Guitar Archeology

In the 70’s the Gibson guitars artist relations office was operated out of Buck Munger’s home basement recording studio in northeast Portland, Oregon. When the first half-inch video cameras hit the market Buck grabbed one and started shooting low key back stage interviews with Gibson artists directed at the plant workers and field reps to boost morale and increase sales. This is an intro to the first Artist Relations field tape. Buck introduces a trashed Les Paul given to him backstage by Pete Townshend. The guitar was destroyed by Pete because he discovered it had a faulty neck. When he became convinced that something was wrong he bashed it against the wall and indeed the center core of the neck was rotted. So he told Alan Rogan the roadie to save it for that guy from Gibson. In this video Buck also touts the Bo Diddley “Mark Series” model acoustic. In truth, at the time, the Mark Series acoustics were the first costly boondoggle by Gibson’s new owners the Norlin Corporation, having spent thousands to develop a whole new bridge concept outside the Gibson design team. Unfortunately, also outside the design team they added a plastic ring around the guitar’s sound hole, which instantly turned off the players and killed sales. Munger picked up the little square guitar in the office of Gibson’s Kalamazoo plant while visiting the factory with John Entwistle of the Who. After walking through the factory collecting instruments Entwistle were invited into Carl’s office. A row of unfinished prototype instruments lined the wall. One instrument stood out. A little square guitar with the new Mark Series bridge. What in the heck is this. “Oh that, says Carl. The New York Norlin guys discovered Ovation guitars (with a plastic back) and they instructed us to build them a prototype so they could evaluate the acoustical properties of plastic.” “I could see Carl was not comfortable telling this story, says Buck, these were his corporate bosses he was talking about and I was the corporate Artist Relations guy.” “Carl said he looked all over for something plastic like the back of a guitar and all he could come up with was this refrigerator vegetable drawer.” So the Gibson craftsmen, who had established the baseline for excellence in the guitar building business were forced to build a guitar on a refrigerator drawer. “I asked for it, and after all the Entwistle freebies I guess Carl was glad to get rid of it.”

WATCH THE VIDEO HERE

Buck Munger w/ Pete Townshend\’s Guitar 1975

The WHO Sunn Advert

I was spending a lot of time with the Who. Of all Sunn’s acts, Pete and the lads worked hardest to promote the Sundholm brother’s little Oregon amplifier company. Before and after tours, the lads would set up camp at the Continental Hyatt House out on the Sunset Strip-shortly thereafter to be known forever as the Contine…ntal “Riot” House. When the Who were in town whole floors of the hotel would be set aside for the band and entourage. The hallways smelled funny and were jammed with beautiful Mods, Rockers and Flower People. We recorded some radio commercials with Pete & John marveling at the fact “even the Who” couldn’t destroy Sunn Amplifiers. It was true. The gear held up, and John Entwistle for one, thought it produced the best bass sound ever. I was getting closer to John, both through herding Keith and talking careers in the music business. There was a seismic power-shift taking place in the music industry at that time. Recording artists suddenly discovered all the real money was in music publishing and administering their own copyrights. All you needed was a file cabinet. John was a writer pushing to get the band to do his songs. John’s composition “Boris The Spider” was the most popular song with American audiences on the first tour. John knew there had to be room for more Entwistle tunes on the Who’s set list. John also knew of my independent producer aspirations and fed me tips on label changes and new talent. He pitched me songs and suggested names for my acts and told me the story about how he and Moon had been approached by Jimmy Page, when the Yardbirds broke up, and Page wanted John & Keith to leave the Who and join him and Jeff Beck in a new band. John said he and Keith talked about it and came to the conclusion it would go over “like a Led Zeppelin”, a name so catchy, Jimmy Page decided to keep it. The infrequent casual conversations with Jimi Hendrix had also became more and more about the music industry, how it operated and where does all that money go, anyway? Jimi was not a happy camper about his business dealings, and he didn’t try and keep it a secret.

The Animals, which one has the wig?

Buck was left standing in the intersection next to his XKE watching Keith Moon run laughing into the hotel waving his car keys. John Entwistle sighed, and said he’d go try to retrieve them. It had been a wild night out. I had picked up John and Keith earlier and we all crammed into the E-Type to cruise out on the Sunset Str…ip. We rolled up to the Whisky and handed over the keys to the valet. Keith and John were wearing their stage clothes and if not instantly recognizable, certainly somebody out of the ordinary. We were escorted up to the VIP balcony overlooking the stage. On stage were Eric Burdon & The Animals, a group that Moon and Entwistle knew well back home. After several rounds and increasingly rowdy behavior Moon leaned over and yelled in my ear. “He’s bald you know, hasn’t got a hair on his head.” Who? “The guitar player!” I looked down and it seemed to me the guitarist had not only a full head of hair but flowing locks to boot. Huh? Moon was out of his seat, off like a shot, down the stairs, across the crowded room, up to the corner of the stage, on stage, behind the guitar player, “See!” he yelled, pulling off the wig. Holy shit! It was bedlam on stage. The bald guitarist turned and grabbed at Moon, who threw the wig into the crowd and jumped down. The guitar player dropped his instrument and took off in full pursuit across the room, catching Moon about half-way up the balcony stairs. Thankfully the Whisky bouncers arrived simultaneously and Moon was spared a beating, however we were informed our presence would no longer be tolerated and escorted to the door. Outside, waiting for the car Moonie bowed and smiled to the crowd of clapping patrons that followed us out.

