It seems to me the first version of The Deadly Nightshades circa 1966 was Vic Burke, Rich VanderWoort and Nick Rush on drums. Rich left to do a kind of Beatles-clone thing on the Near North Side of Chicago. The next thing I remember was seeing The Nightshades at a sockhop in Glenbrook South High School where we all went. It was Don Locke on drums, Larry LaCoste on rhythm, Bob Zemke on lead, Phil Jernigan on bass and Gary Schaeffer singing. Don Locke was replaced by Kenny LaCoste (Larry’s little brother) and then Gary and Phil left and I joined. That would have been around February 1967.
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Tom Lavin Recalls The Nightshades
(Compiled by Scott Smith)
The band got pretty popular in teen clubs and released a few records on Gear, which was my label. I sang 'Summertime' and Larry sang the Kinks tune. Larry and Ken went to Los Angeles with some manager type guy effectively shorting out the band for a time. I remember seeing Bob and Phil and Kenny circa ‘68 at the Evanston High School Student Union building playing in a trio… That was the era of 'American Boy' (which Kenny sang). After that Larry returned and re-joined and they did some Who-type material. Bob got cancer, went to the Mayo Clinic and died shortly thereafter.
I do remember being in the LaCoste basement at some point and auditioning a guy named Ted Nugent. He went on to form The Amboy Dukes and the rest. What a nut case…then and now. I knew The Shadows of Knight and we did some gigs with them and went to see them a lot… I remember the first version with Warren Rogers on lead guitar. I knew The Dirty Wurds and played in a band with Justin Pomeroy who was the guitar player and knew Mark Hannon the harmonica player. Another great band was The Knaves with Howard Berkman and Stu Einstein. They were from Rogers Park. Frank Biner the bass player/singer of The Little Boy Blues just passed away recently. The Mauds were also killer. My buddy Phil Weinberg was their drummer. I also remember Saturday’s Children and H.P. Lovecraft…the list goes on…
These days Bob’s gone to rock 'n roll heaven, Larry runs a Porsche dealership, Kenny looks after his parents in Florida and still writes and performs solo locally there. Vic, Rich, Phil are all MIA. Nick Rush was a CEO of a dotcom based in California. Don Locke was the house artist for the Johnny Carson show and the Jay Leno show and lives in Los Angeles and still writes and produces music. Gary is living in North Carolina and is still a music fanatic.
I joined The Other Half in Evanston then moved to Vancouver, B.C. where I formed Uproar, a power trio that signed with GRT Records and toured across Canada with Frank Zappa. I then joined Prism, a pop power band that recorded for BMG and toured with Styx, ZZ Top, Little River Band, Emerson Lake and Palmer, Heart, Blue Oyster Cult, and Black Oak Arkansas. After that I recorded and toured with a jazz fusion band named Dale Jacobs and Cobra that recorded for CBS. In ’78 I formed The Powder Blues Band. We’ve sold a million records, toured Canada, the U.S., Europe and the former Soviet Union and still perform and record today. I also run a school and a recording studio.
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Discography:
Wonder Where My Baby Is Tonight / Summertime (Gear C 747/748)
American Boy / Flying High (Gear C 749/750)
My Mother Done Told Me (That You Were A Lover) / Sweet Cecelia (Gear C 751/752)
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