Amazing year!

"Coming into Los Angel-Sleeze...."
We left Fairbanks in June. I decided that since school didn't start till September..we would stay the summer with my Dad and his wonderful wife Pat...they had married not long after Mom had passed away and She was very good for my Dad. The drive down the 'ALCAN" was a smooth affair...although by car you really get a feel for how stinking faraway and frankly isolated Alaska really is from the "Lower 48.
We arrived in Monterey on a gorgeous summer day, and set up with Dad. That summer was the "calm" before the storm...and I savored every moment. I was collecting unemployment from Alaska so I really didn't need to work. The wife got a part time job and the "7 Gables Inn" that was literally across the street from the ocean. My Dad at this time was living in a suburb of Monterey..called Pacific Grove. In a house that was 100 years old , a stones throw from the beach. I spent many days walking on the beach...nights eating at the wonderful restaurants around town. We'd go out and see live music...spend time in Carmel going to art galleries...It was a really cool summer. We attended a local church where I'd play now and then..for special music nights...but all in all that summer was one of my happiest.

We left in the fall and headed into LA. There was nothing and I mean nothing that could have prepared me for what I was about to step into...We drove into Hollywood and Highland Blvd. in bumper to bumper traffic..with people honking,shouting at each other. We finally got off that crowded street . it took like 30 minutes just to find a parking spot that wasn't gonna cost a day's wage just to park. We got out filled the meter and took off walking the several blocks to the school. Walking down the "Hollywood Walk of Fame" was a trip..looking down and seeing those stars...la la land...and I was right in the middle of it..we walked past "Grumman's Chinese Theatre" where there were a ton of people...in fact I never saw so MANY fringing people in my life!!!of all shapes, sizes,colors,SMELLS and ethnic backgrounds...it was overwhelming...and not a little bit scary and loud as hell.
GIT was located on the corner of Hollywood and Highland, above the old Hollywood Wax Museum. We stopped out where there were obviously lots of musician types coming and going in and out this front door carrying guitars and book bags...I look up and displayed above the door is the sign "The Musicians Institute" with placks running down each side GIT, BIT, PIT!!! I had arrived!!!! I could hardly believe it.
We walked inside out of the glaring sun and up the stairs and were directed to the business office. There I met this Italian woman who was the wife do Tommy Tedesco. I had one of Tommy's book I had practiced out of trying to get ready for school . Tommy was this really large Italian guy with a big smile, bigger heart and one of the funniest guys I would get to know at School. He was by far the MOST recorded guitar player in history. 30 plus years as "First Chair" on guitar in the LA studios...you name it ,if it played on TV,the local movie house or drive in,cable or radio
you probably heard him...hell he was the guitar player who played on ALL the Monkeys tunes...he was amazing..
They gave me a player card, ID cut me a check for the balance of my student loan, and directed me to open an account with the Crocker bank across the street where the school did their business. Then they handed me a schedule for the following weeks orientation and class sign. I thought "Cool" then one of the gals took us on a tour. MI as I had said was upstairs from the Wax museum and was set up with hall ways full of lockers, several practice rooms,and study rooms with cubicles that had a tape player and a place to plug both a set of head phones and guitar. A lot of the courses were on video so as time went on you could learn on your own schedule. Video lessons like this were still something new,this being 1983. There were 3 performance rooms for live performance classes,seminars and student concerts. P1,P2,P3, they even had a working 8 track recording studio in P3. Plus there were several drum rooms. Lots of Peavey amps and a few of these amps from the 70's called "Lab Series".There was a player lounge that had a little shop run by a gal named Cindy...the wife of one of the teachers...here she sold pop,snacks and lots and LOTS of coffee..the students could grab some joe,smoke a cigarette or two between classes...cool place. As I walked around seeing guitars and bass players everywhere,the sounds of people jamming,drummers wailing away I was totally tripping .It was truly an international place. I was seeing musicians from literally all over the world. couldn't wait.
We went to the bank opened an account and they gave me "counter checks" till I got ones with my name. Now back in Alaska these would be no problem..LA..different story.
