This is the story of how I started one of my first bands, "The Swingaires", and of our adventures in show business. HOW THE SWINGAIRES BEGAN In 1979, I moved back to my hometown of Lynnwood WA, having spent 3.5 years in Hollywood, CA. I came home, by way of a 5-month stop in Portland. I believe I left L.A. in March of 1979. While in Portland, I put out feelers, looking for people to form a vocal group with. I remember driving to an older ladies' house, and discussing the possible singing group, but I was a little creeped out by her, and nothing came of it. I knew nothing about how to audition people, and I don't recall that this even lady sang for me. It was the only time I ever went to someone's house to meet with them! I moved back in with my parents, at our old house in Lynnwood. That must have been August of 1979. As soon as I settled in with a new job at Boeing, I began putting out ads, searching for people to start a band with. I ran ads in the Seattle Times (September, 1979), and other local papers. I also put up an ad on the bulletin board at the Musician's Union in Seattle. I remember that one of the first people to respond to the newspaper ad was a middle-aged guy, who phoned up and asked about the "singin' thing". He said his greatest influence was Dean Martin (yecch!). He came out to the house, never actually sang for me (that I recall), and then left, mentioning the songs from Shirley Temple's films. Later, he came back and gave me an old Shirley Temple album! My idea was to start a "Manhattan Transfer"-type of swing-jazz vocal group, with instrumental backing. I had started teaching myself a little vocal arranging, while living in Los Angeles, where I had become obsessed with classic big-band era vocal groups like the Modernaires, the Merry Macs, and the Pied Pipers. I was itching to do some live harmonies with other singers. (Before this, I had only done some multiple tape recordings, with myself singing all the parts.) I had never formally studied music, so I never learned how to properly write musical notation. So I invented my own alphabetical system of music notation. I would type out the lyrics of a song, and then put the names of the notes under the words of the lyrics in capital letters. Of course, one still had to just figure out how long to hold a note, and where to jump octaves, so I added little arrows. Amazingly, the people that I taught parts this way, never seemed to have too much trouble learning this oddball method! One day, while sitting in a rowboat, fishing with my dad, I came up with the name "The Swingaires" -- modeled after Glenn Miller's vocal group, "The Modernaires". (It was also the brand name I saw on my hairdryer!) Eventually, I got calls from a few female vocalists, and I literally took the first few ladies that came out to the house. I let them join, even if they didn't have that strong of a voice! This process of auditioning was all new to me, and I also didn't have a strong concept of the kind of voices I was looking for.
FINDING THE RIGHT SINGERS One young woman named Joan was really more of an opera singer. I knew that she had the wrong kind of a voice, but I was too nice to keep her out of the group! I had heard about a local vocal group called "Grandma's Cookies", so Joan and I went out to a Seattle club to check them out. (It wasn't really a "date".) Another young woman named Patricia joined us, and then later a gal named Rhonda came around, too, but the combination of the four of our voices, didn't really sound very good. They all had pretty heavy vibratos. Eventually, the opera lady politely bowed out, as did Patricia, leaving me with just Rhonda for a short while.
Then, I got a call from a singer named Lisa McPhaden, (Oct. '79) who had seen my ad at the Musician's Union. She came to my parent's house, and we plunked out a few parts on the piano. We recorded our two sets of voices, on two tracks on my tape recorder, singing a harmony version of the song "Dream". She was really a nice, fun person, sang well, and had a good ear for swing. I looked forward to working with her. Our voices blended well together. Little did I know, then, what an important part of my life she'd be, later.... Lisa was still enthusiastic about the group, and she put an ad in the Seattle Weekly. That's how we found Janice Lakers, (Nov. '79) who had just moved to WA from Kalamazoo, MI. She had a great solo voice, could read music well, play flute, and also had a great sense of "swing". She could also "scat" very well!
