PAID MY DUES
WHITEBREAD was a band that consisted of two 17 year-olds, a 20 year old, and two 22 year-olds. The two youngest Scotty Allshouse and Kevin Beck, and I were ‘classically trained’ concert musicians from the same school at Gilbert High School. We were used to, at a minimum, an hour of practice a day 5 days a week for 6 years including the Jr. High Program. When the ‘kids’ joined the group, it was on like the proverbial Donkey Kong.
Jodi Marolda and Derek Reeves were besides themselves with joy that they’d found a group that wanted to play, and to learn how to play together, and to do it right. We were allowed to play at BARRETT ENTERPRISES through the generosity of my friend Darren’s Dad, Henry, whose name was Ed. Practice we did, too….Every night for hours. Sure, we’d mess around a bit in there, but like I said way up front on the first page of this bibliography, I was WAY behind the 8-Ball musically on my instrument and had never been a frontman/vocalist/songwriter before. I had to work day and night. Writing lyrics and trying to find places to play by day, playing guitar until my fingers ached and my brain was mush by night. It was heaven.
This performance is from the GILBERT HIGH SCHOOL PROJECT GRADUATION show on April 3, 1992. We opened the show with an almost note-for-note rendition of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s I KNOW A LITTLE, and then went right into PAID MY DUES. We had two other originals, but this one was a serious song. A couple of musicians had gotten under Jodi and Derek’s skin one day trying to mark territory or put our band down. They were borderline sad and bitchy about it. I wrote the lyrics to this while I was in the darkroom at GOULET PRINTERY one day and then brought it to practice that night. I made a beeline over to Jodi and let him know I wrote the lyrics for us as a band, and that the third verse was directly for the ones that made him feel shitty. He was really happy about that, and it made me happy that he liked it. We all chipped in on making the song a ‘real’ song.
I’m pretty sure the song wrote itself right there that night.
I can remember Derek smiling at me while we played the changes in between the verses. We just blasted away at it, exactly like this recording. Derek had been my mentor every day, telling me I could be a good guitar player and showed me stuff at every practice. I’d watch him of course, but his fingers were so fast, and he knew what he was doing. I was working off sheer will to survive. This song was my first recorded guitar solo, and it was Derek’s idea. It’s not great, but you have to start somewhere and here is the start. Later in this show we do HOT ‘LANTA by the Allman Brothers and that was my second solo ever. Derek and I worked tirelessly on making sure I was able to keep up.
I’ll continue to upload tracks from this show to let the world know what we’re missing without Derek Reeves. When I was with Flipper Dave, there was a song Brett wrote called IT’S A WASTE that we’d play every few shows. I sang my part for Derek every night. Click ahead for some truly dazzling guitar work. He was just 21 years old when this show happened. Shining bright.
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