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Back in the Mid to late
60's, when dinosaurs ruled the earth, we had a band
called Clear Blue Sky. Well, let's start at the
beginning. First there were the Beach Nuts...in
1965 we were a loose group of 15 year old rock n'
roll wannabe's who overdubbed vocals over surf
records in John Rocco's basement. His dad had a
Sony stereo reel to reel tape recorder and we'd
overlay our vocals over songs by the Beach Boys,
the Rivieras and Jan & Dean. I guess that made
us the first bona fide karaoke band. We then became
the Tryumfs, (with our dorky John Lennon/Chairman
Mao caps), with our first original lineup of John
Rocco (guitar), Dave Lawrence (bass), Mark LePine
(vocals), Les Ward (drums) and Dan Angott (organ).
We later changed our name for a short time to the
Banned, and then to the Cement Flower, after
replacing Dave Lawrence, our original bass player
with Keith Buckley, who came from another local
band, "The
Revised
Edition."
Keith was a classmate of ours at Benedictine high
school and we had been friends since grade school.
In '68 we downsized to a quartet and changed our
name to Clear Blue Sky, with the final lineup of
John Rocco on guitar and vocals, Les Ward on drums,
Keith Buckley, vocals and bass and Dan Angott on
organ, harmonica, percussion and vocals...with Mark
(Sneaky Levine) LePine as our manager. In the last
few months before the band broke up, we also added
guitarist (Wild) Bill West, who also came from
Keith's "The Revised Edition".
Although primarily a top 40 alternative band, we
also did several originals. Most of our gigs were
local high school dances and a few teen clubs, even
a couple of weddings (I still get a chuckle when I
think that some couples will look back at their
wedding day and remember that their "special" bride
and groom dance was to The Stones "As Tears Go
By"). We also played places like the Fifth
Dimension in Ann Arbor and the notorious BMF dances
above Woolworth's in Old Redford at Grand River and
Lahser (pronounced Lah-sur if you grew up in
the "burbs" north of Eight Mile Rd...or
Lasher if like us, you were from south of
Eight Mile). However, we were especially busy as
the house band for Wayne State University's Delta
Chi fraternity...ever see "Animal House"? These
guys were the genuine article. The Delta Chi gigs
didn't pay much ($50 bucks and all you could drink,
usually followed by burgers and chocolate milk at
White Castle at 2 in the morning), but at 17 it had
it's appeal.
Some of the other local bands we shared bills with
were "The Tidal Waves", "The Gang", "The Bob
Dempster Movement" (Bob being formerly of "The
Wha?"), "The Stonewall Blues Band", and early on,
we even opened for Motown's "Tammi Terrell" at a
roller rink in Windsor, Canada. Radio DJ's were
popular at dances back then also, some that hosted
gigs we played at were local jocks Dick Purtan and
Sean Conrad.
Growing weary of low pay, long hours and lugging
equipment up and down basement stairs, in the late
summer of '69 we decided to call it a day, but
we've all kept in touch over the years, getting
together occasionally to write and play
music.
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Personnel:
Keith Buckley - Vocals, Bass Guitar
John Rocco - Lead Guitar, Vocals
Les Ward - Drums, Percussion
Dan Angott - Organ, Harmonica, Percussion,
Vocals
Bill West - Guitar
Jeff Floyd, Dave Porath, Mike Pramstaller
- Roadies
Mark (Sneaky Levine) LePine -
Manager
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Influences:
Beatles,
Byrds, Steve Miller Band, Bob Seger
System, Yardbirds, James Brown, Spirit,
Kinks,
Iron Butterfly, Cream, Rascals, Stones,
Who, Bob Dylan, Stax-Volt
R&B
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Setlist
Sample:
Hang On
Sloopy, Gloria, Chimes Of Freedom, Kicks,
Can't Explain (these were really early
on), Ain't Gonna Eat Out My Heart Anymore
(Rascals), Wait (Beatles), Why (Byrds),
Uncle Jack, Mechanical World (Spirit),
Stepping Stone/Roll with It (Steve Miller
Band), Fire (both Hendrix and Arthur
Brown), Are You Happy (Iron Butterfly),
Along Comes Mary, Got A Mind To Give Up
Livin', Hey Bulldog, White Room, Knock On
Wood, plus a few originals - Mr. Pebbles,
Estiological Thoughts, I Can't Take It,
Programme Music.
