Especially the songs with the harmonies (which were most of them)!

Man - the harmonies! Everybody sang! We all seemed to know our parts before we ever opened our mouths!

Don't believe me? Go to the Music page and listen to a few songs from way back then!

We did whatever songs we liked, whether they were popular or not! Who else would cover "Sea of Madness", a Neil Young song that only (originally) appeared on the "Woodstock 2" soundtrack album?

Originally the band was called "Giving Room" (some kind of reference to a Graham Nash song? Help me out here guys!). It was started at Pearce High School in 1970-71 by four friends, Dennis Taylor (guitar), Gary Allen (guitar), his sister, Beverly Allen (guitar) and Chuck Rhoades (guitar).

They had a love for Buffalo Springfield, C.S.N. & Y, Neil Young, Steve Stills, The Byrds, Poco, Delaney and Bonnie and a lot of the other alt-country rock music that was popular then.

Somewhere along the way they picked up Michael Cheakas (electric guitar) who was a perfect complement to the music they were making (we'll get into who was was equated to which popular artist on the Members page).

I'm not sure where they actually started playing (Maybe Dennis or Beverly can fill in the blanks here), but we (Lew and myself) ran into them at Papa's Pizza Parlor in 1972 on Northwest Highway just East of Bachman Lake. We used to come in after finishing practice with our band (Southern Cross). I was immediately struck by the vocals. The band we were in could barely sing! These guys were doing intricate 3-4 part harmonies that just soared! In particular I remember sitting there one night listening to them sing Neil Young's "Old Man". WOW!

Lew and I used to sit in on a few songs that we knew. After several months of going to see them they asked me if I would be interested in joining the band. I said "Sure!".

Dennis called me about 2-3 days later and said we had an audition. I said "Great, when?", he said "tonight", I said "TONIGHT? But we haven't even practiced yet!" (this coming from a band that was used to practicing 5-6 hours every night!). He said "don't worry, it'll be fine". He was right! We aced the audition and became the house band at The Annex (Annex-Bojangles) on Kings Rd. Playing 4 nights a week for 6 months! We never practiced after that, preferring to learn songs on stage! Something we still do today when some of us get together!

Side note - At some point before I joined the band and started playing at The Annex, Chuck and Beverly had left the group. Beverly was to rejoin us later.

Best time at the Annex? Meeting my wife again 6 years after Jr. high school (she thought I was "kind of geeky then"). 30 years later she still says "get off that damn computer!" She must have known!


We had a great time at the Annex and eventually moved across the street to Booger's (Boogie at Boogers!) in 1973 before it was the Texas Tea House. That's when we picked up Lew to play drums for us. I finally didn't have to keep the beat! Yay!


After Booger's, we moved across town to the General Store on Greenville Ave. I don't remember how long we played there but I do know it was long enough to get the only live recording of us from one night in September 1974! By this time Beverly had rejoined the band so we had 5 part harmonies on some songs!

But to quash any rumors that have arisen over the years - Gary was the Paddy!!! We used to say it was Dennis - but we were just being nice!

There will be more history written here when I can get everyone else to contribute stuff and hopefully jog my memory . . . . . . .