The next day we went apartment hunting. Bob had told me in no uncertain terms not to rent in Hollywood. At the time (and he was right)Hollywood was no place for a young wife...being crime ridden and frankly sleazy as hell. So we went out to the valley and looked around. I answered an add for a one bedroom furnished place and went to go meet the landlord. He was this old sawed off gray haired guy who immediately began to brag about being a poet and mathematician...etc,etc..so I asked about the place he said yea he had one but wasn't going to rent it to me..."Why not"?...You're to fat!....now at the time weight was something I had always struggled-with but I wasn't like.."house big".. this dick head said "I just got new furniture..and I don't want your big ass rolling around on it"....I'm looking down on this arrogant squirt of an asshole...thinking...the nerve!..and frankly it hurt a little being already a bit sensitive about my weight...anybody else would have smacked him...me I just walked back to the car...when the wife asked what he said I told her....He says I'm too fat...oh well...
Later that day we had our first encounter with LA smog...while driving in Burbank around 5 p.m. both of us began to have difficulty breathing..having a car from Alaska with no air-conditioning..we were sucking in out door fumes.
Pretty soon my eyes began to burn and water,there was a tightness in my chest and we both began to cough.
We had enough! We shot back to the hotel as fast as we could and managed to breathe easy for the rest of the night...whoa!...
We found a nice cozy little place in Van Nuys off of Roscoe blvd. It was totally "California" a few steps out the door in you were in the pool,three palm trees out front..beautiful tree lined street. And no "cock roaches". We put the remainder of our cash down and went back to the hotel. Having to wait till monday. I figured I had checks and plenty of cash in the bank. Well Holiday Inn wouldn't take the checks and the Iraqi manager wouldn't budge..the thought of sleeping in the car over the weekend didn't appeal to me so...we did what Christians do...we called a church...found a wonderful latino church that took our counter check and we didn't have to sleep in the car...
At the end of my first week in LA ,my wallet had been lifted,$200.00 stolen,my stereo had been ripped off,some sawed off squirt of a landlord would not rent to me because I was to fat and a heartless hotel manager almost forced the wife and I to sleep in the car...as I sat there thinking about all this on my way to my first day in school I noticed a bumper sticker the car in front of me......"Welcome to LA.....NOW GO HOME!!!..what had I gotten myself into??
All that faded away during my first week of school. We all crowded into to P 1 as Pat Hicks the cofounder of the school addressed the new class for the first time. "Welcome to HOLLYWEIRD"!!!!he said as He starts with a history of the school. GIT was born out of this, Pat had owned a music store and one day he walks in and there is this amazing guitar player sitting there playing ....one Howard Roberts..Howard was active in the Jazz world and a very busy studio musician. But he had a real passion for teaching. Ron Benson the general manager of the school had been a student of Howard and became a good friend..Ron used to tell this story of going over to Howard's place and see Howard sitting there chain smoking,drinking beer and writing all these lessons and studies on guitar. Howard essentially took the discipline of classical music instruction and fused it with Jazz and popular music. Howard also had very strong opinions about the current condition of the education available to guitar players of the day...so one day the three of them came up with a "working blue collar class guitar school" Pat had the business chops Ron could over see the school management and Howard had come up with a curriculum. GIT was born...the school at this time was still very small and only 5 years old and there was a friendliness about it..Pat explained that we would also be learning techniques on the process of absorbing information and there would be a ton. This week of orientation was special. Traditionally at the end of each day different groups of teachers put on a concert at P3. Each group had a specialty..Fusion,Jazz,Blues/Rock,Latin/Pop..we would have that but on Friday that week Tommy Tedesco was bringing his trio in and was going to record a "Direct to Disk" album..no over dubs or retakes..everything direct and burned to disk..a challenge to say the least.
We broke up and started signing up for classes and getting our schedules. The school tested you to see where your level was as far as your understanding of theory...I wound up one step from the bottom. They assigned you to a private teacher. Each student had to have a private lesson once a week. Here I met my teacher(my second only in my whole life)...Frank Gambale..the "Thunder from Down Under"...he had just graduated and had won "Player of the Year" then the school offered him a job. Frank was from Australia...and was a "Jaw Dropping" guitar player. I would learn a lot from over the next year.
