Nomadds I’ve played in rock bands, blues bands, a lot of country bands, various lounge lizard ensembles, desperate bands, loud bands, bad bands…well, you know. The Nomadds was my first band though, and we all know how memorable firsts can be. We were already an established, rock-fueled, country-influenced, vocally-dominated working band when the British launched their invasion of American music. We made the transition with ease and simultaneously became the area’s most popular band.  We recorded an album to sell at the dances we played and remarkably, forty-five years later, it’s become a sought after collector’s item and has been reissued in both vinyl and CD formats, something this incredibly obscure, painfully local, bar/dance band could never have imagined in 1965.  I produced the reissue for Music Maniac Records located in Turbingen, Germany and it appears on Way Back Records, which is a subsidiary of Music Maniac. Erik Lindgren did the restoration and remastering at his Sounds Interesting Studio in Middleborough, Massachusetts.  Stewart Adam at Creative Audio Works, also in Middleborough, provided noise reduction services.  They've done a superb job of resurrecting the original recording, first released on April 17, 1965. In addition, Mike Dugo has entended his hospitality and generosity at 60sgaragebands.com making it possible for you to get to know The Nomadds better. The Nomadds extend a very special thanks to all of you. A complete history of The Nomadds can’t be told without including a subplot that is both powerful and very personal to me. It has to do with the struggles I faced in the church I grew up in. The Church of Christ. The Nomadds became unavoidably snagged in the church’s machinery and the result was a sort of abnormal, mutant, drag and tug that intertwined with the gears of the band and affected the way we did business, prompted the addition of the second ‘D,’ and ultimately pulled the band under.  It's a story only I can tell. The Nomadds: Lee Garner, Tony Cannova, Denny Kuhl, Dean Kuehl and Greg Johnson Diary Of A Madd Guitar Player: The Garage Band…Everyman’s Band In the fall of 1962 I was a high school freshman. On Saturdays, and Monday and Friday night, I worked at Collier’s Music Store in Freeport, Illinois, my hometown. Freeport is a town of about 28,000 people. It sits right in the middle of the state, 130 miles northwest of Chicago, 12 miles from the Wisconsin line, with the Mississippi river 60 miles to the west. Edith Kaufman A few years before, C.L. Thompson, a family friend, had provided me with that glorious rite of passage for every guitarist, the magnificent eagle-claw G and the equally superb C and D7 chords, and that was my start. However, I had been taking weekly guitar lessons at Collier’s for about two years from a woman named Edith Kaufman. She was a wonderfully energetic lady who loved music and her influence was enourmous. She took me under her wing and while I continued lessons, I took beginning students under her supervision.  I gave my first guitar lesson on July 19, 1962. I had turned fourteen the previous month. Edith didn’t sit in on that first one, however; I was on my own. Trial by fire. I went down to Collier’s, got in a teaching studio and my boyhood chum, Kenny Waller, was my very first student. He came in, I showed him a couple of chords, and I was a teacher, thus setting in motion an activity that in later life would become a fulltime line of work.  Collier's Music Store In addition to teaching, I was working as a clerk in the store. It was a typical mom and pop music store with home organs, band instruments, sheet music, guitars and drums, and records. It was the only one in the area and was a hub for all manner of musically involved people.  I worked at Collier's the entire four years I was in high school and it was there that I met three of the other four Nomadds. It was on a slow, quiet Friday night that Greg Johnson ambled in. He was twenty at the time. He had driven over from Stockton, Illinois, a small town of 1,900 people, 20 miles due west of Freeport. We struck up a conversation and I asked him over to my house to play some music. He had a wonderfully fluid and defined voice and played exceptional rhythm guitar. It worked. And that was the beginning of The Nomads. The second ‘D’ came later.    A couple of months earlier when school started I met Tony Cannova. We immediately became best friends and he would come over and play an old set of drums I had pieced together. I started taking drum lessons in the school band program when I was 10, but it wasn’t long before I wanted to take a different direction. Drums or not, I was a guitar player. I had figured out a couple of basic rock patterns on drums though and I showed them to Tony. He took it from there and developed into a rock solid drummer.  Greg, Tony, and I played on and off into the winter of 1963 when Greg asked two friends he had gone to high school with in Stockton to join us. ‘Stick,’ Dean Kuehl (pronounced Keel), was twenty-one and had a beautifully textured baritone voice which was a perfect balance to Greg’s tenor. Stick also played harmonica. Dennis Kuhl (pronounced Cool, nicknamed Denny and referred to as Kool much of the time), was twenty-two and just out of the Air Force. He had a $75, 1957 Stratocaster that had been painted red and Greg talked him in to trading it for a 1963 Gibson EBO bass. I showed Denny a couple of bass lines and a simple pattern used for three chord songs and he took it and ran with it. He grew into an excellent player just like Tony did. The two of them were always right in the pocket and The Nomadds couldn’t have asked for a better foundation to layer on. The Basement The Nomadds were actually a basement band rather than a garage band. I don’t remember a single rehearsal being held any place other than my parent’s basement. They were really great about it too. The basement became the hangout for so many musicians and friends. And there were a lot of really good ones around back then. Richie Anderson, Bill Carroll, Clyde and Jim Cole, Linda Cole, Jon Coon, Chuckie DiModica, Gary Downing, Robert Earl, Greg Farmer, Kokie Griffin, Roger Hayes, Don Herbig, Art Herendeen, Dan and Dave Irwin, Jim Martin, Tom Meinders, Darrel Moore (my Brother), Mike Noble, Tony Pfeiffer, John Smithe, Joe Speilman,  Dave “Fats” Weaver and one of my mentors, Jack Farringer, who turned me on to Howard Roberts, showed me ’Apache’ and taught me how to jam on ’Stormy Monday Blues.’  There were many others who contributed to the Freeport live music scene as well. (Most of you know who you are!) Countless hours of music came from the basement and The Nomads, as well as, The Nomadds, would unfailingly rehearse there at least once a week. Mom and Dad's house was at 621 West Cleveland Street in Freeport.  It was a very small house and we were directly underneath the living room. No ceiling in the basement just rafters. No insulation, soundproofing, nothing. They never once told us we couldn’t rehearse there, and they never once told us to turn down either. When it was time for us to call it quits for the night, usually around 9:00, we’d be playing and Dad would stand at the top of the stairs and flick the lights on and off real quick. We’d go ahead and wrap it up.  Stick recalls, “As I think back, your Mom and Dad were angels to put up with the rock and roll music we were playing at least once every week in your basement. I know they were country fans, and old country at that. We were probably loud enough to be heard up and down both sides of the street.” Northern Illinois Nomadds Mom and Dad liked the guys a lot and extended themselves to the band in many ways. In fact, the earliest photo of the band is at my folks' house.  Mom had fixed dinner for us and we are all eating in the backyard.  And what do Northern Illinois Nomadds eat?  Corn on the cob, of course.  The Nomadds were always welcome in the Freeport house and the guys were always very respectful toward my parents. And they remain so after all these years.  The five of us were simmering as a band but, before that became official, Greg and I played a lot of places as a duo and Stick joined us forming a trio that played many more.  In the spring of 1963, the five of us played publicly for the first time. A good friend of the band, Harvey Lee Wilhelms, put a dance together at The Owls Club a couple of miles outside of Freeport just off the Pearl City Highway. We were pretty rough but everyone had a good time and it put us in front of an audience. They passed the hat and we each got about $5. The band hadn’t been named yet but we were in business. After that, we would play anywhere anyone would have us. The caravan trailed in and out of house parties, community events, dances, bars... There was a dance hall in Galena, Illinois called The Royal Palace we worked a lot, and I even remember a supermarket opening where we played on a flatbed trailer. As time went on we were working small towns all over Northwestern Illinois. Of course, we played Freeport a lot. We also played Stockton, Warren, Elizabeth, Hanover, Savanna, Forreston, Sterling, Dakota, Lena, McConnell, and we went a few miles across the Wisconsin the line to play Apple River, Hazel Green and Gratiot.     We were staying busy and got even busier after those momentous magic moments when The Beatles played on The Ed Sullivan Show in February of 1964. The Nomadds had already been together for some time.  We were well rehearsed and thanks primarily to the vocal power Greg and Stick had to offer we were able to make the transition into doing British Invasion material almost immediately. Because that shift in pop music was so powerful, pervasive, and in demand, our popularity shot up and we were suddenly the Northwestern Illinois British attaché of Saturday night teenage dance music. The kids loved it. We were a hit.  Club Swing in Savanna, Illinois - June 26,1965 We played at a place called Club Swing in Savanna, Illinois. Savanna sits right on the Mississippi River. “I met a girl in Savanna a couple years back that was a big fan,” remembers Kool. “She told me that when the kids knew The Nomadds were coming to town, she said it was like The Beatles coming to town. She said we were The Beatles to her and the entire town loved us.” And The Madds were Madd about The Beatles. I remember riding around with Greg in his ‘55 Chevy listening to the radio one night in late January of 1964. At the corner of Empire Street and Carroll Avenue all of a sudden he said, “Hey, wait a minute, man. Listen to this.” He pulled over to the curb trying to pull in the AM signal and there it was, ‘I Want To Hold Your Hand.’ Everything changed. The Nomadds saw The Beatles twice. The first time was on September 5, 1964 at the International Amphitheatre in Chicago where Jackie DeShannon opened the show. On August 20, 1965, once again in Chicago, we saw the evening show at White Sox Park, later to become Comiskey Park, and is now known as U.S. Cellular Field. King Curtis and Cannibal and The Headhunters opened. My ticket for each show was $4.50. And yes, the din was unbelievable, broken only periodically by undulating, iridescent sheets of implied music weaving in and out of the excitement sizzling above the crowd. By the summer of 1965, just after the Nomadds album was released, our song list consisted of 49 tunes and 21 of those were Beatles songs. We wanted to go heavy with Beatles covers on the album but we couldn’t get licenses to use the songs. At that time those songs were being kept close to home. It worked out for the best, however, because when we put the record together it meant recording a broader range of material and representing the band much more accurately. Gear and Beatle Boots... On a typical Saturday I would work at Collier's and then run home to get ready for the gig that night.  