Introductions All Around

The world was filled with promise on a hot, sunny day in September of 1981. I had just graduated from High School, and had enrolled in the University of Colorado under a full academic scholarship. Other schools had been interested in me, most notably Harvard, but I would have none of that. Harvard didn't even have a music school! CU, on the other hand, had one of the two or three most prestigious recording schools in the country. Since I had grown up in Evergreen, less than an hour from the CU Denver campus, it seemed an obvious choice.

CU didn't have on-campus housing, so during the Summer I had looked around for a house to rent. I found a beautiful little place, tucked away in the trees just off of Wadsworth Boulevard, right next to Crown Hill Cemetery.

By an odd coincidence, a good friend of mine who had killed himself in High School was buried there. I had attended his memorial, but couldn't bring myself to attend the burial. Thus, I didn't know where he was buried until some time after I moved into the house on Wadsworth.

In between moving my gear into the house and getting to know my new roommate, I was on the phone constantly with my best friend John. A bass player I had been in a couple of bands with already, he was a year younger, so he was just beginning his senior year of High School. Somehow, he had gotten wind of a local band that needed a bass player, and he needed me to drive him to one of their gigs. John had a driver's license. What he lacked was a car.

"So tell me about the band," I asked. Of course I wanted John to get a gig, but the bottom line was that I was more interested in getting one myself.

Knowing immediately my motive in discovering more about "his" opportunity, he responded with "Well, they're called Strider, and they don't have a keyboard player."

The casual observer would think that was a door-closer, but I couldn't help but think that they must really need a keyboard player. How could you possibly have a band in the new decade without one? I was perfect for the job - no one to compare to, I had only to prove myself.

"What's the name mean?"

"It's a character from Lord of the Rings. They're playing Saturday at Loretto Heights, you wanna go?" The translation of course was "You wanna take me?"

"Sure, let's do it," I responded faux-enthusiastically.

Loretto Heights is a small college that was having a meet-and-greet for the new students, with a metal band called Strider playing the main stage. The main stage consisted of a couple of choir risers stacked on top of each other on the main lawn with no lighting and no canopy, during an afternoon that seemed unusually warm for September in Colorado.

These guys were the real deal to me. All of them had long hair, they had real guitars, real Marshall amps, a soundman, and to a college puke who had never been in a band that played Blue Oyster Cult, they were awesome. They were loud, they knew the tunes much better than the bands I had been in, and most importantly, they had the rock 'n roll attitude. I was speechless as I listened to them pound through AC/DC, April Wine, UFO, Tommy Bolan, and many others I didn't even recognize.

Holy Hell! There was so much power in what they were doing! Not just volume (though there was definitely that), but a palpable force of nature that was being channeled through them. I felt energized listening to them, like something was being unleashed within me. Something that had been waiting for years to get out, and only made itself known when I was listening to music as loud as I could stand it through headphones. I felt like I could listen for hours, but when they finally went on break, I did notice that my ears were starting to ring. I didn't care. I was all about the ringing.

"Hey, I'm Michael." came a friendly, forceful voice, directed at John. "Did I talk to you on the phone?" He shook John's hand with the biggest forearm I had ever seen in real life. It was much larger than it should have been for the rest of his body. I would learn later that he had been a professional arm wrestler sometime in the past.

"Yeah, I'm John. This is Craig, he drove me here."

Michael glossed over the ridiculousness of the statement by asking us what we thought of the band. We practically fell over ourselves inside, but we didn't want to appear too fawning or anxious, so we just said "You guys sound great!" In unison. Idiots.

This was my destiny. I could FEEL it! Nothing could stop me from forcing myself upon the Strider organization, and bringing their sound to a whole new level with my talent and attitude. I was on my way, finally, after five years of practicing, hoping, dreaming. I was about to make it!

"All right! Thanks for coming out. Well, this is our last gig. We're breaking up."