At break I went to Cindy's for a cup of coffee. Milling around with all these players I was like a kid in a candy store. I met guys from England,France,Germany, Switzerland, There were guys from the east coast, the midwest...There was this one guy from Brazil who could hardly speak english...but he has a walking talking expert on all things "Hendrix"..story had it that he used to tour South America doing Hendrix shows...couldn't speak a lick of english..but could sing and play just about every Hendrix tune ever recorded. I met these three guys from New York city...we would become good friends as we shared classes..two guys from Manhattan and one irish dude from the Bronx. These fellas were the funniest guys I would meet...over that year they would constantly keep me in stitches. Standing there I had to pinch myself....I was actually here...here at GIT...in LA..WOW..I was finally living my dream!
We went back to Orientation and Ron Benson addressed the class. Ron was friendly guy with a warm smile and easy going manner. He shared some of his adventures as a working guitar player and what some of us may have to look foward to. He said there would be a special treat after lunch.. just so happens Joe Pass was in town and was coming to the school for an impromptu concert/seminar. I thought "Wow Joe Pass!!!" I had been aware of him for years, an absolute master of "Chord Melody Solo Jazz Guitar" I had one of his books and frankly couldn't make hide nor hair out of it. But man! this was my first day at school!..It's Hollywood..the Famous mix with the Faceless...Joe frigging PASS....
At lunch I stepped outside in the glaring sun and heat to go get a bite. All along the boulevard there were every kind of venders,shops,restaurants..the sights,sounds and smells were overwhelming. Being from a small town if you wanted to eat Chinese you had the option of 3 places , here in the yellow pages it was page after page of every type,taste or style,
Here there was every sort of cuisine you could imagine...rice bowls for two bucks,falafel's, there was a "White Castle" that sold tiny 35 cent sliders. Pizza by the slice, Oriental buffet that was all you could eat for less that a pack of smokes..and the characters on the street were just as diverse as the food! This was the 80's. Guys dressed in spandex with more make-up and better looking hair than the girls I knew back home, leather clad gays, bikers, "valley girls" the contrast was striking...I remember standing there seeing some homeless guy in tattered rags who looked like he hadn't bathed in a year..digging in the trash for something to eat while sitting at the stop light waiting to go was a 60,000 dollar Porsche..what paths had led these two people to such different destinies...the contrast was sobering.
Back in school we continued to go thru orientation. One of the things they did was assign us a "band" to play with..The school figured out that many of the students coming there had little or no live playing experience. Yes there were a lot of players who had been working musicians but the majority were young and inexperienced..the average age of attendees was 18-21...I was 28 at the time and being a bit older certainly helped me handle things. Plus at the school you are playing in front of 300 guitar players...that can in itself was intimidating. To graduate you had to perform at least 20 times that year. So they put you in "bands" and made you perform.
The word came that Joe was on his way. So I hustled over to P3 and I could see Joe walking up the steps with a really nice leather "Gig Bag" strung over his shoulder. He was a rather short man with a receding hairline and was definitely from an Italian family. He had this discussed look of distain on his face as he was saying "I never come to Hollywood..this place is a sleaze hole..." I made sure I had a front row seat because I wanted to see this master at work...He walks up with Ron Benson sucking on a cigar drinking coffee out of a Styrofoam cup..as him and Joe chat.."You look good Joe ..lost a little weight?..Yea I'm feeling good..Hows the wife and kids?"...if the situation hadn't involved a guitar, the school, you would have thought these two guys were factory workers hangin out at a picnic...They had set up one of the peaveys for Joe to plug into...He looks at it and says..."There are to many knobs on that thing..how you guys ever figure these out ? My amp at home has three knobs...volume ,tone...and something I've never touched..presence...I'm fine with just 2 knobs..maybe even one"...I tell you here and now 1, 2 knobs was ALL he needed...once he started to play...he amazing...I sat there, in fact the whole room sat there in rapt attention as we watched this display of solo Jazz guitar wonder. I had no point of reference...I could not even begin to grasp what I was watching and seeing...He played moving bass lines that had a swing feel to them as he superimposed chords and melody lines on top ...he would rattled off single flurries of jazz lines all the while his foot tapping out a solid rhythm...he sounded like 4 guitar players at once!..Joe would become a major influence on me for the rest of my life. I sat thinking..."I'll never ever be that good".IT WAS MIND BLOWING .Funny, as of this writing(25 years later) I have had a long career playing just like him(still not as good) the bulk of my gigs these days being solo chord melody jazz guitar....but back then it was as foreign to me as the the Latino language I was hearing everyday since moving to LA....