Tony would usually pick me up and I'd already have the gear from the basement sitting in the front yard.  I have a picture of it.  And sitting right on top of the trap case there are two boxes of Beatle Boots! Along with our building momentum, a simultaneous undertow was strengthening that I wasn’t prepared to deal with. My first indication of it was when I was about ten. After school one day I was watching a locally produced dance show formatted like American Bandstand. My dad came in after work, sat down and watched a little bit of it then suddenly said, “That’s wrong! It’s sinful!”  While I didn’t know it until that moment, Dad damned dancing the same way my grandmother damned card playing, and make no mistake, that included Old Maid or any other parlor game involving playing cards of any kind. Cards weren’t allowed in the house at all. I didn’t have any sense of much Bandstand sin myself, but it left me off balance, confused, and even a little frightened. There it was though. That set the tone. The line had been drawn.  The Collier's Band Later, when I first started taking guitar lessons at Collier’s Music, before I had met any of The Nomadds, Edith Kaufman and another teacher decided to have a recital for their students. They needed a drummer for a band composed of two guitars and two accordions and I was elected. It became The Collier’s Band. We were rehearsing on a Saturday afternoon when, out of the blue, my dad showed up. He wanted to speak with the teachers and I could tell he was in a serious frame of mind.  He told them in no uncertain terms that it was okay for me to play in the band for the recital, but I was “forbidden” to play for dances. Of course, they were somewhat taken aback, but assured him that they were more focused on the recital for these first and second year music students than booking us as a dance band. The whole thing just embarrassed me. Regardless, the line had been underlined. Danny & The Diamonds Not long after that, in another pre-Madd-band named Danny and The Diamonds, I actually did play for a couple of dances. Danny was Danny Heine and he played a Cordovox accordion, George Lazrus played drums and I played guitar. Danny’s dad was a Freeport law officer. He took us to the gigs and kept an eye on everything while we were there. He was really terrific about the whole thing. Next thing I knew, Dad was heading up a powwow with me and Danny’s mom and dad in their basement one Saturday afternoon. I had to quit the band. Mom and Dad were the best in the world. Please hear this and don’t doubt it for an instant. I couldn’t possibly have asked for more caring, loving, and giving parents. I loved them deeply. They had principle, and prayerfully, faithfully accepted the responsibility of the family. Dad was driven to do the will of the Lord and his entire life was anchored in his deep religious conviction. His faith was one of seeking the Lord’s will in his daily life, and he wasn’t shy about God. He deserves the respect afforded any man who remains true to his principles and actively applies them. My father didn’t want his son to go down the wrong path, and he wasn’t going to allow me to be in a situation that could lead me into temptation. “Abstain from the very appearance of evil.” But temptation can’t be contained in spite of our best efforts. It’s not very localized. We can’t run from its ever-presence and, it should be remembered that temptation is not a sin.  And Mom and Dad loved music. When I was growing up I listened to all sorts of records. Mom loved country and gospel. Dad loved classical music. He also loved opera and on Saturday afternoons you could hear Live From The Met blaring from the living room through our big console radio. Later on, he was a huge ABBA fan too! Make that, !!!! He always liked Ricky Nelson a lot and they were both Madd fans on top of that. They never discouraged music in me; in fact, they encouraged it. They provided lessons and instruments early on and were incredibly tolerant of my practicing. They opened their home to so many musicians who came and went and were really just fine with all that came with my being involved in music. But it was the dancing…  Dad was a domineering force in our family.  My mom took a passive role, and I was without brothers or sisters. My upbringing was a very strict one. The church we went to played a central role in our life and, oddly enough, it played a central role in the life of The Nomadds as well. The Church Of Christ My family went to The Church of Christ. And I mean, "THE" Church of Christ, fundamentalist, literalist, and fiercely non-denominational in nature. "Neither Catholic - Protestant Nor Jew" was the sign on the front. It was a congregation of fifty or sixty people that met Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night, and had a lot of fellowship in between. My folks and I were there for all of it. As Barack Obama is quoted as saying, “As a kid I went to church like everyone else. I was forced.” The Church of Christ was first recognized as a distinct movement by the U.S. Religious census of 1906. Prior to that its history can be traced back to the reformist John Calvin. Each congregation is autonomous, answering to no larger, central governing church body, and is overseen by male elders. There are also lesser offices of male deacons. In the case of the Freeport congregation, during the time I played with The Nomadds, Winston Dell and Kenneth Lee were elders and my dad was one of two deacons.   Brother Winston Dell Brother Kenneth Lee Winston was by far the more charismatic of the two elders. He was a likeable guy, tall, good looking and always had a ready smile. He was also forceful and ambitious. He once remarked to Dad, “I’m going to make a name for myself here [in the church].” Before it was all over with Dad felt as though he had. Kenneth, on the other hand,was just the opposite.  He was a sort of non-entity, extremely quiet and non-descript. The Bible alone is the reference for all doctrine. Armed with the inerrant word of God, there is a penchant for debate and confrontation on seemingly endless points of rightness and wrongness. With God on your side, it’s hard to lose. This was a stark, black and white world.  One of the many ready topics of debate in the Church of Christ, and perhaps the one it’s best known for, next to dancing, is the use of instrumental music in the worship service. It’s not allowed. The only thing tolerated is a cappella music in the worship. However, it’s okay to use instruments of music, even in the same building, for a wedding, let’s say. That’s not a worship service, it’s a ceremony. Some churches even have a piano that’s rolled out for ‘Here Comes The Bride’ then put away again for the evening service. You get the idea.  There is a certain similarity between this and some Mennonite sects. It’s true that there is a Mennonite faction that will allow their members to own cars, but only if they’re painted black. There’s another one that will allow cars if they’re painted black, but only if all the chrome is painted black too.  The reason instrumental music was not embraced was not so much that there was anything intrinsically wrong with it. It’s that the Church of Christ doesn’t feel as though there’s any direct scriptural support for it so it’s an unacceptable practice across the board. And even though vocal music was acceptable it was only grudgingly tolerated by some in the congregation. Kenneth Lee felt that music shouldn’t be listened to at all. Period. And whether it was stated or implied I’m sure his attitude was felt throughout the congregation.  “Speak where the Bible speaks and be silent where the Bible is silent” is a Church of Christ mantra that can be applied whenever and wherever it’s convenient. It’s also the means by which any grey areas are easily dismissed. It’s not in the Bible but it’s spoken in a manner that blurs with quoted scripture and that carries with it a lot of power. It serves to fill in a lot of cracks too, and helps to make playing in a band get pretty iffy, pretty quick.  Music is unavoidably linked to dancing. And, needless to say, alcohol was also a taboo… Big Time.  “Where there’s dancing there’s always drinking!”  Coupled with a whole lot of other sins of the world, instrumental music, dancing, and drinking were a matter of explicit condemnation and the source of eternal damnation present in the fundamentalist mind-set of The Church of Christ. And they’ve all accompanied any band, anywhere they’ve ever played and, of course, that included The Nomadds.  It was clear that I was getting more and more musically involved and, I believe to some extent at least, Dad was trying to bridge the gap between the acceptable and the unacceptable with attempts at integrating what was obviously becoming a dilemma for everyone. There were a few experiments with gathering the worldly and the not so worldly together but the only result was being reminded of who was in and who was out. As far as The Nomadds were concerned, they were out. Performing at the Rockford Christian Camp in Rockford, Illinois He arranged for Greg, Stick, and me to play at the Rockford Christian Camp, a Church of Christ summer camp in Rockford, Illinois.  Of course, it was not a worship service.  It was, however, one of those situations where no one connected with anyone about anything. We played for a group of about 15 very well-behaved 10 to 12 year olds, and I remember walking through the camp afterward feeling as if I were on a different planet. An alien incapable of communicating with the local inhabitants.   Another attempt was made on March 9, 1963. The church held a dish to pass “Soup Supper” for its members at Winston Dell’s home. It was an annual event where everyone used their best soup recipe and brought their speciality for all to sample. Dad arranged for Greg, Stick, and me to play, and it was fine to do so. Once again, it wasn’t a worship service; it was a “Soup Supper.” Talk about a tough room. The Soup Supper, March 9, 1963 My Mom was the photographer/historian/documenter of everything. It’s just amazing. Amazing! It’s with great thanks to her that much of the information I’ve been able to share about The Nomadds was made possible. In one of her many three-ring-binder-book-of-records, she made a note saying that we played from 6:00–7:15 PM, which was way too long for this crowd, believe me. Most important, though, is that she took some very telling photographs that night and even if I had the thousand words that accompany each of them they wouldn’t be able to convey the disapproval and disdain that was captured by one in particular. While I’m playing my guitar, I appear as if I’m steeling myself, bracing for a wave that’s certain to be overwhelming. Winston is to the right, only partially in the frame. He’s looking directly at me with his face frozen in brooding Christian love. And so it began. Nonetheless, after listing all the different kinds of soups, mentioning that there were also relishes, cookies, brownies, coffee, and punch, and listing each and everyone in attendance, Mom said, “All departed having a good time.” And we did. I love you Mom.  So, here was the thinking: If I played in a band and it was that band, or me personally, who lured someone to hear us play and, once there, they were to smoke cigarettes, get drunk, dance, have lustful thoughts, engage in pre-marital sex in the parking lot, get a girl pregnant, or partake in God-only-knows-what other manner of evil, it would all be my fault, and I would be personally responsible for their sins, and I would most assuredly go to Hell for the activities of those I’d lured.  And I would burn for eternity. Not to mention the probability that I would personally engage in all of these activities myself and burn for eternity for that too. So, when it all got added up, it was wrong to play at dances.   