After she joined us, we all agreed that we needed to find another male voice, in the baritone range. Janice put an ad in the Seattle Sun, and we found Bob Kaiser, (March, 1980) who'd just moved to Seattle from Normal, Illinois. I remember talking to him on the phone, and we set up a time to get together, just the two of us. He didn't have a car, so I offered to drive all the way in to the old Tower Record store on Mercer St. in Seattle, to pick him up, and bring him out to Lynnwood. I remember being uncomfortable in the car with him, because I could tell by the way he talked that he was very gay. I had never been around anyone who was gay before, and I initially found it unsettling. I remember the left side of my body sweating from nerves, as I drove him to our house in Lynnwood! (I got over this very quickly, and eventually Bob became my best friend. We even shared a house together in 1985.)
Gayness aside, he had a fine baritone voice, could hold a harmony part well, and he had a really good sense of humor. After auditioning him, we all four got together at the next rehearsal and sang a couple of tunes. The harmony blend was fantastic! We spent the following 6 months rehearsing on Wednesday nights and on Saturday mornings. Eventually we started talking about performing. The Wednesday rehearsal were at my parent's house, and the Saturday rehearsals were in Janice' tiny home. (Bob and Lisa didn't have living arrangements sufficient for our rehearsals.)
OUR FIRST PERFORMANCE Our first performance was in a Seattle restaurant/club under the monorail, called "Rosselini's 410". Janice had been living in a small house behind another musicians' house in West Seattle. His name was Paul Davis, and he was a professional pianist/singer, working in a lounge at a classy Seattle restaurant. He was an older, white-haired gentleman in his '60s, and after hearing us rehearse, he offered to let us sing as a featured part of one of his gigs at the restaurant.
At this time, I was 25 years old, and the only public performing I had previously done were two gigs that my rock and roll band, The Sparklers had done in Mt. Clemens, MI, back in 1974. (The others in our new group had much more extensive performing experience than me.) So, in 1979, with my little experience I was apprehensive about performing. The thought of being in a fancy club was new to me and a bit overwhelming. We did about four songs, with Paul "faking" our charts on piano (no rehearsal). I played rhythm guitar. Actually, on the fourth song, I took over on the piano on "Hold Tight (Seafood Mama)". The performance went really well. We were well-received by the small audience. My mom and dad didn't come because they were uncomfortable coming to a place that served liquor (!) (My dad had been a Baptist minister for 12 years.) That would have been in mid-May, 1980. We did a second performance at Rosselini's, about a month later. Note: (I believe that my parents DID come to this second performance, because photos exist -- and I'm fairly certain that my mom took them.)
Anyway, during the second performance of the Swingaires, there was a strange-looking tourist couple at one of the tables near the stage. They had goofy grins, and were quite animated in their enthusiasm about our group. Unable to avoid looking at them, Lisa and Bob lost it, and got into uncontrolled giggling during one of our songs, (they were actually unable to sing!) much to the horror of Janice and me. (I was really embarrassed about their lack of professionalism, but it was the only time it ever happened.) Another embarrassing moment I remember was the time that the three of them insisted that we sing at a local McDonald's! I initially resisted, but after some intense coaxing, I caved in. We ordered food, and sat at a table, and then started singing a capella - staring at our french fries! Afterwards, people politely applauded, but I was really mortified that we had thrusted ourselves on a captive audience -- and in a McDonalds, no less! It wasn't MY idea!
