Since I often dressed somewhat like a particular television Time Lord, it seems fitting that I be the Squirrels’ timekeeper (not to be confused with the rhythm keeper), at least for the time period I was in the band. The fact that I didn’t care for beer may also have kept my synapses firing properly. (Synapse Fire-BNRM!)

During the summer of 1982, I began working with Steve Coley’s band, KAOS, after their concert with Exit and Fury at the Greenfield Lake Amphitheater. I let Steve use my keyboards and played roadie at their rehearsals and occasional gigs, which included a couple of parties and a fund raiser at the Pitch and Post pub for the Libertarian candidate for Congress.

The big gig, though, was the Battle of the Bands on October 10, 1982 at Wilmington’s Waterfront Park. Which is how all this leads back to the Squirrels-they were a competing band on the day. I had heard rumors of the Squirrels; this was when I was introduced to them, musically and personally. Since I was helping KAOS at the time, I was not able to listen as intently to the Squirrels set as I would like, so we’ll use PFC Daniel Sandwich’s recollections preserved in Squirrel Talk #2 (link coming soon) for the definitive history of the October 10 battle. Needless to say, neither KAOS nor the Squirrels were victorious that day.

Shortly after the Battle of the Bands, Steve decided to leave KAOS to start his own group and invited me to play keyboards. However, I don’t think we ever had any real rehearsals before it faded. During that time, I began hanging out at the Squirrel Hut and fell into doing some roadie type work for the Squirrels. Since I was a “techie” type, I was often trying things out, like seeing if Peter’s delay would work with my mixing board, so he could have echo on his guitar and his voice at the same time. Of course, this was the delay that needed a space heater on the same electrical circuit to get it to work…sadly, the mixer and the delay were incompatible.

There were a couple of Squirrel gigs I roadied during this time. One was a party gig somewhere near New Hanover High School. I think this was Lisa’s last appearance on-stage with the band. Another was a gig opening for Stormz at Hobie’s on Oleander Dr. “Big-name” club, big stage, “big-name” band to open for. Memorable bits: Paul doing his “walk” while rocking on the guitar and Danny soloing with his back to the audience. Forty-five minutes of twitching, twangy, original Squirrel music before Stormz hit the stage with their brand of AOR.

Then came the day I brought the reel-to-reel tape recorder to the Squirrel Hut…(to be continued)