Keith Moon

Billy Gibbons (white shirt-center) opens for Jimi

I spent the next few months bouncing around the country with the Who and the Jimi Hendrix Experience while Pete and Sheila ran the new Sunn offices on the corner of Sunset & Vine. The location quickly became a popular destination for local and touring acts. Neil Young was back in the Buffalo Springfield and now sporting …an all Sunn backline. Bands from the UK chose LA as the beachhead of the invasion and Hollywood was quickly becoming British territory. Headquarters for many was the Continental Hyatt (Riot) House on Sunset. Jimi Hendrix was still waiting for his 12” speaker cabinets and in the meantime had taken the horns out of the top of the 100S speaker cabinets. You couldn’t see the difference through the grille cloth and each night he’d ram his guitar into the empty hole. With the feedback and theatrics it looked like he was reaming the loudspeaker. The next night, new grille-cloth, new amplifier. About this time Jimi introduced me to a young guitar player from Texas that had opened for him and made a big impression. Jimi wanted to give several of his older Sunn units to the Moving Sidewalks guitarist Billy Gibbons. No problem. I noticed, the reports of Jimi trashing his gear didn’t go down well with Pete Townshend at all. By the time the Who landed in Los Angeles we were tight and I was excited to show them around. John Entwistle was amazed at the fruit salad at the Room At The Top and Keith Moon loved ordering beer down to the office, so we could close the inner door and do phone pranks. Pete Townshend kept urging me to cover his songs with American acts. The band bonded with everybody in the Sunn office. Peter Burke even volunteered his credit card when Wallach’s Music City wouldn’t take a check from Townshend for a new Les Paul.

Buck with Pete

I watched Pete get especially active with the solid body Gibson SG, chipping chunks out of the beautiful floor. Moon’s cymbals were digging nice scratches too. The school officials were going ballistic waving their arms trying to stop the performance but attracting no attention. Pete whirled and kicked over the PA-head, …which bounced off the floor and immediately started to hum loudly. The teachers may have been freaking out but the kids loved it. After a few more minutes of mayhem Pete threw his mangled guitar down and stomped off. The other band members followed. The Buckinghams’ roadies swarmed the PA, swearing. Bobby Pridden sprang into action rallying his volunteers to pack the stage and load the truck. The school officials were looking for an official representative of the band to complain to, and I seemed to be the only one not involved in the load-out. They asked me to follow them to a school office where they closed the door and informed me there had been extensive damage and the fire marshal had been called about the smoke machine. I assured them the band was fully insured and any damage would be covered. I then let them chew on me long enough for Bobby and the kids to get the truck loaded, handed them my Sunn card and excused myself. As I walked through the gym I could still hear the PA humming loudly. Back at the motel I was greeted like a hero when Bobby told the story.

I became attached first to Keith Moon, because of his love of practical jokes and my fascination with his completely unique playing style. Pete Townshend nurtured my friendship with Keith because he needed help with the wild man. These guys were all on passports and high jinks that wouldn’t slow down an American act coul…d get a British band thrown out of the country. As Moon’s best friend, John Entwistle was glad to have Sunn’s credit cards to pick up the bar bill and whatever damages may accrue. Most of the recreation on those early tours took place in the hotel bar where there was always some drunk “straight” businessman who was incensed to see longhaired freaky foreigners in sissy clothes flirting with the barmaids. Many was the night, we stood up together for Queen and country. Moon seemed to enjoy pushing the situation to the limit to see if I could get us out of there without a fight. Moonie was a daily challenge to my finely honed peacekeeping skills. In Kansas City, the Who were opening for the Buckinghams (“Kind of a Drag”) who were on their fifth hit single on Columbia from producer Jim Guercio. The sound check was short and friendly and the Buckinghams agreed to let the Who use their PA to keep the set change to a minimum. The mostly teenaged audience filed into the hall looking white, upper middle class and bored. When the Who walked out on the stage in their Carnaby clothes the first few rows of standing students pressed forward to get a better look. The venue for the Who/Buckingham confrontation was a new high school gym. The bands performed on a stage made from beautiful inlaid wood. The Who launched into their set and got a good reaction to “Boris The Spider”, which I had learned that afternoon, Entwistle wrote. The rest of their set was received politely, but attentively. For the finale, Pete announced a song that would be released in the US within weeks “I Can See For Miles”. A few chords in, the audience came alive, and I found my new favorite Who song. As the finale built Bobby switched on the tiny smoke machine and the shit hit the fan. Pete started swinging his guitar like a pickaxe, Moonie kicking over his drums, Roger swinging the microphone in large arcs and bouncing it off the floor. I noticed several school officials spring into action. Nobody had warned them about this madness.