MORE PRACTICE GIGS Shortly after that, on a nice, sunny Spring day, we performed at the Seattle Street Fair in the University District. We just set up on a street corner and started singing. It was not quite as embarrassing as the McDonald performance.(Although I accompanied us on guitar, I insisted that we NOT put out my guitar case to collect money in!) One of our other first gigs, was performing at my parent's church. This was also in May of 1980. The theme was "An evening of 1940's music and memories", so we fit right in. (Knowing my mom, she probably put the event together, with us in mind.) Almost everyone in the audience (except us) was older had actually *lived* through the '40s. For this performance, I played electric piano with my right hand, and with my left hand, I played "bass" on another keyboard.( This was the only time I ever did this.) We also performed in the summer of 1980, at Seattle's Folk Life Festival. Our set (with me, accompanying on acoustic guitar) was broadcast on a radio station, KRAB-FM. We were really excited about being on the radio. My uncle recorded our performance off the air. We were so nervous, that we did all of our songs REALLY fast! We got a nice response from about 400 people. In the audience was a vaudevillian performer named Reverend Chumleigh. He had worked with one of Lisa's old bands, a few years before. Chumleigh was a real hippie, who was obsessed with old vaudeville. He invited us to perform at his performances at a small theatre. However, the shows were very poorly attended, and at the end of the run of his shows, I remember him giving us a mere $20 for the whole group. Oh well, it was basically good stage experience! (Come to think of it, that was our first official money earned!)
ADDING OUR PIANIST, BOB KECHLEY Janice was a member of the University Unitarian Church, and she invited us to sing a few songs at one of their banquets. There, we met a pianist, named Bob Kechley. He expressed interest in working with us, and we started rehearsing with him. He was a very nice guy, totally dependable, and fun to work with. He had only played classical music in the past, but he wanted to branch out into jazz. He brought along his Fender Rhodes electric piano, which he played when there wasn't an acoustic piano available at our gigs. He also let us use his P.A. system, which the group eventually purchased from him.
OUR FIRST REAL GIG Bob Kaiser turned out to be quite an asset, besides his singing. He had a great eye for clothes, and he supervised us all purchasing authentic '40s' clothes, which were looked very snazzy. He also was rather aggressive in terms of finding us bookings. It was he who wrangled us a 3-week gig at a Capitol Hill restaurant and bar called "Diamond Lil's". We didn't make much money there (I think we were paid $200 for the five of us, for each weekend), but we really honed our material there, and kept adding new numbers. In addition to the 4-part harmony numbers, we each performed a couple of solo songs. This helped to "pad out" our sets, as we were now required to play for 3 hours a night. We started at 4 pm, and ended at 7. We played there in July of 1980. I started playing electric bass at these gigs, and that really helped our sound to swing. A couple of funny things happened at Diamond Lil's. My dad had helped me make a custom guitar strap for my bass, using an cheap leather belt. But one night, right in the middle of one of our numbers, the strap broke. Another time, we had an alarm clock onstage with us. The alarm was never supposed to go off - the clock was just there to be a visual reminder us that every 45 minutes, we should take our 15-minute break. Well, somehow, someone had wound up the alarm part (it was an old, antique ringer-type). During a quiet ballad, the alarm bell went off -- completely destroying the mood! Of course, I couldn't get to it, to shut it off because I was still playing bass! Eventually, Lisa got it shut off. This led to much laughter.
That summer of 1980 was really filled up with our regular rehearsals, at either Janice's or my homes, and our regular weekend gigs at "Diamond Lil's". We rehearsed a few times at Bob Kechley's house, too. We did a few "guest" appearances at other places, too, like at a private, backyard party of a lady named Mary Townes Smith. She was in charge of entertainment at the "Great Wall" restaurant in Tacoma. One time, to dredge up some publicity, the four of us found a grand piano in Rainier Square, in downtown Seattle, and we started singing around it, with me playing piano. Only a few shoppers stopped to listen, but one of them, a lawyer, came up to us and it led to our performing at a private backyard party for his company. We were paid $75. Shortly after this, Bob got us a one-night gig at The Goose Restaurant - directly underneath The Fifth Avenue Theatre. But sheer chance, having dinner there that night was a businessman named Jim Lopeman. He gave us his business card, and he would later become important to us....