No, really. No. Really. Regardless, we played for dances. Of course we did. That’s what you do when you play in a band and it was all the same to me. I just wanted to play guitar, be with my friends, and have a good time. Simple as that. Aside from all the sinning I was responsible for in the audience I did what I could when it came to sinning for myself. Smoking wasn’t quite sinful in the Church of Christ but it certainly was treated disdainfully, being encompassed in the “silent where the Bible’s silent” clause, and we all smoked like smokestacks with the exception of Tony who never did at all. The Nomadds was a drug-free band from start to stop. It never came up even once. Alcohol was a different matter though. We drank. However, I can’t boast of the two fisted rock & roll tradition of passing a fifth of Jack Daniel’s around on stage but we did have a Nomadd equivalent. I have to laugh about it now, it’s a little embarrassing even, but here it is. Somehow we got on this thing of drinking blackberry brandy. If anything, this was the drug of choice for The Nomadds. I remember drinking it on the gig on more than one occasion. We’d play the Masonic Temple in Freeport and we’d buy a Coke.  It came in a large clear plastic cup, and we’d pour about half of it out. Then we’d put brandy in it.  With the Coke! All the look of a Coke with all the bang of a berry! I have photos of a gig we played there where you can actually see one of those big plastic cups sitting on my amp. Masonic Temple Ballroom, Freeport, IL, October, 1964 On July 24, 1965, Bernie Allen, a WLS-Radio deejay, came out from Chicago and appeared at a dance we did at The Masonic. We did two sets. Then he set up a turntable, played records, gave away prizes, and signed autographs, followed by us playing a final set. Stick and I were backstage “juicin’” blackberry brandy (I still can’t believe that!), and he started calling Bernie, "Barney.” It went on all night. And I laughed all night. Dave Weaver, a friend of the band and a great keyboard player, brought in some gear and recorded the whole gig that night. He was always tinkering with equipment and electronics and he had pieced together a fuzz-tone. It was the very first time I’d ever played through one. He just plugged me into it and we went into “Satisfaction” right off the bat. I played that opening riff and, man, it was a new day! It marked the first of many glorious fuzz-tone fits to come. That song had slammed to number one on every pop music chart in the known universe that month and hit the same mark in the Chicagoland area on the WLS Silver Dollar Survey that same week. Those kids loved it. I did too.  Maybe we can release that someday. The Nomadds! - Live at the Masonic! Dave recorded another live gig of ours at The Read Park Pavilion in Freeport on September 7, 1965. There are some fun things on that too.  Nearly every gig we did was a teen dance. Very early on we played a little bar in Stockton called Gus’s a time or two and there were a couple of others but that was about it. We did play a place in Galena, Illinois called The Palace Dance Hall. That was a little rougher. Kool remembers, “There was a fight about every 30 minutes. Roy and Mary Oldenburg, the owners, told us, ‘Never stop playing!’’’ Sage advice for any band. Stockton High School, Stockton, IL, fall 1965 Once we played a dance at the Stockton High School gym. The following morning when they did the clean-up at the school they counted some 600 beer cans in the parking lot! This is the stuff legends are made of.   Speaking of which, there is a record collector in Stockholm, Sweden named Patrick Lundborg, a.k.a. The Lama. I discovered his Web site a few years ago and much to my surprise found that Patrick, a legend in his own right and a scholar of the musically obscure, had posted a review of The Nomadds album. (Patrick coined the term Madd.) Even more surprising was that in his introduction to the review, Review #57, he notes that the record Sounds Best On: Fake ID Beer Outside A High-School Dance. (Hmm…) There was a good deal of beer drinking, a little Southern Comfort and some other liquid experiments but that was about it for Nomadd debauchery. In the big picture it was all pretty tame really. Actually, I think we found it pretty hard to live up to what we weren’t.  Really. The whole thing was much more complicated than that, though, and it slowly began swirling around me and essentially without me. I didn’t know what to do. I started being choked out by this religion and my Dad’s application of it. More and more it became a matter of personal survival as much as anything else. Nearly any place we played was disapproved of.  I needed some sort of strategy to maintain a certain degree of self and keep everyone else placated. So…I lied. Then, I kept lying. “Oh, you know, people just sit around and listen.” Or, “It’s just a party at someone’s house. Yeah, everyone stands around and talks and stuff.” Whatever. They bought it, gig after gig. It was a matter of their gullibility and denial regarding me involving myself in anything questionable. But more than anything, even if the story got thin, they had total and complete faith in me and refused to believe that I would lie to them about anything. I took advantage of them a lot. And I regret that. However, while there was a zero tolerance for dancing, there also seemed to be something of a tolerance for my lying. Stick remembers, “We always thought we were getting away with something when we would tell them on weekends that we were jamming at my place, Kool’s or whatever. They knew exactly what was going on, but because we were having such a great time, they elected to turn their heads until other members of your church started asking questions and they could no longer ignore what we were doing.” My relationship with Mom and Dad and the church finally devolved into one of complete deceit and fabrication. Every teenager lies to their parents at one time or another but this was way over the top. I hated it. What an awful thing to do, lying. By nature I wasn’t an insubordinate teenager. I was a decent kid who wasn’t rejecting God, the church or my family and I didn’t want to lie about anything. I really didn’t. But I couldn’t live up to this religion I’d inherited. It was impossible. The perfection of it. I just vibrated away. Being involved in music wasn’t a decision that was mine alone to make. It was something co-decided, co-directed, and co-created by something in the universe far greater than me and I didn’t believe it was right to snub God. For all the rightness and wrongness that I was being handed, this was right too. Music was and is as close as breath, primal as sex, something inseparable from my essence. I intuited that I should be thankful for this incredible gift and inspiration that was shimmering in my soul and I found it impossible to engage in the degree of self-denial that I was being asked to participate in. It was my life too. And the rest of the band couldn’t help but get caught up in it. Mom and Dad loved the guys and they felt the same way toward them. There was a lot of deference that flowed both ways, however, if it was wrong for me to play for dances then  by extension, it was a sin for them too. I asked Tony about this and he said, “Since the rest of the band felt dancing was not a ‘sin’ (my Catholic up-bringing) we found it hard to take that what we were doing was wrong; however, we all loved and respected your Mom and Dad, and felt lying about not playing at dances was also wrong.” The Nomadds were good guys, fine people and they didn’t want to lie about anything either. Me, Dad, The Church of Christ, the guys in the band and the others who rounded out this cast of characters all somehow became entangled and snagged in each other’s reality. It was a remarkable thing to watch. I was just trying to learn the chords. The band continued to play throughout 1963 and 1964. Our visibility increased in Freeport and the surrounding towns, and playing for dances became an increasingly difficult secret to keep. I kept lying about it, but it was growing beyond my control. It was progressively a matter of adapt or die. We started booking jobs on the condition there was to be no public advertising, radio, posters or newspapers. We couldn’t run the risk of my folks or a church member seeing a poster for a dance with the band’s name, much less my picture. Of course, the church knew about my involvement with the band, but as much as possible, I’d presented it in the same non-threatening light to church members as I had my parents. Running across a dance poster would definitely present a problem. As a result, when we booked a job, as a condition of the date we began stipulating there was to be no advertising claiming we could draw a crowd by word of mouth alone. And we did. However, it just didn’t sit well with the people who were booking us. The comfort level wasn’t there and who could blame them? They had to advertise or no one would show up and that would mean either making no money or possibly even going in the hole. So, we made them a deal. We would charge a very low rate, say $100. Then above that amount, split the couple of dollars charged per person at the door 50/50, reducing the risk for the venue enough for us to get the booking, and still get the no advertising agreement. At the time, “playing for the door,” or a percentage of the door, was an unusual thing. Everything was done on a flat-rate basis; however, doing it this way met everybody’s needs. And we still made a lot of money.   In the three years the band was together we built a substantial and mobile following. We were seeing crowds of 850 and up at many of our dances and it wasn’t unusual for people to drive 120 two-lane, round-trip miles to see the band. At the dance we’d announce where we would be playing the following weekend and we could count on a crowd. And the best part was, neither my parents nor anyone from the church ever saw a poster, heard a radio spot, or saw a newspaper ad announcing the next Nomadds dance.  I imagine that if we had had the liberty of promoting ourselves more openly the band would have been much more successful than it was. The Masonic Temple Ballroom in Freeport was the biggest venue we played. It was also called The Freeport Country Center Ballroom, but it was always “The Masonic” to us. Dan Habecker was the promoter there and he always treated us really well. And, according to Kool, “…He made a ton of money off of us.” The ballroom had a capacity of 1,000 and he told us that we held the record for their highest attendance ever. No one ever beat it. Kids had to stand in the lobby because there was no room for them inside. Masonic Temple Poster, August 21, 1965 He had been using posters that said, “For Your Dancing Pleasure.” Nothing we were comfortable with, but there it was all the same. We explained the situation, however, and it was agreed that posters were okay, but the word ‘dance’ was not to be used on them. “For Your Listening Pleasure” or, his idea, “The Fabulous Double ‘D’ Nomadds’ was used for at least one dance poster on August 21, 1965. It made for much safer copy.      Even so, on one occasion, Dan somehow had posters printed up with ‘For Your Dancing Pleasure’ on them and had gone ahead and put some up the in little towns around Freeport. Once he realized what he’d done, he drove back to the towns, cut out the center portion that said “For Your Dancing Pleasure” then stapled the poster back together! Kool still has one of these.   