The Who with The Buckinghams

Buck Munger was scoring points with Keith Moon and John Entwistle with my terror filled tales of the Marine Air Wing and Phoenix Police Department. They offered their experiences traveling Europe and humorous impressions of America. We definitely shared an appreciation for the practical joke. Moon’s squint-eyed impression of actor… Robert Newton’s Long John Silver was classic. Entwistle exhibited the dry English wit. They prepared me for meeting their band-mates with some essential background information. Pete’s an old codger and Roger is a pretentious rock star. Why right now, that disgusting Roger is down in his room with a bunch of teeny-bopper groupies. Where the actual idea came from, I can’t remember, but the next thing I know I’m on the phone calling Daltrey’s room in my best Phoenix Police Department Desk Sergeant voice “ Hello, Mister Dawntree, this is Sgt Mullen of the Kansas City Police Department, we have a report that you are entertaining under-aged minor females in your room, sir, is that true? Daltrey, stuttered “No, that’s not true, who told you that?” “Well Mr. Dawntree, we have dispatched a radio car to answer that complaint, that should be there any minute, and you can make your statement to the investigating officer.” Hanging up the phone I could see Entwistle and Moon bursting with appreciation for my performance. We could hear feet scuffling outside in the hallway and after a moment there was a knock on the door. Daltrey came in, nodded to Keith and John and stepped into the bathroom. In a few minutes he came out and announced he was going to find Pete, and left. Keith and John, who had been quiet since he came in the room, let out howls of laughter. They pummeled me with compliments. We had a relationship. I had never met or dealt with the Who’s managers. With the Jimi Hendrix Experience most of the communication away from the site flowed through either Chas Chandler or Gerry Stickles. The only time I got to talk to Jimi was at the sound check and after the show backstage, which was always a circus. With the Who I had an off duty relationship with everybody but Roger. I noticed even Townshend liked to join Keith and John in the Roger chop-sessions. The band dynamic was interesting. In public, Daltrey shined and accepted the presumption that, as the singer, he must be the leader of the band. In private, Roger shrunk to the bottom of the pecking order behind John, who was below Keith who was always challenging Pete.

The WHO Sunn Amplifiers

Buck Munger would now be figuring out what to do with the Who, who were on the radio in LA with “Happy Jack,” sounding nothing like the band that exploded at the Monterey Pop Festival. Several cocktail conversations with Pete Townshend had calmed my fears. The destruction was limited and mostly cosmetic. Bobby “Plum” Pridden, the …equipment manager, would repair and maintain the gear. Grille-cloth is easy to replace. Pete suggested we run an ad, “Even The Who Can’t Bust ‘em.” He loved Sunn’s heavy-duty cabinet construction, built from three-quarter inch plywood-compared to the normal half-inch in the best of the competitors. I flew to Kansas City to meet the Who, deliver the equipment and get signatures on the contract. On takeoff, I spilled a drink on the guy sitting behind me in First Class who, in a genuine twist of fate, turned out to be Joe Banaron, CEO of Thomas Organ, the owners of Vox Amplifiers. Months before the Who had destroyed a stage full of Vox amplifiers on the Smothers Brothers show. Joe remembered. Landing in KC, I took a cab straight to the motel and stopped by the coffee shop where I met Pridden on his way to the airport to pick up the gear. On the drive out and back, Bobby briefed me on the situation. It was just Pridden and the band. The booking agency had sent someone along as Road Manager but he “lost a lot of the band’s money” and “the lads ran him off”. Roger and Pete had their own rooms and John & Keith shared a room. Roger “pulled all the birds” and Pete was the reclusive genius. Bobby described himself as a poor kid from the slums of London that got his big break in life with the Who. It was easy to see the depth of his loyalty. Back at the Motel I decided to start with the rhythm section first, so I had Bobby drop me off with Entwistle & Moon. It took me a few minutes to understand the accents completely but I made out that John was the one who got the band interested in Sunn, having borrowed a 200S unit belonging to the Moody Blues. We talked about the Monterey Pop Festival and the post show buzz on both the Who and Hendrix. On the same small label in England, the two acts were well aware of each other, and I sensed some real hostility.