All of the members of this band have been friends and known each other for many years. One of my oldest friends is Mike. Mike and I go back a ways, I think we started playing together in a about 1973. We were 17 or 18 years old, fresh out of high school. He has always been a "in-the-pocket" rock & roll drummer... The Clock. 

Mike is from East Aurora, Illinois. Went to Aurora Cenral Catholic High School circa 1969-1973. My first recollection of Mike was playing with him in a band called Larkspur. I think this is where we settled in on our southern rock style of music mainly. Only in those days it was bands like America, Neil Young, CSN&Y, The Outlaws, Marshall Tucker, Charlie Daniels, etc. We played around the Aurora area mainly in clubs, bars, and restaurants for the locals. We gained a fairly good following and notoriety for those days. Occasionally, we would trek up to Lake Geneva, WI (actually Fontana, WI) to play at one of our old haunts, The Beach Comers bar and grill, right on the shores of the lake. That was some crazy stuff!  I don't know about the other guys but I think this is where I personally honed my skills as a serious beer drinker. We all did in my estimation. In those days it was one of our traditions to party until the sun came up after each and every gig. Lots of stories here, ask Mike about the parties sometime. Good ice breaker.

In the late mid to late 70's Larkspur evolved into another rather short lived band called Kit 'n' Kaboodle. Don't know why we called it that really, perhaps a question for Mike to answer next time you see us. Anyway, this was our first stab at real leading edge rock and roll. Bands like Jeff Beck, Foghat, Edgar Winter and so on. It was actually just a jam band, I don't think we played out more than a couple of times. I think we were more interested in the beer and the decibles at the time.

After that we split up for a couple of years. Mike went off with our then singer John Wright to form a band named Revolver. I went to a band called The Plain Dealin' Band. Both were southern rock bands. We came back together around 1984 to form a new band named Night Shift. This was in the Michael J. Fox days. We switched gears totally to a more mainstream pop sound, performing songs from bands like, Dire Straights, Men at Work, Bob Seger, BIlly Joel, etc. We were playing every weekend (and some weekdays) busting butt, and drinking a lot of beer. More stories, I'm certain of it.

It wasn't until after Night Shift that Mike went on to play with yet another local band called Red Wing where he settled in for many years until he retired from the music scene in around 1995. I ran into Mike again in the early 2000's when he would occassionally stop out to see a band I was playing with at the time. It was in 2005 when I asked Mike to play in 61 Beale Street, and the rest is recent history.