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Equipment:
Keith - Hoffner Bass, Framus Bass, Fender
Bassman Amp
John - Fender Jazzmaster Guitar, Vox Royal
Guardsman Amp
Les - Ludwig Drums, Zildjan Cymbals
Dan - Lowrey Dual Manual Organ, Farfisa
Organ, Sears Silvertone Amp, Leslie
Speaker, Hohner Harmonicas
Bill West - Gretsch Tennesean
Sound System- Shure Microphones, home made
speaker columns, Bogan Amp, AV
Columns,
Shure Vocalmaster Sound System.
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Rehearsal
Space:
Alternating
between John and Dan's parent's
basements
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Band
Vehicles:
Any
number of John's dad's vehicles including
his big old Buick, vans and pickup
trucks,
Dan's 1964 Ford Galaxy, Keith's 1964
Valiant Convertible
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Fashion
Statements:
Early on
we wore John Lennon/Chairman Mao caps,
jeans, sport coats and either desert boots
or Beatle boots. After that we wore
whatever we wanted, usually some sort of
Carnaby Street getup; polka dot shirts,
paisley etc. Towards the end, it was
usually jeans, work shirts, work boots,
scarves and floral ties, you know...hippie
stuff.
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Best
Gig:
St.
Michael's Hall/Livonia MI
Everything just seemed to come together
really well that evening. One of the
highlights: Dan banging on an old upright
piano and Keith falling to his knees,
tearin' it up on the coolest version of
Hey Jude ever. The crowd ate it up, we
felt like rock stars.
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Gig
from
Hell!:
Americana
Hotel/Downtown Detroit
We got to the gig and started setting up
when Les discovers he doesn't have any
drum sticks. We couldn't find any music
stores open in the area, so we made him
play with parts of wooden coat hangers
under much protest. It was a fraternity
party and of course there was underage
drinking going on, so the cops come in and
close it down. We wound up having to
schlep all our equipment back to their
fraternity house to finish up the night,
but at least they had more beer back at
the house!
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Last
Gig:
Some
Country Club/Bloomfield Hills, MI
As we knew this would be our last show
together, we really played our asses off.
Unfortunately this fact was lost on all
the rich kids in attendance, who were
extremely rude and obnoxious. You should
have heard Les's drum solo on Sympathy for
the Devil, up one side of his drum kit and
down the other. He jumped up and continued
playing up and down the mike stands, even
on the floor! Then we packed up our gear,
threw it in our cars, and drove off into
obscurity.
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Comments:
After the band
broke up, we all dabbled in other projects. At one
point, Keith, Les and I (Dan) enlisted the
considerable guitar talents of (Wild) Bill West,
from Keith's pre-CBS endeavor "The Revised
Edition". Calling ourselves "Gabardine Pajamas", we
did a lot of Beatles and Byrds, (most notably a
killer version of "And Your Bird Can Sing"), but
never got out of the basement. John and I got
together with a drummer he knew from Wayne State
University, and along with a young woman named
Debbie Spears on vocals we were doing some
interesting, jazzy kinda stuff...including some
things from Arthur Lee's later (Four Sail) version
of his band Love. I recall John playing a lot of
acoustic guitar, and by then I had switched
to a Wurlitzer electric piano. Les played
around the Detroit area in a lot of different
bands, as did Keith after he moved out to Colorado
in the early Seventies. From the tapes Keith sent
me, I followed his progression of musical styles
from country rock, to an all acoustic "David
Grissman" kinda thing, and a pretty straight ahead
rock outfit "The Lifters" that included drummer
N.D. Smart from the legendary east coast band "The
Remains".
In May of 1998, Clear Blue Sky held a 30 year
reunion that has sparked a bunch of ongoing musical
collaborations in different configurations. Click
the following link for photos of the
reunion!
CBS
30 Year Reunion!
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