I was lead guitar and background vocals with both The Pendletons and The Weejuns. I seldom sang lead. I got to sing lead on one Beatles cover, 'Things We Said Today,' and I got to sing lead on 'Ready C'mon Now' with The Weejuns. I also recorded these songs because I liked recording these off-the-wall unofficial sessions (and I was the only one who owned a reel-to-reel recorder at the time).
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| The Pendletons: Rick Johnson, Danny Hook, Mike Anderson, Michael Murphy and Dick Wyatt |
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| The Weejuns: Dan Hook and Mike Anderson |
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Mike Anderson Recalls His '60s Bands
The Pendletons were from Battle Creek, Michigan. The Weejuns were from Battle Creek, too. Rick Johnson, Dan Hook and I were the only three members of the same. The primary lead singer of The Weejuns was Bruce Kreps while the lead singer of The Pendletons was Dick Wyatt.
The Pendletons would often practice on Sunday afternoons in the basement of Wyatt's house. His younger brother would observe. When Dick got drafted and went into the Army and The Pendletons morphed into The Weejuns, little Gary Wyatt formed a group that was to become--over a year or so--our rival. He formed a group called The Relics and they actually recorded a 45-rpm. They had a violin player turned guitar player that was talented (of course not as good as me--so thought the public, but I knew deep inside he was better).
Once while doing a big battle of the bands we tied with The Relics and were forced into a tiebreaker song. I think we did 'Jolly Green Giant' (by The Kingsmen) as our candidate. The Relics, to their credit, knew their audience better than we did (the lead singer of The Relics was Terry Slothour, who graduated from my same high school the same year). The dance was at a huge Job Corps facility; the Job Corps helped wayward youths learn a trade to become working citizens. Most of the audience was African American. The Relics got to play last before the tiebreaker vote. I never heard of the song, but it featured a Motown beat with a huge drum solo near the end. They worked the crowd into a frenzy and the vote was taken immediately following their song and nobody remembered our 'Jolly Green Giant' ditty. We lost. Lost big. We lost to The Relics? How could we face our schoolmates come Monday.
Craig Andrina was the oldest member of The Weejuns and a good drummer having graduated from Battle Creek Central and having played in their performance band there. Craig was studying to be a pharmacist and worked part-time at a drugstore. Sometime he could not get off work to play our gigs, so our back-up drummer was Steve Maxson, a 14-year old who never sat down to drum but always stood up. He was a quick learn and loved The Kinks and "got" the syncopated driving drumbeat, no problem. One of us would have to pick him up for practices because he was still aways from driving age. He was good and the girls loved him. He was like the cute Davy Jones, very Monkee-ish.
I moved from Battle Creek to McHenry, IL and got to pratice with The Rogues V. The Weejuns were likely to break up so Dan Hook and Rick Johnson of The Weejuns came to Chicago and we were going to form a new group with Tom and Ed Streich (they were brothers with Tom being the lead singer of The Rogues V). We put the car before the horse and had a professional photo taken for an album cover...before we ever recorded together. So you have a photo of two of The Rogues V and three of The Weejuns. The two Rogues members pictured were brothers. John had graduated high school, but Tom was the lead singer and still a senior at Marion Central High, a catholic school in Woodstock. During school days, he tucked all that hair around his ears and looked "proper" or got swatted with a ruler by the nuns there. The new group never materialized as Uncle Sam and the military draft was breathing down our necks at the time.
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| Weejuns/Rogues V Union: Dan Hook, Ed Streich, Mike Anderson, Tom Streich and Rick Johnson |
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I also played with a group called The Ambassadors (14-piece dance band that played for proms, etc. It was old time music that kept the teachers and adults happy and actually paid more than Pendletons and Weejuns gigs, even after splitting it more ways). I was also in a groups called The Chevelles and The Valients, both from around the Battle Creek area. The Chevelles were a three-piece group with an occasional fourth (girl singer). The Valients were semi-country but I (we) got to play on stage with The Beverly Hillbillies when they came to do a special show in Battle Creek (a TV show sponsored by Kelloggs). I was a young eighth grade guitar picker then.
Funny, attending our 40th high school reunion a few years back, everyone remembered The Pendletons, but few remembered The Weejuns. The Weejuns were a far more mature-in-their-musical-tightness group. Pendleton wool jackets were the rage then so maybe the name stuck better than a brand of shoes. Funnier yet, the deejay at the reunion (all of about 21 years old) announced he was playing a number one hit by The Pendletons...then he played 'Inside Outside' by The Relics...and not a single person there questioned it. I sat back looking around for someone to say something. Oh well.
Looking back, while The Pendletons never recorded a commercial record, they were undoubtedly the best group in Battle Creek, Michigan during 1964-1965. The only other "band" back then was Bobby Dee and The Pastels. They were of a slightly older age and could play in bars. They were heavy into the Hammond organ sound, but the teens wanted electric guitars and driving drums and The Pendletons and Weejuns delivered.
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| The Weejuns performing at The Incline (Lansing, MI): Danny Hook, Mike Anderson, Craig Andrina, Bruce Kreps and Rick Johnson |
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Both The Weejuns and The Pendletons recorded 'Ready C'Mon Now.' Dan Hook and I wrote the song (complicated lyrics, eh?). Dan had the sex appeal but I had the sensitivity. Dan sang lead 90% of the time and all the time as The Pendletons with me in the background. 'Girl' was written by Dan, who also sang lead on it. We liked it too and I like it now more than then, but few patrons of the places we played ever liked it. It was probably hard to dance to.
Dan sang lead on 'Ready C'Mon Now' and 'Girl' and several other songs we co-wrote (the next Lennon-McCartney).
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