I was making good money with the band and in addition to working with The Nomadds, I had built a substantial teaching practice. I was working in the music store when I wasn’t teaching, and I took whatever side gigs I could find. I’m certain that I was making more money than any other student in my high school. However, Dad felt it necessary to remind me that the money I was bringing home qualified as “filthy lucre” if I had earned it by playing for dances. It was all tainted with something. We had built up quite a following, we absolutely loved playing, and who didn’t want to make a record in 1964? In the spring of that year we decided to give it a try and began by thinking we’d do a 45. Greg had written a song called ‘Don’t Cheat On Me’ and we decided on ‘W.P.L.J.’ (White Port and Lemon Juice) as a B-Side. It was a shuffle tune we’d been doing on the gig.  Dexter Witt had a recording studio called Radex Recording Services located in his home at 1161 W. Lincoln Avenue in Freeport. Greg got in touch with Dexter and set up a session. His studio was set up both upstairs and down. The control room was upstairs, in a tiny room just off his dining room, and the live room was directly underneath the dining room in his basement. (We had to bring our breadcrumbs.) We’d do a take, run upstairs to listen to the playback, and then back to the basement for another take.  We played live much the same way we did at rehearsal or in front of an audience with one exception. While Tony, Greg, Stick, and I were in the basement, at Dexter’s request, Denny was upstairs in the control room plugged directly into the board and using headphones. It took some getting used to for all of us, but it was an especially uncomfortable situation for Denny. Greg and Stick used two separate mics for vocals and Greg played rhythm as we went. The only guitar he ever used with The Nomadds was his Gibson CF-150. He still has it. On the lower portion of the sound hole the finish had been chipped off due to playing full chords with repeated down and up strokes. The wood underneath was soft and slowly being worn away. It had something of a powdery feel and would actually come off on your finger.  I have a similar treasure from Nomadds days. It too is a Gibson CF-150, single cutaway, with a tobacco sunburst finish just like Greg’s. It was a gift given to me by Edith Kaufman in 1999. Collier’s Music carried both Fender and Gibson and she used the CF-150 for teaching. It’s a 1958 model and this same guitar was sitting on a stand in her studio when I walked in for my first lesson in 1960. As I said, it’s a treasure. I didn’t play any acoustic guitar on the Nomadds album. Actually, I never played any acoustic with The Nomadds at all. For the album I used a 1963 Fender Jazzmaster and a 1963 Fender Bandmaster amp that I bought at Collier's Music. Musically, The Ventures and Luther Perkins, the guitar player in Johnny Cash’s first band The Tennessee Two, most influenced my decision to buy the Fender rig, not to mention the fact that it just looked cool. It was the first “really nice” guitar I owned. Ah, the ones that get away.   The only effects I used on the record were the standard Tremolo and Reverb on the amp.  When we played live, in addition to the Tremolo and Reverb, I used a standalone Fender reverb unit (you can never have too much reverb) and a Gibson EchoPlex tape delay. I’m pictured with an Epiphone Sheraton at one of the dances we played but it was one I had borrowed and used only on that one gig. During the last couple of months the band was together I used a Gretch Tennessean I’d gotten in Nashville but past that, everything I did with The Nomadds was with the Jazzmaster/Bandmaster combination. The Nomadds never used a PA. Looking back at it now I can scarcely believe that, but sound reinforcement was light years away from the art and science it would become. We actually did gigs running everything through my Bandmaster! We did it a lot too. It was a two channel amp, Normal and Vibrato, with two inputs per channel. Denny and I went through the normal channel while Greg’s guitar went into the Vibrato channel. The vocal mic’s went into an adaptor bringing those two signals to a single 1/4" plug. That got plugged into the Vibrato channel too. And that was it. Let’s play! That amp had 40 watts with a 2x12’ cabinet and I’ll never ever know how we pulled that off without it vaporizing, but we did. As we started playing in larger venues, we would borrow a second Bandmaster. Denny and I would plug into mine while the other one was used for voices and Greg’s guitar. Later on Denny bought a 1965 Gibson Mercury I amplifier with a 2x12’ cabinet. We loved The Everly Brothers and when we saw them live, their bass player, Joey Paige, was using a Mercury I amp. And that was the one to have. I continued using my Bandmaster and the voices and rhythm guitar went into the borrowed one.   Tony used a Ludwig Super Classic drum set, like Ringo’s.  Of course. However, rather than Ringo’s Black Oyster Pearl finish, Tony had the Blue Oyster Pearl. (We were such rebels.)  Looking back, it all seems so primitive, like going into battle with a catapult.   We were happy with the results of that first Radex session and had a small number of two-sided acetates made but no vinyl records were ever pressed and released to the public. There are still a very few of these out there and, of course, they’re considerably more rare than the Nomadds album.  After recording these two tunes, we had gotten a feel for being in the studio and knowing we had a fan base to support an album, we naturally started moving in that direction. We certainly had plenty of cover material to draw on. Greg had written several other songs and we all liked the idea of doing original material. ‘Don’t Cheat On Me’ and ‘W.P.L.J.’ became part of the larger project. We did the first session for the Nomadds album on December 19, 1964 and recorded during the first three months of 1965. The song selection was a collaborative effort and the sequence in which they appeared on the album was the work of Greg and Dexter. I’ve always felt that their work created a really great overall balance for the record. For the most part the album was originally recorded on the fly, basic and rough. Mastering consisted of adding a little compression and that was about the extent of it.  The reissue was produced with a purist approach and it’s a project that has been a very long time in the works. In fact, I contacted Dexter in 1980 about whether or not the master tapes were still in existence. Unfortunately, they are gone. However, one of my own copies of the record was restored using a stereophile quality, VPI record cleaning machine. This device is standard equipment for radio stations and record libraries, including the Library of Congress. After using this cleaning method there is nothing left in the grooves but music. Pops and clicks were removed with Pro Tools, the software program Bomb Factory was used for compression, and the EQ was primarily 4-band parametric.  The restoration and remastering have resulted in the Nomadds reissue sounding as much as possible like the original 1965 recording. And isn’t that what a record is, after all? A record of that moment in time, when a band plays a song. Side 1:   1.  You Can Fall In Love Greg was the most musically forward of The Nomadds. He turned me on to The Beatles and Bob Dylan, contributed so much to the band with his vocals and rhythm playing, and he wrote songs on top of that. None of the rest of us were writing anything at that time.   This is the first of five songs he wrote for the album. It’s lighthearted, catchy and makes for a great introduction to the record. It’s the most pop-flavored of the five and showcases The Nomadds’ strongest attribute, its voices.  When considering its component parts, I've always believed this song to be the most cohesive one on the Nomadds album. 2. I’m In Transit Another one of Greg’s songs. It’s otherworldly atmosphere demonstrates his ability with melody. Melody, man. Greg’s rhythm guitar skills are evident in everything The Nomadds ever did and ‘Transit’ is no exception. Rhythm playing is often overlooked, misunderstood, and underappreciated. I learned how to play rhythm from Greg and make no mistake, Greg Johnson is one hell of a rhythm guitar player.  3. Shame, Shame, Shame Believe it or not, there was a time when you could listen to Top 40 radio and be hip to nearly everything that was going on in pop music. The AM, 50,000 watt, clear channel stations could operate on a clear channel frequency between sunset and sunrise.  And because they were so powerful they could be heard over much of the country all night long in that golden radio light.  I remember listening to WABC with Cousin Brucie in New York City, WBZ in Boston had Bruce Bradley, and my favorite, WLS, The Rock Of Chicago, had the Screamin’ Dick Biondi. Nashville was beaming up two clear channel stations from the Southland that were equally influential. WSM Clear Channel 650 broadcast the Grand Ol’ Opry and Ralph Emory hosted all the stars, all night long on the Opry Star Spotlight. (Little did I know that I would play on the Opry years later.)  Nashville will forever be known as “The Country Music Capitol Of The World” but it’s also a blues town. On WLAC-Radio, raw and down and dirty blues were being served up by Bill Allen, better known as “The Hossman.” He had a show called Ernie’s Record Parade sponsored by Ernie’s Record Mart, 179 3rd Avenue North, Nashville, Tennessee. His listeners were often confused, believing he was a black man. I was one of them but he was actually white. No one held that against him though. This man was the soul of the South. John R., who’s full name was John Richbourg, was another favorite of mine. He was wild! And when it was time to do business, he could take care of that too.  “Now you like fried chicken I know. Everybody does. How would you like to have fried chicken on your table just about any time you wanted it. Huh? Now, baby, you can. You can if you just listen to ol’ John R. I got a offer for you that will put that fried chicken on your table in no time! The Wright Poultry Farms will send you one hundred ten of the finest baby chicks you ever saw for the low, low price of just $2.95 plus $.50 handling charge. Delivered right to your door!” John R. also sold White Rose Petroleum Jelly. Just like the blues he played, he had equally down and dirty, double-entendre suggestions for its use. It was just outrageous. I still don’t know how he got away with all that he did.   John R. and The Hossman, as well as others at WLAC, played Chuck Berry, Lightnin' Slim, Lowell Fulson, Sonny Boy Williamson, Etta James, Howlin’ Wolf, Muddy Waters, Little Milton, Lightnin' Hopkins…man!  And thanks to these deejays, they all came to Freeport.  Jimmy Reed was one of my favroites.  I still have more than a dozen Jimmy Reed albums. He was an alcoholic and on a number of his recordings you can hear his wife prompting him with lyrics.  And we're the better for it.  Songs like ‘Baby What You Want Me To Do,’ ‘Hush Hush’ and ‘Ain’t That Lovin’ You Baby’ are definitive songs in the blues genre.   And ‘Shame Shame Shame’ is too. The Nomadds was anything but a blues band—Midwestern white kids playing Top 40 rock and roll in venues surrounded by cornfields, soybeans, and dairy farms. Still, the song ranks as one of the great blues tunes and Stick sings it with a gritty elegance that speaks truth. He nails the harp solo too.   4. Lucille 'Lucille' was another import from the sunny South. It was written by Richard Penniman, better known as Little Richard. Recorded in New Orleans, it was a hit for him in 1957. The Everly Brothers covered it on their 1960 album recorded in Nashville, Date With The Everly Brothers, and it’s this version that we covered. Everly Brothers harmonies were a natural for Greg and Stick and this influence is present in a lot of Nomadds music.  