JANICE DECIDES TO LEAVE THE GROUP Around that time, Janice flew back to Michigan to visit friends and family. She had been in a very successful band back there, and when she played our demo tapes to her former bandmates and family, apparently they were less than enthusiastic. They basically told her that she should be doing more current jazz material, and that should be performing as a soloist. So, at our next rehearsal she dropped the little bomb that she would soon be leaving the group. (!!) Lisa, Bob and I were really dismayed, because we had really become a family. It wasn't just a casual group of musicians. We had actually socialized, went to concerts together, and at least twice had a "slumber party" at Bob's apartment. We had a lot of fun together, and we knew that we had an amazing sound together. So Janny's intention to leave the group hit us by surprise and hit us hard. But for the time being, she agreed to stay with us, until we found a replacement. In August, Bob wrangled a unique gig for us. He arranged for us to perform at Seattle movie theater that routinely showed films from the 1940s. The Harvard Exit Theatre was running a print of "Casablanca", and Bob talked the theatre manager into letting us sing in the lobby before the film ran. They had a beautiful grand piano there, so it was perfect for our pianist Bob Kechley. Sammi Davis, the 9-year old daughter of Paul Davis came along, and she actually sang with us, which was pretty darn cute. (I wish we had a photo or video of her singing with us.)
We didn't actually get PAID for doing this gig, but the theatre gave us each 10 movie passes! Lisa and I used those passes, happily. I should mention that we all had day jobs to put food on the table. Lisa was working as a waitress, Bob was a bartender, Janice worked in an office, and I was an appliance installer.
ADDING OUR DRUMMER, JEFF FERGUSON We auditioned a couple of drummers, finally settling on a nice guy named Jeff Ferguson. He was interested in working with us, but his "catch" was that he didn't want to rehearse (!) So, not having any real choice about the matter, we started performing once a week with Jeff on drums at a pizzaria owned by the family of one of my high school friends. They were trying to get a comedy club going there, so we played in between sets of various amateur comedians. All of the comedians were just starting out, and I remember that none of them were very funny. However, it WAS fun to play with a drummer in the band for the first time, though, but it was also somewhat embarrassing to play with him, because of all the mistakes he made.
GIGGING AT THE RED LION INN Then, around November 1980, through an agent, we scored a weeks' worth of gigs at the Red Lion Inn, near Sea-Tac airport. In the building was a classy penthouse club called "Maxies". It was a step up from anywhere else we'd performed, and people actually got out on the dance floor and *danced* to us! Although she technically had left the group, Janice agreed to do this gig with us, on the condition that we included her guitarist friend Max in our "band". I do recall one situation, where our piano player Bob Kechley was unable to make one of the nights because of another concert that he was committed to do. Max was a nice guy, and he added a nice touch to our sound, but he had probably only performed with him a total of two times. So when the night came up that Bob Kechley couldn't play piano for us, Max was shoved into the forefront, with little preparation. He didn't really know our charts, and he bravely stumbled through them, that night. It wasn't horrible, but it also wasn't great, and there were a lot of mistakes. Poor guy -- he was basically put in the position of learning our songs, WHILE we were performing in front of an audience! I recall that at the end of the night, my right side of my body was all tense and sweaty, as I had been trying to sing and conduct Max with my bass guitar all night long. He was also a nervous wreck and afterwards he said to me something along the lines of "Don't EVER put me through that again!"
OFF TO RENO, NEVADA Shortly, after Christmas, we got an last-minute offer to play a New Year's Eve gig at a Holiday Inn in Reno, Nevada. This was December 31, 1980 - going into 1981. (I've always assumed that some other band had dropped out, for us to get this sudden gig.) The money was $1000 for the whole band, which wasn't great, but they did agree to put us up in separate hotel rooms for free. Janny agreed to do it, for the adventure of it all, and the whole band was really excited about it. The job came through the Stephan Agency.
Everyone was excited about playing the "big time" in Reno, except our drummer Jeff. He sort of shocked us, when we told him about the gig and he said, "Well, I'm not going, but I'm sure you'll have a lot of fun." Yikes! Now, we had no drummer.
