs like: (In
the) Midnight Hour (Wilson Pickett),
Gloria (Shadows of Knight/Them), House of
the Rising Sun (Animals), Come On Up
(Rascals), etc. Along with these they
tackled stuff like: Jumpin' Jack Flash
(Stones), You Really Got Me (Kinks), Hello
I Love You (Doors), Sunshine of Your Love
(Cream), and (I'm Not Your) Steppin' Stone
(Monkees). They also did one original tune
entitled "ZZZ". Ron had come up with this
instrumental that was a direct lift of
"Wipe Out" with an emphasis on guitar
instead of drums. It was performed out at
least twice and, to the band's surprise,
no one threw any rotten fruit.
Probably the strangest gig the Agency ever
did was an American Business Women
mother/daughter dinner. For 20 minutes the
guys played rock and roll for their
moms...at least that's what it seemed like
to them. The best dance they played for
was, perhaps, in Madrid, Iowa at the Odd
Fellows Hall. The Agency put the dance on
themselves which was not uncommon at the
time. Charging $1.00 a head admission,
they pulled in around 145 people in a town
where they were unknown. Worst gig was
their last dance for the Ogden MYF youth
group due to the fact that the band's
breakup was a short time away.
The reason for the Agency breaking up is
not real clear. A split had developed with
Rich and Carl on one side; Mike and Ron on
the other. Practices before the last job
had become less and less frequent. Carl
and Rich also seemed less and less in
favor of group harmony. After the last
dance the band just fell apart. There were
no declarations of "I quit"; they just
quit being a group together.
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