Tony and Denny really lock in here. While drums and bass are certainly separate instruments, they should also be regarded as something singular in nature. Something that moves and breathes, pumps blood, and these guys do just that.  5. Roll Over Beethoven This is an interesting sign of the times. American rock & roll had been brewing for considerably more than a decade before the milestone Ed Sullivan shows of February 9 and 16,1964. Prior to that time American rock & roll was being exported to European musicians and they were mixing its influence with their own music. This distinctly American Chuck Berry tune was returned to the US on The Beatles’ Second Album, released in April, 1964. And it was this version that The Nomadds covered, not Chuck Berry’s. During the sixties there wasn’t a single garage band in the United States that wasn’t playing American songs making their homecoming via British bands. 6. There Is No More To my ear, the influence of the British Invasion on Greg’s songs, and on The Nomadds, is most prevalent in 'There Is No More.' However, the band is able to move beyond its influences and it’s here that The Nomadds truly become themselves. Side 2: 1. Ain’t That Just Like Me This was almost always the “last fast dance.” I’d play that first big E chord and those kids would absolutely go nuts. A lot of people have recorded it: The Coasters, The Ventures, later on even Neil Diamond, but the version that we’re covering here is by The Searchers.  2. Don’t Cheat On Me Greg worked at Emmert’s Drug Store on Stephenson Street in Freeport. According to Greg, “I wrote ‘Don't Cheat On Me’ at the drug store toy department on a toy ukulele. The owner’s wife caught me and wanted to know what I was doing. I was just tuning the instruments! How can you sell something that doesn't sound good!” This is a personal favorite of mine. The machinery of an airtight harmonic symmetry drives his raw-boned vocal lines.   Guitar-wise, Greg moves from thinking in terms of playing full chords, as you would for acoustic rhythm, to thinking much more electric in nature and as Madd music goes, it creates a very different texture.  3. Tragedy The Fleetwoods’ version of this song is probably the best known. It peaked on the Billboard charts at #10 in 1961. It had previously charted at # 5 in 1959 by Thomas Wayne and The DeLons (Thomas Wayne is also Thomas Perkins, Luther Perkins brother.) Bryan Hyland’s version went to # 56 in 1969. This is a beautiful song and Stick’s treatment of it makes it that much more so. He used an old trick called "doubling" by overdubbing his vocal track with a second one. You can use the technique on any instrument for the same effect. Since an exact duplication of a first track is impossible, even with the best of efforts, the combination of the two tracks result in a fatter more present sound. It’s called slap-back. Think Elvis’ ‘Heartbreak Hotel.’ In the digital domain it’s the equivalent of adding a small amount of delay, say 20-30 ms, but without the predictability. With ‘Tragedy,’ the original intent was achieved; however, there was no great obsessing over getting the tracks as precise as possible. The second track floats over the first creating an expansive, ethereal effect.    Stick’s talent and versatility can’t be denied. Once, at a Nomadds’ rehearsal, I remember the two of us playing around with an old Ink Spots tune called ‘Whispering Grass (The Trees Don’t Need To Know).’ It’s a song from the Doo-Wop era and it seemed effortless for him to step into that context, perform it beautifully, and then return to The Nomadds rehearsal.  In the years following The Nomadds, Stick even became involved in barber shop quartet singing! Recording in the Radex live room He can also sing country as it was meant to be. In fact, not long after we did the Nomadds album we went back to Radex and recorded twelve tracks of hard country. Greg wasn’t on it. It was Stick, with me, Tony and Denny.  I played both acoustic and electric. There are a couple of pictures of us cutting these tracks in the Radex live room and the Nomadds album was recorded in the same place.  We recorded all cover tunes by people like Hank Snow, Ernest Tubb, Leroy Van Dyke, Faron Young, and Johnny Cash. I have an acetate of these recordings and I’d love to see it released to the public one day. Hey, all you rockers out there, might change your lives!  In the case of ‘Tragedy,’ however, Stick makes the song his own and delivers a silken performance, speaking to us heart to heart. When we recorded 'Tragedy,' Greg and Stick used the same mic and for the very last chord, Greg raised his guitar up to deliver that big warm Major 7 chord. There were a couple of little ball ends from broken strings inside the body of his guitar and they started rolling around. You have to listen closely but you can hear those little clicks.   4. Love Potion No. 9 I’d had the 45 of this Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller tune done by The Clovers for a long time. It was a hit for them in July of 1959. The Searchers had a #3 hit on it in 1964 and it serves as another example of American R&B brought back to America by the British Invasion. Greg and Stick could lock-in to Searchers harmonies just as well as they could those of The Everly Brothers and The Beatles. The combination of their exceptional voices made the Nomadds decidedly greater than the sum of its parts.   5. W.P.L.J. (White Port and Lemon Juice) This was a 1956 hit for The Four Deuces. It’s a goodtime dance shuffle extolling the benefits of a drink concoction made from white port wine and lemon juice. It also became a jingle for Italian Swiss Colony Wines.  (Hmm…)  6. Enter Into My Life The quintessential “last slow dance,” all 4:30 of it! I got something of an organ sound for the solo using a small amount of tremolo on the amp and a lot of reverb. I used the bridge pickup for a normally bright sound but I turned the tone control all the way down for a bassy sound that contradicted the pick-up choice. It’s a setting that Eric Clapton would later call, “woman tone.” Stockton High School, Stockton, IL, fall 1965 Stockton High School, Stockton, IL, fall 1965 With the recording completed, Denny contacted a friend named Galen Heid who had a photography studio in a big old house on Main Street in Stockton. He did the layout and photography for the cover. He also came to a dance we played at the high school there and photographed the entire evening. That night he captured the band at its best and did it all free of charge. Kool describes him as, “Just good Stockton friends.”  The front cover has Stick in the middle. Then going clockwise Denny is next, me, Tony, and Greg at the upper left. Through no fault of Galen Heid, the photo of us on the back looks like mug shots after a bar fight but somehow it didn’t seem to make much difference to anyone at the time. The Nomadds had made a record and we were damn proud of it. Front of Nomadds LP Back of Nomadds LP We had a problem to work out before we could release it though. Dad worked at the Kelly-Springfield Tire Company in Freeport and some of the guys who followed the band also worked there. They had no way of knowing about the tension field in which The Nomads existed. While I had a need to be guarded about all of it, they had no need to be guarded about any of it.  Come the weekend they’d say, “Hey Bill, I hear Lee’s playing for a dance up in Galena this weekend (or in Hanover, or Elizabeth, or Stockton, or wherever).  We’re going up there to see the band.” Of course, Dad didn’t know anything about it because I had told him some altogether different story. He would be suspicious, come home and interrogate me about it and I’d say, “Oh … well, uh…no… that’s not us. It’s some other guys who live up around Galena somewhere. They’re named The Nomads too, but that’s not us.” I always tried to keep it as vague as possible, distancing us from the ‘other Nomads,’ in effect distancing ourselves from ourselves, while assuring him that we were The Nomads who lived down around Freeport somewhere. I got a lot of mileage out of “The Other” Nomads. This sort of thing was common. It’s just what you had to do. That was a close one and it was an ongoing problem to keep an eye on but there was a larger dilemma to deal with prior to releasing the album. When these same Madd Fans, or anyone anywhere for that matter, started buying the record, there would be no other Nomads anywhere. We’d become the band I was claiming we weren’t. I’d get caught. “Hey, Bill, got a Nomad album. Saw ‘em in Galena last weekend at The Palace (Dance Hall).” It would all integrate and I’m told that’s something to be desired. At the time, however, I felt differently.  The album also meant we’d be marketable to a wider audience than just those who were coming to see us play and, despite my best efforts, there were already rumors in the church that one among their number was in error.  It was a small town, a small congregation and we were getting a lot of attention. Collier's Music ad But we had a record and you sell records. We started at Collier's Music and then we set about hawking them to every neighbor, family member, and obliging stranger we could find. And I sold records to church members too.   We had a lot of great friends in the church. There were a lot of quality people there with good hearts and I consider them my friends still. People who weren’t as judgmental, rigid, and unyielding as many in the congregation. They weren’t going to rush home, put it on and rock out. They weren’t exactly the Nomad fans who were driving around Northwestern Illinois every Friday and Saturday night trying to find the movable dance party either. They bought the Nomadds LP as a courtesy to me.   I remain grateful for the Christian love and friendship of the many fine people of the Church of Christ who extended themselves to me and my family over the years. My life is much the better for having you in it.  Still, there was this ever present hostility in the church that threatened to get a hold of the album and begin piecing together a complete picture of the band’s activities. Because the band’s survival depended on the saved and the unsaved remaining compartmentalized this was no small threat.  By that time, I was sick of the whole thing and had lost track of the deceptions I had created. It’s amazing what a guy has to go through just to play a few Beatles tunes. But there was no resolving it. Black and white. We had to distance ourselves from the other Nomads and all the rest. The band’s double life required more attention.   It was my idea. “Let’s add another ‘D’.” And we became, The Nomadds.  Denny came up with the name originally—The Nomads, one ‘D’. When he was in the Air Force he spent time in Turkey and the Bedouin nomads there had left a lasting impression on him. Up until the time we did the album no one had seen the band’s name in print. We didn’t advertise. The assumption was that Nomads was the correct spelling.  We surprised everyone with the extra ‘D’ and it was proof positive that it was indeed The Nomads, somewhere up around Galena, who‘d been doing all the sinning all along. We were The Nomadds. As far as our following was concerned it was as if we had been spelling it with two ‘D’s from the start and somehow just hadn’t told them. There had been no advertising. It was cool. We were okay. The Nomadds was released at the Masonic Temple Ballroom in Freeport on April 17, 1965. Stick’s wife, Jan, and Denny’s wife, Barb, sold them in the lobby for $5 each and Russ Gennusa, a good friend of the band, bought the first copy. In addition to Jan and Barb selling albums they also sold tickets for us at many of the dances we played.  And they were by far the best looking Nomadds. Still are. Dexter charged $1,000 for a package that included him engineering and producing, studio time, and 250 LPs with covers. Any additional albums would be $2 per copy, also including the covers. Radex paid all performance rights fees on non-original songs. To finance the album Denny got a loan for the $1,000 and his dad cosigned on the note.   