REPLACING OUR DRUMMER WITH SCOTT CHARLES We really felt that we needed a drummer, so we quickly put up an ad at the Musician's Union, and we got a call from a drummer named Scott Charles, who was planning to drive to California right around that time. He had a van, so he offered to take our P.A. and electric piano with him, which solved that dilemma. it would just be a one-time performance with him, and guess what? He ALSO did not want to rehearse! So, we recorded our entire repertoire onto cassette, and supposedly he listened to it. We decided to drive to Reno from Lynnwood, since we couldn't afford either the train or airfare. My parents kindly offered the use of their car, but the problem was that there wasn't room for 5 of us in the car. Since there really wasn't enough room in my parents' car for five people, Bob volunteered to drive in the van with the pickup drummer and meet us in Reno with the P.A., bass amp and electric piano. Besides, we really didn't know this guy, and we felt like one of us should drive with Scott to make sure he didn't just drive off and steal our equipment.
Unfortunately, the drummer had neglected to fully gas up the van, and he and Bob ran out of gas in the Siskiyou mountains - at nighttime! They ended up getting stranded in the middle of nowhere with no gas and no heat and no gas station in sight. It gets cold in the mountains of California in the winter. They managed to walk to a local Sheriff's office, but when they asked for help, he told them "You got yourselves INTO this mess, -- now, get yourselves OUT of it!!" They tried to sleep in the van, with no blankets or winter coats. This was before cell phones, so the rest of us had no idea what what going on with Scott and Bob. They were on their own. The other four of us, Lisa, Bob Kechley, Janice and myself drove in shifts. Wouldn't you know that it started snowing HEAVILY! So, driving was very dicey until we got out of state. In the morning, we ended up in Susanville, CA in time for breakfast. When we pulled a restaurant, who do we see but Bob and Scott! I don't remember how they finally got to Susanville, but we helped them gas up the van and later that day, we all pulled into Reno. We had just driven 15 hours straight, and I had not slept a wink. In those days, I really needed my sleep, so I was a wreck and was exhausted when we checked into our hotel room. Lisa and I shared a room, since we were boyfriend and girlfriend now. I immediately crashed on the bed in our room. But somehow, once again our band alarm clock went off, and it did so while I was in deep, deep sleep. Totally out of it, the alarm jarred me awake. I sprang out of a dead sleep in a panic, jumped around, and frantically tried to find the clock to turn it off, which was scaring me to death. I never could find it, and instead I collapsed back on the bed, panting -- with the alarm continuing to go off. Lisa disabled it, and I instantly fell back asleep. Welcome to Reno.
OUR NEW YEAR'S EVE GIG IN RENO The gig itself was pretty much the "gig from Hell". New Year's Eve is traditionally a night that people want to get drunk and party. A 40's band wasn't really what the audience wanted. They wanted a party band. During our sets, people kept coming up to us and asking for Disco and "Elvis" songs. We only knew big band tunes, and told them so. We also had to do a four-hour show for the first time. I think we had added some new solo numbers to pad it out, but we still really only had 3 hours' worth of material. So, we just repeated our first set over again, for the fourth hour. At midnight, we counted down the seconds to the New Year, with the audience. The Holiday Inn had provided each table of partiers with bottles of champagne. So, promptly at midnight, several of the audience members thought it would be funny to shake up their champagne bottles, and spray us with champagne! I remember valiantly trying to protect our P.A. and band equipment from the downpour. They thought it was funny. We didn't. Needless to say, I needed a good shower that night. The next morning, we packed up our equipment in boxes, and shipped them home to Lynnwood by UPS. We said goodbye to our temporary drummer Scott Charles, and crammed Bob Kaiser into my parent's car making it FIVE of us! We made the long trek back to Seattle. What an adventure. That's Show Biz!