After a few more tunes Joe stops takes a sip out of his paper cup, re-ignites his cigar and opens up for questions....I'm thinking..''ok ...here comes THE CONFUSION!"...but I was very surprised...the questions were more confusing than his answers...Joe had a very simple approach to a very very sophisticated style of music and he was honest,unpretentious,down to earth about it..He said "I just think in terms of 3 chords..Major,Minor,or Dominate 7th and I try to play scales the fit each chord...major,melodic minor, harmonic minor, minor pentatonic..and passing chord tones as a bridge from one idea to another"....I'm thinking ..."ok maybe all this isn't as mysterious as I thought"..even though at the moment I didn't know the difference between a major chord or a major rash!....finally someone mentions his book(the one I couldn't make heads or tails out of)...Joe goes.."I didn't even write that thing..some guy did..I looked it over..then said..."Looks good , when do I get my royalty check"???....I was beginning to get a clue...these mysterious,"Monsters" the "keepers of the secrets"...weren't all that different from me...they wanted to get "Paid"...
After seeing Joe I went to go meet my "band"...It was a very odd mix of characters. Two other guitar players a bass player, drummer an me, a short fat boy from Fairbanks Alaska. The guitar players were this,One was a young kid maybe 18,who obviously was a hard rocker with a bit of a punk edge to him..a good player. The other guy would become a good friend of mine thru the school year. Richard Gomez..He was by far the most experienced musician of the all of us. He was from Santa Dominga(The Dominican Republic) who had had quite a career there. He had played with Bob James(keyboards currently with FourPlay) and had gigged all over his homeland. He had left a wife and two kids back home to study here..he was a cool guy with a thick accent. We hit it off right away. The rhythm section was made up of this bass player who had "rockabilly" written all over him..He was a short squat chunky guy with slicked back greasy hair who smoked filterless Camels one after another while he spit a lot. He played a vintage Fender Tele bass ,slung down to his knees and sported baggy jeans and a western cotton shirt..He grinned constantly thru cigarette stained teeth....I liked him immediately!...our drummer was this wirery little gal from San Francisco..she was dressed all in black with a Ramones tee shirt under a torn fish net type sweater...shin tight black jeans..jet black spiky hair, lots of punk jewelry ,wild make up and bright red Converse High Tops!..she walks up to me sticks out her hand and says..."I'm Kat...Gerooooowl".. "I think...Whoa....she's....uh..unique".....We reserved time at one of the rehearsal studios for the following week to try to figure out what we were gonna do. At this time my whole musical history had been in church,in Christian music and my own original stuff...I didn't know a single song! But I was well aware of BB King,Hendrix, John Lee Hooker..Santana ZZ Top..I figured we could start with the blues..simple enough. And I got tagged to sing(God help the listeners)
My former teacher Bob had told me to save everything they gave me,every scrap of paper,every hand out. Even if I wasn't going to look at it then I would at sometime later..I was collecting a pile already and it was only the first day of school. Finally they herded us into P3 to see the first teacher concert of the week...once again I got as close to the front as I could...
First up was "The Don Mock Band" Don was a Seattle transplant who came down during the year to teach at MI. He was the "Fusion" guy, Mr Jazz-Rock. He taught a lot of the harmony and theory classes,as well as single string technique. Plus he headed up the Fusion classes and odd meter studies. I was not prepared for what was about to happen. Don was this tall healthy looking guy with sandy blond hair and an easy smile. He looked like a cross between a surfer and a zen master. He was standing there on stage with a custom made double neck guitar. The top half being your standard two humbucker electric guitar but the bottom half was one to the first generation guitar synths. He was years ahead of everyone in this regard. The synth had a "Touch sensitive" neck with a pitch bender control on the bottom horn..just like those keyboards of the day. The problem with guitar synths back then ( and for many years to come) is that guitar strings vibrate or "osolate" at odd and even intervals..which makes the computer running the synth got confused and it doesn't "track well" which means this...you hear every other note and you have to slow down and play be very very clean and precise. This was not a problem for Don.