That first night at The Masonic we sold those 250 copies in no time. We immediately ordered 500 more and quickly sold out of them as well. The vinyl on the first pressing was opaque. You couldn’t see through them when they were held up to a light. However, Dexter used a different company for the second pressing and those 500 are translucent. They have a purple tint when held up to a light. Only 750 Nomadds albums were ever pressed.    We’d dodged yet another bullet with the addition of the second ‘D’ but we couldn’t dodge the next one. Soon after we released the record in April we were contacted by Irma Chiaverina, a reporter for the Rockford Morning Star newspaper in Rockford, Illinois. Rockford is 30 miles east of Freeport and second in size only to Chicago in the state of Illinois. She was from Elizabeth, Illinois, one of the places The Nomadds played.  She knew about us through her son who went to high school there and through Kool’s brother, Duane, who taught at the high school.  Irma wanted to do an article on the band, complete with photo, that would appear in a Sunday edition of the paper. It was an immediate yes. It was a big deal. The Morning Star had a very large circulation all over Northern Illinois and Southern Wisconsin and it would be by far the largest exposure the band had received to that point. We’d been playing an area that was roughly 60 miles square from Freeport, 60 miles west over to the Mississippi river and from Sterling, Illinois, 30 miles south of Freeport, going about 60 miles north just crossing the state line into southernmost Wisconsin. It was becoming evident that in the same way we had worked west from Freeport over to the Mississippi, we also had the potential for working east into Rockford and even on into Chicago. This was an indication of that possibility.  We had very loyal fans. Keeping the band booked wasn’t presenting a problem and we were already moving toward another album. In fact, we already had the layouts for the artwork. Greg was writing songs for it and it’s probable that had it become a reality, all the songs on it would have been his original tunes. The band was certainly capable of taking the next step.  The Sunday morning the article appeared I was thrilled. I woke up early and went up to a little market that used to be on the corner of Galena and Lincoln streets and bought half a dozen copies of the paper. I read it in the car. It named all the guys, talked about the record, mentioned me specifically with regard to my teaching, and even listed “William and Goldie Garner of Freeport,” as being my parents. And then, in the last paragraph… “The Nomadds are proud of the fact that they have never sought a booking. Often they are signed for future jobs while playing an engagement. They have played for homecoming dances, ‘snow balls’ and other school events, as well as public dances in Freeport, Elizabeth, Hanover, Stockton, Galena, Savanna, Mount Morris and Hazel Green, Wis.” My heart sank. We were officially a dance band.   We had given information about the band to Irma without filtering it simply because we were excited about the article. We didn’t know that she was going to be this specific about where we had been playing, but she certainly had no reason to edit any of the information she had been given. We hadn’t mentioned anything about her doing so.  Controlling what kind of information went out about the band and who received it was becoming more and more difficult. It was no longer a matter of simply lying to my parents about where I’d be playing on any given Saturday night or deciding what was to be printed on a poster. It was moving beyond my control and this was proof of it. And I had no way of foreseeing its impact. This was serious trouble though. I didn’t know what to do. No lie could cover this. There it was plain as day. Everybody got the Morning Star and, what’s worse, many of them read it before they came to church on Sunday mornings. Rockford Morning Star Article - Unabridged Rockford Morning Start Article - Abridged I went home and sneaked down to the basement with the papers. I was at a loss. In desperation I cut out the article and tore off the last three sentences as if the article ended there. I knew I’d be hard pressed to explain it, pretty lame, stupid really, but it was all I could come up with. I still have a copy of both versions.  When they're laid out side by side it's just bizarre.  I went upstairs and showed the article to Dad. Of course, he asked about it being torn off. I don’t remember just what my response was but I managed to mumble something and tiptoe around it. Had to get ready for church.  “We’ll discuss this later.”  When we got to church, Winston confronted me immediately. He was pissed. What could I say? I mumbled some more. It wasn’t much of a dialogue.  Soon after that the Elders, Winston Dell and Kenneth Lee, called a meeting for me, Dad, Stick, Tony, Denny, and Greg to be held in the church office on a Saturday afternoon. It was in June of 1965. Winston did the talking. We were delivered an ultimatum. I was to quit the band. This was an activity that our Christian youth should not be involved in. It’s just not good. I was setting a bad example, made the church look bad, and I was embarrassing the congregation.  I was then to publicly confess my sin (confess in front of the congregation, all a part of Church of Christ doctrine), ask them and God for forgiveness, then repent and turn from my wicked ways.   Dad had been a deacon since the congregation was established in Freeport, and in order to qualify and hold that office he was required to have his family in subjection. I obviously wasn’t. If I didn’t leave the band, he would be removed from that office. In addition, if I didn’t comply, the unspoken but clearly present threat, not only to myself but to Mom and Dad as well, was that of disfellowship, also known as withdrawing fellowship. The Church of Christ’s equivalent of the Amish practice of shunning or excommunication in the Catholic Church. In any case, a gut wrenching, devastating thing in any family and church community. And ultimately, an eternity in the fires of hell. “But it’s your decision. We know you’ll make the right one. We’ll be praying for you.”  Holy Shit.  We were all stunned. I didn’t want to leave the band and no one wanted the band to break up, but it was obvious that we had precious little to counter this kind of leverage.  Nothing approaching the fires of hell anyway. There were some attempts at protest and compromise but they were quickly overridden. Regardless of what was said, or in retrospect, could or should have been said, the elders were going to remain unaffected. The Lord had spoken.  The next step in my return to the fold was to go before the congregation and confess to the error of my ways. Dad requested that a letter be read instead of me having to address the congregation directly and the request was granted. Over the next week he composed it for me and when that Sunday morning came he read it to me before we drove to church and that was that. I had no part in the confession of sins that I wasn’t confessing to anyway. It wasn’t about me. It was about them.   That Sunday morning after the service, while I sat on the second row, in front of the congregation so I could confess my sin publicly, Kenneth Lee got up and read the letter while Winston and the rest of the congregation looked on. Afterwards, he went on to make his own interminable, inarticulate comments in his normal monotone drone. Even Dad said later, “Oh, I had no idea he was going to do all that.” Everyone prayed, and then members of the congregation came up and congratulated me on my decision.  I was devastated. The following morning I went walking. I found myself at the Freeport Speedway, a little dirt stock car track that sat out close to the fairgrounds. It was about a mile from my house. I have no idea why I wound up there, but I walked around that muddy track, and by the time I got back to the finish line I knew it wasn’t only the band who had been beaten, it was me too.  Why didn’t I stand up to these people, quit going to this church, leave home, do anything it took to get away from all this? I was young. I was powerless to challenge the situation. It was locked in an all powerful, controlling, iron clad paradigm from which I was incapable of moving beyond. In fact, it was so binding that it would be another decade before I could even begin that struggle. Ultimately, regardless of what defense I could offer for continuing with the band, they still had the upper hand.  “Oh, but it’s not us. It’s God’s word.” Stick was very forgiving. “As far as the church and the elders, it was quite sad for me the night that it all came to a head. However, I have never harbored any bad feelings toward either one because they were doing what they believed to be right and good, and that's just the way it was.” Ernest Hemingway comes to mind. In For Whom The Bell Tolls he comments, “There's no one thing that's true. It's all true.” Moptopmania came right along with Beatlemania. Hair crept over ears and below collars and it was the undoing of American youth. You can see from the Nomadds album cover that none of us were sporting Beatles cuts or had hair that could be qualified as anything close to outrageous. By some standards, however, it was enough to put us out of bounds.  Mom and Dad were surprisingly cool with it. They didn’t necessarily like the fact that I was wearing it long but it just wasn’t much of an issue. With hair half an inch over my collar and covering the tops of my ears it wasn’t as if I was advocating anarchy. The feeling was that it was really pretty harmless compared to the things I could have been involved with so, “Let the kids have their fun!” To some in the church, though, it was another thing with chrome bumpers and it had to be painted black.  A core of people had developed in the church. The elders had become a hub around which other like-minded members and a succession of preachers rotated. And their scrutiny didn't stop with The Nomadds either. It involved much more. There were other instances of people’s lives being intruded upon by the “faithful few” with equally outrageous behavior. People were hurt and left the church.  There were even attempts made at intimidating the entire congregation. One of these was in the form of a snooty, sarcastic letter addressed to the entire membership, chiding them for their failure to deliver as expected. With full endorsement from the elders, the preacher at the time, Steve Goad, goaded the whole congregation by stating, “As a young preacher, I am already tired of begging families who are supposed to be Christian to do what is already their obligation and privilege.” Then later, “I firmly believe that some of you who read this letter are so out of touch with what is going on that you have very little idea as to what work is planned.” However, Goad was good enough to sign it, “In Christian Love.”   Gandhi claimed that he would be a Christian, “if it weren’t for Christians.” Thanks to my historian mother this letter is in the Nomadds archive too. It can only be described as unbelievable.   The meeting with the elders was in June. Very soon after that, one Sunday morning after the service, Perry and Jill DeGraw, a young married couple who were members of the inner circle, confronted me in the vestibule. They were aggressive, nasty, and right in my face. With poisoned courtesy they quoted verse and scripture letting me know that my hair was, “an abomination unto the Lord.” However, the good news is that they assured me they were telling me this in “Christian love.” And then they turned around and walked away. A sort of fundamentalist drive-by.     