HOLDING AUDITIONS TO REPLACE JANICE Back home, Bob, Lisa and I started putting ads out, looking for a replacement singer for Janice. We auditioned several women in Bob's apartment. I remember that we auditioned a singer one night, that Lisa really liked. Bob and I didn't think the lady was vocally right for us, and Lisa got upset about it. We also had a lady come to audition once, who'd come with an autoharp. She was older and not very good. A strange experience. And she also brought her 5-year old son, who fell asleep on a nearby bed during the audition. Another lady, (I remember her name: Susan Haller) came dressed to the nines, with a great 40's outfit, and an authentic hairstyle - complete with gloves and hi-heels. Unfortunately, she wasn't a very good singer, and we didn't select her. Around this time, Bob Kaiser had contacted Greg Thompson, a local producer of traveling musical revues. He had sent our demo tape and photo to Thompson, who that we come and audition for him. We drove into Seattle, to to Thompson's rehearsal space, and in full 40's regalia -- with me on guitar -- we sang 3 songs. One of them was "Milkman, Keep Your Bottles Quiet". as I recall.
At first nothing came of this Greg Thompson audition, until we got a call from his office one day, asking if we'd be interested in recording some vocals for a traveling cabaret show that he was putting together. His musical director was a guy named David Jackson, so it was arranged for us to come in to a big recording studio in Seattle, called "Kaye-Smith Recording". This was very exciting to us! (It was the first time I had ever gotten a chance to record in a REAL recording studio.) We came in our 40's clothes, and were ushered in. We went over some of the charts for the songs they wanted us to sing. Since Bob and I couldn't read music, we had to learn the parts by ear. I remember we did "fake" commercials for "Ajax" and "Brylcream", as well as a pop song of the late '50s. The whole group was paid $75 for doing this session. Even though we weren't looking for a male singer, one contacted us and he wanted to come and sing for us. He was great, and he played guitar and sang in a smooth white soul style. Really good, but he wasn't right for our group, although we encouraged him to keep pursuing music. Even Darcy Danielson, one of the group from "Grandma's Cookies" - a group that we'd admired, came to the auditions. She didn't sing for us, just came to discuss the possibilities of joining us. But she wasn't interested enough to join - I think she just came to check us out. I also seem to remember that *another* Grandma's Cookie came to audition around that same time. We ended up choosing a female singer, named Lita. She passed our audition with flying colors, and we were really looking forward to working with her. But it later turned out that she was in a lesbian relationship, and her girlfriend (wife?) didn't want her to be in a band. Unfortunately, she quickly dropped out without a single rehearsal with us. We were back to Square One.
FINDING GINA NICHOLS We got the idea to check out the singing waiters and waitresses at a restaurant called "The Great American Food and Beverage, Co." It was on Eastlake Ave, E., just across the bridge from the U-District. I remember that our waiter was a guy in a bumblebee suit. I later found out that it had been Scott Warrender, who much later wrote a brilliant music review called "Texas Chainsaw Manicurist". Several of the waitresses and waiters sang, but the only one who piqued our interest was an olive-skinned, Italian girl, who sang "My Funny Valentine". We cornered her, and pressed her for an audition. Her name was Gina Nichols. She auditioned, we hit it off, and soon she was our new Swingaire. Now that we had regrouped, Bob Kaiser was pushing us to break out of the box, and do something really big. The guy we had met at the Goose Restaurant, Jim Lopeman, had given us his business card. Bob called him up and asked if he was in a position to possibly produce the Swingaires, doing something on a grander scale. Bob Kaiser came up with the idea that we should put a touring act together, that could play theaters. We roughed out a basic show that we would tour with, including a van, a set piece, our own P.A. system and a roadie. It was something like $7000 that was our target money. Suddenly, the price kept jumping up, as Bob kept adding more expensive costumes, lighting, an RV -- just on and on. The price of our projected project jumped to something like $70,000 (!!) We had a couple of meetings with Jim Lopeman, and sketched out a proposal, with him acting as advisor. He threw in $1000 "to get the ball rolling". He suggested that we use the money to record three songs in a big, fancy Seattle studio, using big band musicians. The idea was to have a pre-recorded tape that we'd sing live to, and cut the cost of having to travel with lots of live musicians. (Using tape was a concept that Bob and I later used for The Amazing Pink Things.) We decided to record three songs, that we could use in a presentation, hopefully to attract financial backers. I decided to do big band arrangements for three tunes: "Laura", "Winter Weather" and "Blues In The Night". Using the money given us by Lopeman, we found 6 musicians, a basic rhythm section and 3 horn players, and we rehearsed them briefly in my parent's basement. Then, we got them into the studio at Pacific Recorders in Redmond, WA.