I was not prepared for what I was about to see and hear. He began to play the most amazing stuff I had ever EVER heard...this was guitar playing at a level I never even knew existed. Off the CHART...the chords he used the tone, his mind boggling technique...I never heard stuff like this on the radio back home!!!I began to get emotional....In fact I felt God's presence...wave after wave of His presence...11 years ago on a sunday night God had called me...given me the gift of music...handed me a guitar...Now God had placed me in a school with the absolute cream of the crop...the greatest guitar players alive for me to study under...God was seeing to it that I would get the proper and best education I could..!!! The moment was astounding! I stumbled out the door drained and weak in the knees. My head spinning with what I had just heard.
The rest of the week was just as amazing. The next day it was the Jazz Guys..Joe Diorio,Ron Eschete,Bob Magnesum..They swung thru "Real Book" tunes as well as some bop stuff..Ron was the Chord Melody teacher and played the first seven string "Beneditto" guitar I ever saw ....it cost 3400.00 in 1983....today those guitars go for no less that 20,000...Next day it was the rock and blues guys...Keith Wyatt(who would teach the rock classes) Steve Travato who was actually the country teacher but the guy could rock..and Kimbo Smith..what a character..he WAS the blues guy...They got up and did note for note versions of "Crossroads" "Manic Depression" "Heartbreaker"...Keith played the entire solo...note for note...He actually wrote it out in notation once for a class(I know I still have his transcription) He and Kimbo went into the crowd during Crossroads...wild...and wonderful. The next day were to funk latin and jazz guys..These were the guys in the Larry Carlton/Steely Dan vein...Danny Gilbert,who would become my fingerboard harmony and single string tech master class teacher and Frank Gambale. It was here that I'd see what Frank would become known for...Sweep Picking. an extremely difficult style of flat picking involving sweeping the pick over arpeggio's..(an "arp" is a chord spread out across the strings like a scale)..I watched in amazement as he picked across all 6 strings doing an arp..and moving up in chromatic notes(notes that are one fret apart)...building and building and going faster and faster...what incredible chops...finally that friday I sat in P1 and watched Tommy record his album along with two other guitar players. Playing some of the most beautiful music I ever heard..Tommy was really a master on a nylon string...his touch and taste and great tone and melody was second to none...needless to say it had been an exhilarating and exhausting week.
I had asked someone at school where there was a good music store near by(I had sold all my gear back in Alaska and wanted to gear up). The guys at school told me one of the best was in Santa Monica. They gave me directions so the next day I headed there. I remember it being hard to find..it was situated behind somebody's house and I recall walking thru a yard till you got behind the place and there was this big wear-house looking structure.
Just prior to moving to LA I had gotten deep into the band Van Halen. Eddie had become a very large influence on me. He is why all these years later I still play a Strat with a Floyd thru a Marshall. So I walk into the big place and I see every kind of guitar ,amp,effect that you can imagine...here again being from a small town in Alaska something like this is "Choice" I notice a "Guitar room" in the corner of this big wear-house. sort of a 40x40 class inclosed room. I walk in and see there are guitars hanging from the walls and a double row down the middle. I walk down the end of the row and take down this nice Gibson Firebird..a guitar I always wanted to check out but never had a chance to back home. Now remember this is my first week in LA. I'm sitting there noodling away..at the end of this row of guitars when I look up and see all these clerks and sales people milling around...I glance over by the door...and think...is that Alex Van Halen...Eddie's Brother???...so I look over and not 10 feet from me is...You guessed The man Himself....EDDIE....I'm a short fat boy from Fairbanks Alaska...I'm sitting in the same room with Eddie Van Halen....I'm breathing the same Eddie Air.....EDDIE....VAN HALEN!!!!!...I immediately put the guitar down...and sit in awe....He was bringing back some basses the band had ordered. He stands up...it's 11 in the morning..he has an ever present cigarette in his mouth and a can of beer in one hand...He points and says "I'll take that one,that one,those two and I don't have one of these in my collection so I'll take that too...send 'em up to the studio".....in 10 seconds he spent almost 10 grand...oh the life of a rich and famous rock star....My Moment of EDDIE....I didn't buy anything that day...I went home to the wife and let it all sink in...what a week I had!!!!!!!