Shortly after that I received an anonymous letter about my hair. That’s still in the archive too. I don’t know who wrote it and in all probability never will, however, there’s no question that it came from within the church. They weren’t done with me yet. It was postmarked July 9, 1965. It was scribbled and had a penny taped to the bottom. The writer told me that I looked like an “Afgan [sic] hound” and if I planted the penny, a money tree would grow and I’d have enough to get my “crumy’ [sic] hair cut.” (Somehow, I’ve never believed the spelling was an attempt to hide the writer’s identity. They just didn't know any better.) There did seem to be some hope though. “Here’s to seeing your face some day.” A sort of literary, fundamentalist drive-by. It was addressed to me, but it was also addressed to Dad “c/o Bill Garner” the head of the family, and the deacon who was expected to have his family in subjection. I was being condescended to and insulted, but the sneer was also directed at him. It was a spineless, snide, pompous attack. I’m telling you about this letter to point up just how much vindictiveness was being directed toward me personally, my parents, and in turn, The Nomadds. It was a losing battle.   After the confrontation with the elders, the other guys had to consider the future of the band in my absence. Ty Kendell was a guitar player from Savanna, Illinois, a Madd Fan, and a regular at the dances. Ty would later morph into Billy Zoom, legendary guitarist for the L.A. punk band, X. Tony, Stick, Greg, and Denny drove down to Savanna to talk to him about replacing me and they discovered that Ty was a great player and a really nice guy on top of that. What’s more, he actually knew the five original tunes we’d done on the album and he was also playing a lot of the songs we were doing at the dances.   Denny recalls, “On the drive back to Freeport we all decided that we would not hire Ty Kendell. If Lee Garner wasn't in the band, then the band wouldn't be The Nomadds. We all decided that it was time to quit.” Many years later, after I started working the road, I was doing a club date in Santa Anna, CA, just outside of L.A., and Ty Kendell, fully realized as Billy Zoom, showed up unannounced. What a great surprise. He stayed for the show and we had dinner together. Billy has been a champion of The Nomadds for many, many years and for that we’ve always been grateful. Not long after The Nomadds broke up I quit working at Collier’s Music and went to work for Klipping’s Clothing, a men’s store just a block up the street from Collier’s. Billy came in and I sold him a pair of neon paisley underwear. According to Billy he wore them to his draft physical and he swears they kept him out of the Army. Got him a 1-Y. “Qualified him for military service only in time of national emergency.” Rock on Billy!  We know you will!    The elders’ flaunting of power didn’t negate the fact that we had a lot of dates booked. We were all members of the musicians union, and we wrote contracts on every job we took. To cancel dates without appropriate notice could create problems. So, after some negotiation, I was granted permission to continue with the band until those contractual obligations were satisfied and that would be the end of it. It seemed that lawsuits for breach of contract were enough leverage to at least slow the fires of hell. However, in typical Nomadds fashion we simultaneously set about booking anything we could get our hands on, claiming the dates had been booked pre-powwow. It actually added months to the life of the band and it was a move that I personally thought was brilliant. Why not?      Finally, we played out the dates we had on the book, and on a very cold Illinois night in December, 1965, at The Hanover Town Hall in Hanover, Illinois, we played our last dance. A good friend of the band, Jim Martin remembers, “Colder than Hell that night in Hanover, but the place was rockin'! The way the floor was moving, I can't believe it didn't cave in!” What a way to go out. Any closing night comes with its own let down, and like so many endings, this one was accompanied by release too. It also came with that kind of tired that sleep won’t help and tears only sometimes do. We didn’t break-up due to problems inside the band. We were always great friends, loved what we did and never fell victim to any sort of infighting or competition for individual gain. Only a very few people among those we played for had any idea about the problems with my folks and the church. And even then the picture was incomplete. “His parents won’t let him play for dances.” Many people believed that Greg was about to be drafted and that was the reason the band was breaking up. In1965, with Vietnam raging, it was a concern that an entire nation of young people had to face. Several months later he did enlist in the army which was a better option than being drafted but it wasn’t the reason the band came to an end. No, The Nomadds broke up due to something far more complex and disturbing...the fundamentalist mind-set that permeates The Church of Christ, and a little group of little people in the little congregation I grew up in. Lee POSTSCRIPT: I graduated from high school in June of 1966, six months after The Nomadds broke up. Nashville had always been a strong attraction and two days after graduation I was southbound. Mom and Dad were wonderfully supportive of the move and Dad told me, “There’s nothing for you here. Get away from this mess.” It was a classic, “I’m goin’ to Nashville!”, scene. I had a guitar, $300, and a one-way bus ticket. I sure took plenty of restless with me too. That $300 lasted about three weeks and in about three months I was back in Freeport. I went to school at Highland Community College and had some fitful starts and stops in a few other bands but I knew it would ultimately mean the same resistance I had encountered with The Nomadds so none of it went very far. I just couldn’t do it.  I was still driven by music though, and in the fall of 1968 transferred to Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, just south of Nashville. Yes, to go to school, but more so to be closer to music. I’ve been in the Middle Tennessee area ever since.  I received a Bachelor’s Degree in English Literature and after graduating it was a year or so later that I began establishing my own fulltime teaching practice. Using teaching as a base, I freelanced doing virtually anything that came in: Recording, casuals, club dates, traveling, whatever. I also studied classical guitar for a number of years. (But I found out that God made me way too funky to be a classical guitar player!) I worked the road for eighteen years and I discovered that you don’t have to be famous to be a professional. We all like familiar names, though, and two of the more recognizable ones I’ve been directly associated with are Charlie Rich, “The Silver Fox,” and Eddie Rabbitt. It was a real treat working for Charlie. He had country/pop hits like, ‘Most Beautiful Girl In The World’ and ‘Behind Closed Doors’ but more important to me was that he came up through the Sun Records label in Memphis with the likes of Elvis, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins and Jerry Lee Lewis. When we did songs from that era, like ‘Lonely Weekends,’ ‘Big Boss Man’ or ‘Who Will The Next Fool Be,’ the music came with an authenticity that I’ve always loved. It was a sound directly from the earliest days of rock and roll and it was great in the truest sense of the word.  I worked the road with Eddie Rabbitt and Hare Trigger for sixteen years. The name may not be instantly recognizable but Eddie is credited with seventeen number one country records with eight of them going Top 10 Pop/Crossover. ‘I Love A Rainy Night’, ’Drivin’ My Life Away’, and ’Just You and I’ with Crystal Gayle are among his biggest hits. Playing major concert venues, (and a ton of minor ones), I’ve crisscrossed the country more times than I can remember with the cumulative air and bus miles adding up to more than I want to remember. Add video and television appearances to that and I’ve played in front of millions upon millions, (upon millions), of people. And rest assured, I got a story out of it. When I left the road I accepted a position as the director of a school of music. Located here in Nashville, the MARS Learning Center was part of a 35,000 sq. ft. music retail superstore called MARS Music.  It was a great facility with office and reception area, 12 well-equipped teaching studios and a permanent stage with sound and lighting for student showcases and other presentations.  We also had unlimited access to a state-of-the-art recording studio.  I had a large staff and in the four and a half years I was there we provided more than 37,000 private lessons in addition to all the classes we offered and the programs we supported.   I’ve made a living with music for more than thirty years and lived the life of a guitar mercenary. I would never for an instant claim that I’ve done it all, but I’ve done a lot.  I live in Nashville with my wife of more than twenty-one years, Elizabeth. (She got a story out of it too!) She’s a brilliantly talented mixed media artist with an MFA from the University of Illinois, Champaign/Urbana and claims the whole world as her studio. I’m in touch with all the guys in the band. Everyone is still in Northern Illinois. Tony’s in Freeport, Greg lives in Rockford and Stick and Denny live in Stockton. The band has never reunited musically. However, on August 28,1987 I played the grandstand show at the Stephenson County Fair in Freeport with Eddie Rabbitt. That was a big day. Mom and Dad flew my wife up from Nashville unannounced and so many came to say hello. Elizabeth, Mr. and Mrs. Garner Stephenson County Fair, The Nomadds I hadn’t seen any of The Nomadds for a very long time and all the guys came to the show. It was just so great to see them. These are fine people who directly influenced the course of my life for the better, and I hold their friendship near and dear. Thanks guys. I love you. Greg has retired from The Haldex Corporation in Rockford and now has the luxury of spending his winters in Arizona, a world away from the brutal winters of Northern Illinois.   Tony reports that he’s, “Married to Tina, retired, with two daughters, two step daughters, one step son and nine grandkids and another one due in May.  We have two dogs, both Pugs, that keep us entertained.  After The Nomadds I played with The Porters, The Classics and Pride and Liberty. I worked (in Freeport) at Newell for nine years and Honeywell for 28 years.  As you know, when it comes to cars I never grew up. I have had over 30 street rods over the past 45 years and I currently own three. My retirement time has been filled with car shows, golfing, and visiting grandchildren. It's a tough job but someone has to do it!” Greg Tony Stick lets us all know that, “On June 4th, 2009, I (turned) 68 years young. I've been retired from the [Micro] Switch factory for close to 11 years and I haven't taken on any other employment (yet). If things keep going to Hell, I may have to. Jan is also retired from Kraft Food in Stockton for about 14 years. We still live in rural Stockton about three miles out of town toward Kent in the house we built almost 40 years ago. We have two children. Lisa, who lives and works in Stockton and Mark who lives and works in Rochester, MN. We have four grandchildren, Lisa (1) and Mark (3).   "I have learned to stumble my way around on the guitar and Denny and I, along with five others including Jim Martin, are in an old rock/country (bar) band called Council Hill Station. We have been doing this for about six or eight years. We don't play a lot, but when we do it's usually a fun crowd and we always have a blast. We need to get you up here some time and you can sit in. That would be something.” Other than myself, Denny is the one who has stayed most musically active in the years following The Nomadds. He’s been good enough to recall this history for us and in doing so has helped to create a more complete picture of the live music scene in Northwestern Illinois: “Needless to say, I was very bummed out after the band ended. I lost part of who I wanted to be, just a good bass player. ‘Now what do I do?’ was what I asked myself. Well, after about six months, or perhaps a little longer, along came Tom Meinders (vocals). Tom, Darrel Moore (drums), Roger Hayes (guitar, vocals), and the first hippie I'd ever met, Gary Hankermeier (Mayer) (guitar), were starting a soul band and they needed a bass player. I had sold everything I owned. My Gibson EB0 was gone but I still had the Gibson Mercury I amp. They talked me into buying a bass and giving it a try. I loved it, an entirely different style of music. I was hooked. That was the band called We Have Been. "I played with them for around six months and was offered the spot of bass player with a hot new group out of Galena known as The Natives. I had managed the band for around four months before I started playing fulltime with them. I knew Dan Habecker pretty well at The Masonic in Freeport so when I stepped in their fee to play went up considerably. Roy Oldenberg at The Palace in Galena was a good friend so when I joined the band and asked for a pretty big increase to play, he said sure. I never felt part of the band so after around one year I was planning to step aside when they fired me one night in Hanover.  "You might remember what happened after that. You were still in Freeport and had expressed interest in playing again. So we started The Porters, with you, Tony Cannova, Tom Meinders and me. You played five gigs with us and resigned, and along came Don Herbig (guitar). He called Tom when he heard you had resigned and asked if he could be considered for the spot. The kid was good plus he sang. We hired Don and continued on with The Porters. This is where things get blurry for me. Roger Hayes had returned from the Army and he and Don were friends. Roger joined the band immediately as he was also a very good guitar player and sang very well. The Porters were on a roll and then along came the draft and Don was gone. The band ended after that for some reason which I can't remember.  "It wasn't long after that when I received a call from Gary Downing (vocals). They were losing their bass player to the draft. Playing with guitar player Jack Farringer was interesting to say the least but I did learn some more tricks while playing with, Gary Downing and The Classics. That gig lasted four years and ended when Tony Cannova and Dave Weaver (keyboards) left to play with Dan Hickman (guitar, bass guitar) and Willie Montgomery.   "So I went home and within a very short period of time I got a call from a drummer friend in Monroe, WI. Mort Armstrong (drums) was starting a country band and wanted to know if I'd be interested. That was a fun year, a real country band, steel guitar and fiddle, and we were a six piece country band called Horsefeathers. That lasted a little over one year and along came Dave Weaver. He had met a singer/sax player in Rockford that was just back from a five year road gig. Dave Weaver, Tom Meinders, Vince Bartelli, Tony Cannova and I were called Liberty.  That band was one fine act and lasted a little over a year. It ended for some reason; I can't remember as we all really liked each other and played some great music.  "So, that was it for me, I went home never to play again. I had enough. Well, that lasted nearly six months when I got a call from Dan Hickman (guitar, bass guitar, keyboards, vocals). He and Dave Robinson (drums) were a duo that had been on the road for many years and were tired of it. They came back to Freeport and decided to just play locally. Dan had kicked pedals as a duo and was tired of that and wanted a bass player. Dan called me and at first I said I really wasn't interested in playing again. He talked me into doing a two-night gig at a bar in Freeport to see if I would like what they were doing. That weekend lasted around eight years, known as the Hickman Robinson Group.  "In 1984 I turned 44 years old and I had actually had my fill of playing. All this time I worked full time for a company in Freeport and never missed a day of work. I was very tired of it all, including the music that was coming out. I had my fill. I retired from the every weekend gig in January 1984 at the age of 44.  What a career I had. Something you might find interesting was I never looked for a band to play bass in, never. It always came to me and I still don't know why. I wasn't that great a bass player and I couldn't sing even though I tried. "From 1984 to 1991I never even took my bass out of the case. I never touched it. Then in December of 1991 I got a call from Dan Hickman (living in Dallas), to tell me he was coming back to Freeport for Christmas and wanted to know if I'd play at The Eagles Club in Freeport with him and Dave Robinson. That was interesting. I hadn't played in all those years and we did a four-hour gig with no rehearsal. It was such a great feeling. We did the Hickman Robinson Reunion nearly every December. Then things changed rapidly. Dan Hickman had two strokes within a couple weeks and then tragedy struck. Dave Robinson was killed in a motorcycle accident.   "I retired from Newell in 2002 after 35 years with the same company. That was also a good gig but at age 62, in 2002, they decided I was no longer needed. That hurt a little, at least 35 minutes. That was how long it took me to get home.  "Shortly after retirement I ran into Dean “Stick” Kuehl. He had learned a few chords on guitar and was playing and singing in a country store up in Council Hill on Sunday afternoons. I went along and I was hooked again. Just playing with Dean again was a rush I couldn't begin to explain. So along with Dean and a lady friend from Stockton, Dot Schreck, we started my last band. We are called Council Hill Station and have grown to six pieces, sometimes seven. Jim Martin (guitar), Dean Kuehl, Bob Kaminski (banjo), Dorothy Schreck, Kevin Trost, Cammie (Dot's daughter) and myself once again on bass guitar. Fun all over again. "Along with all my music as a hobby, I had the most wonderful family a man could ask for. Barb and I will be married 46 year this coming May 18, 2009 and had three wonderful children, Sue, Andrew and Eric. All three graduated from college. Sue from Clark College in Dubuque, IA, Andrew from the University of Wisconsin at Platteville and Eric from the University of Illinois at Springfield. All three are married with children. Sue has two boys, Andrew has two girls and Eric has two boys. Six grandchildren keep us plenty busy. Our youngest son Eric was our only child that had an interest in music. He plays guitar very well but only for his own enjoyment, never out. Our grandson Tyler is 14 and has really taken to the guitar. Hope he keeps it as a hobby only, just like grandpa.  "I worked for the Newell Corporation for 35 years and Barb had close to 19 years at Newell when we both lost our jobs in 2002. It really worked out great. "In summary: You showed me a couple of bass runs, some three chord songs back in 1963 and look what happened to me. I'm 69 and still rockin’!” Stick Denny My dear friend and mentor Edith Kaufman is in her nineties now and still lives in Freeport. I talk with her frequently. Edith took an interest in me and gave me an opportunity. Her influence has been strongly felt throughout my life and has determined the course of much of it. She often recalls The Nomadds and the days at Collier’s Music where thanks to her I began to establish the learning, teaching, playing matrix as a way of life.  Dexter Witt remains at the helm of Radex recording, now officially known as Radex Stereo Audio-Video. Since the latter ‘50s he has provided recording services for churches, schools, radio stations, and industries in addition to recording dozens and dozens of bands akin to The Nomadds.   The Church of Christ is still at the corner of Carroll and South streets in Freeport. Nearly everyone attending church there during the time I was with The Nomadds has either moved away or passed on. It is not my intent to harm anyone in the church, past or present, nor the families of those people I’ve made reference to. Neither is it my intent to raise the ire of good, faithful, and well intended Christians.   My only purpose here has been to share the history of The Nomadds. That history is inseparable from The Church of Christ. This account is true and accurate as I experienced it, drawing on the collective experiences of my band mates, an extensive archive and photo collection, interviews with people close to the band and people directly involved with the church at the time. You must imagine that this was a powerful experience for me. In many ways it’s been very hard to move beyond and has resulted in spending much of my life in spiritual limbo. However, I’m not affiliated with The Church of Christ any longer because I’ve found that God is bigger than that. And for that I am eternally grateful.    Years passed and finally the elders were no longer in office. More years passed and the church was moved to once again qualify men for that responsibility. Just five weeks before Dad’s death in January, 1990 (Mom passed in September of 1993), he was moved to write a letter to the church. He was very sick by that time and dictated it to my wife. He spoke out of concern, much experience, and the wisdom of years. He said in part:   “Years ago there were two elders chosen by the church that were good men and good friends of the church families and seemed to be likely candidates for the Eldership. But stepping into a position of power, they became a destructive force that nearly uprooted a church that had been carefully built on Christian love.  "William’s fear is that power, even given to the right hands but at the wrong time, can become a deadly force, a weapon of Satan. He believes, as a result of this experience, that the position of Eldership is not one to be made hastily but to be prayed about and considered with utmost gravity, a decision to be made after great examination and over a long period of time.” Dad loved God so much. He believed in the good that could be done through the church he had helped establish in Freeport and his concern for its well being lasted right up until the end of his life. While he was strict and clung to a very narrow religion, he never liked the way our family and others were treated by the elders and their cohorts. Mom wanted to leave that particular congregation for a healthier place of worship, someplace less toxic. However, Dad doggedly, even stubbornly persevered. “No one can keep me from going to church. I go there to worship.” He pushed it all aside for the sake of God and what he believed was right. He was a man of deep conviction and deserves great respect for that.  And I believe that people are terrifically complex and should be forgiven for that. So, we got together, played some gigs, broke-up, and took our place in the fossil rock record, thus completing the natural life cycle of nearly every band of The Nomadds’ ilk, and it was great.       We enjoyed a measure of success that was short lived, yet remarkably enduring. We send a heartfelt thanks to all of the Madd friends and fans who supported the band way back when and we’re very grateful for those of you who are listening to The Nomadds for the first time. We had great fun, helped create a lot of memories for a lot of people and, we made a record.  Hope you enjoy it.  Lee Garner June, 2009 Purchase the Nomadds LP and CD: http://www.rimpo.de/muma.htm Contact Lee: nomadds@hotmail.com Before After Sound Samples Nomadds - 'Lucille' Nomadds - 'There Is No More' Nomadds - "You Can Fall In Love' Nomadds Gallery Image:  The Nomadds story originally appeared in Ugly Things #29.  Special thanks to Lee Garner and Mike Stax for its inclusion on 60sgaragebands.com.