OUR BIG BAND RECORDING SESSION It was a very big studio, and it was the second time I'd been in a real studio. This studio was even larger than the previous one. Very thrilling! I had come up with the arrangements, with the help of Bob Kechley who acted as my musical secretary and copyist. I'm sure we paid him something to do that. We also paid the studio, and all the musicians. I think it was a 4-hour session.
All the Swingaires were in attendance - in full costume - even though we weren't going to be singing. The first song up was a swing number "Winter Weather". After I gave the downbeat, the band laid into it. And let me tell you, it was one of the biggest thrills of my life to hear that big horn section, playing the parts I'd only imagined in my head! I'll never forget it. I don't remember all the musicians, but the ones I do recall were: Piano: Bob Kechley, Trumpet: Terry Lack, and on Drums: Greg Keplinger. We also had a trombonist (Larry somebody), a stand-up bassist (a lady, whose name I also don't recall), and Max Block on guitar. There wasn't time (because of the costs) to perfect any one take, so it was kind of painful to move on to another song, knowing that there were mistakes on the tape. The engineer was able to correct a couple of timing things, and I remember I had to go out on the floor, after the band had left, to hit a cymbal in the right place. We ended up with a master tape with three somewhat raggedy but PASSABLE big band tracks. So, now we had our taped big band for our presentation. Next, I remember that Bob Kaiser insisted that we have new 40's outfits, and he put together some really cool clothes, all from vintage used clothing stores. With Gina in our group now, we rehearsed the songs in my parent's basement, adding some basic movement (not exactly choreography), to make it more visually interesting. I'm sure Bob came up with the movements, which we rehearsed.
TRYING TO INTEREST FINANCIAL INVESTORS IN THE SWINGAIRES Bob had made up a prospectus, detailing what kind of show we wanted to create, and the costs involved. Bob was a real go-getter. He'd arranged to rent a jazz club in Seattle, called "Parnell's for this presentation". It was closed on Sundays, so we rented it for a couple of hours on that day. We invited anyone and everyone we thought might be able to help us, financially. Bob made a spoken presentation, asking that interested investors could meet us at the bar, afterwards, and we performed our three songs, singing live to our tape-recorded backing. Unfortunately, no one came forward with any money! I remember that Gina's parent's were there, but there were only a few other people there besides them. I recall that David Jackson had come, and afterwards said to us, "You guys are really organized. It's not often that I see groups doing presentations with written presentations!" I'm sure that Jim Lopeman and his girlfriend were there, as well. Lopeman lived in a condo in West Seattle, with his girlfriend. In the same building lived a guy from the music industry named Manny Sanchez. I don't remember in what capacity this guy was in the music business, but Lopeman set up an "audition" for us to sing for Sanchez in Lopeman's condo. We probably sang the same three songs we'd done for Greg Thompson. After our numbers, Sanchez suggested that we should contact "The Lawrence Welk Show"! (We were later both insulted and greatly amused!) Soon, it became apparent that the traveling roadshow money was just not going to come in, and Bob announced that he was throwing the towel in. He had briefly moved into a smaller apartment in Seattle, then he announced that he was leaving the group, and had arranged to fly home to Illinois.
BOB DECIDES TO LEAVE THE SWINGAIRES We got together one last time with Gina at my parent's house to record the few songs that we had taught her, and to have a photo session in our latest stage costumes. (We had never had any photos taken with Gina, so this was a last ditch effort to remedy that.) I had a very nice medium format camera and tripod, so we took "self portraits" using that. My mom was probably directing us from behind the camera! (In those days, I developed my own film in a makeshift darkroom.) Lisa and I bought Bob some goofy toys as 'going-away' presents. We had gone to Toys R' Us and purchased a jump rope, and a Space Cadet space helmet - all of which turned out to be much too small for his head! We said goodbye to Bob, and closed the book shut on The Swingaires. Or so we thought.....
GREG THOMPSON PRODUCTIONS GET INTERESTED IN US Several weeks later, I got a call from Greg Thompson's office, that they were considering using us for a "Circus" show they were planning! Could we meet Thompson at this office later in the week? I remember that Lisa, Gina and I went in to meet with him, and he described putting a show together with us, to play in all the Playboy Clubs across American, and also in the Bahamas. We really didn't know what to think. On one hand it was kind of creepy to think of us playing in Playboy Clubs, but on the other hand, getting paid well for making music (of any kind) DID seem somewhat attractive.
We phoned Bob Kaiser in Illinois, telling him about the offer. I remember saying "Well, you'd better get on back here, Bob. Things are starting to happen!" So, Bob flew back, and stayed briefly in Lisa's apartment. We met with Thompson, and he began to string us along, saying "Hang in there, I'm still thinking of how to use you guys...." Then, Bob informed me that Thompson was interested in using Bob and Gina, but not myself or Lisa, because he felt that the two of us weren't attractive enough. Bob tried to reason with him, saying, "You just can't plug ANYONE into this group, to get this kind of sound." Thompson strung us along for a couple of more weeks, then Bob decided we had better do another presentation to convince Thompson to hire us. Thompson was thinking about putting a revue together, having singers sing the top songs from the past decades, so I arranged a medley of songs like "Aquarius", "Close to You", etc. We learned this medley and included choreography, which I'm greatly embarrassed about, when I think of it now. We arranged to audition this piece for Thompson at a downtown restaurant called "The Golden Crown". It was a very gay venue, known to sometimes have cabaret acts featured there. Gina was friends with Scott Warrender who played piano, so she arranged for him to rehearse with us. Looking like a pimp, Thompson arrived with a faux-fur jacket on, and a trashy blonde on his arm. Creepy. We did our medley, which Scott acted as announcer for, as well as piano. Thompson seemed lukewarm to our act. Unbeknownst to us, another group had appeared before us to also audition. They were really polished cabaret types: a female singer with two male dancers. They did a comic cowboy number, which was really funny. But the singer, Joanne Klein, was kind of homely, and I don't think Thompson was interested in them at all..
THE SWINGAIRES REACH THE END OF THE ROAD We waited another couple of weeks, and were now being told by Thompson that because of political unrest in the Bahamas, he had to put our project on hold. At that point, Bob Kaiser told him to "Forget it. And as far as I'm concerned, you can eat the scabs off dead dogs!" Yikes. So, the Thompson deal was off, and we soon said goodbye (again) to Bob, as he flew back to Illinois, again. And THAT, my friend, is the complete story of the Swingaires. September '79- April, '81. It has been a joy for me to hear The Swingaires' magical vocal blend after all these years. Janice Lakers, myself and Lisa McPhaden are all doing fine, these days. Bob Kaiser passed away 31 years ago, but his voice lives on on this album. He was a good guy, and we had many adventures together - good and bad, after the Swingaires ceased to be. He could be complicated, but he didn't deserve to die so young. I was able to get a cassette copy of most of these songs to him, before his death in 1994, and I was told that he was very proud of it, and that he played it for others. Thanks for checking out our album, and I hope you enjoy it. It has been on my "bucket list" to restore those tapes, and I'm glad that the music of The Swingaires lives on! Hardly anyone remembers this vocal group, but I do, and it means a lot to me.
However, four years later another group rose from the ashes of The Swingaires...THE AMAZING PINK THINGS!
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