Patty King
New Year's Eve at the Blind Tiger
Sam
Kenny
The Back Seat Boys!
Photos courtesy of Professor Bugger

Ren Wah!
At the Celtic Fox
Tommy Gun!
Patty and Gary
Photos courtesy of Topeka Tonight

The band!
Patty King
Sam
Kenny
Ren and Gary
Tom
Photos courtesy of Topeka Tonight

Saturday, the 6th at 9:00pm
at the Celtic Fox
http://www.thecelticfox.com

Saturday, the 13th at 9:00pm
at the Varsity Blues
http://www.varsitybluesbbq.com/

Saturday, the 20th at 9:00pm
at Sweetwoods Bar and Grille
Leavenworth, KS
http://sweetwoodsonline.com

Saturday, the 27th at 9:00pm
at the Slow Ride Roadhouse, Lawrence, KS
http://www.slowrideroadhouse.com

Friday, the 31st at 9:00pm
at Joletta's

Saturday the 1st at 9:00pm
at the Celtic Fox
http://www.thecelticfox.com

Saturday, the 20th at 9:00pm
at the Varsity Blues
http://www.varsitybluesbbq.com/

TBA

TBA

Video courtesy of Professor Bugger at Professor Bugger

Video courtesy of Professor Bugger at Professor Bugger

I grew up in the beer joints of North Topeka. My parents were club owners. My mother started her first bar when she was pregnant with me. In the bars is where my love of music began. I loved to play the jukebox, drink cokes and spin around on the bar stools with my little brother. For me, going to the bar was like going to the play ground. Picking songs on the jukebox is how I became familiar with a variety of musical artists from country to rock & pop.

When I was in grade school, my mother would let my little brother and me go to work with her sometimes on Saturdays. My father would also take us to the bar after school a couple times a week to see mom. I spent a great deal of my summers there as well. My parents would hire bands on the weekends. I thought it was so exciting to listen to the different bands. As I got older into my teen years, I would sometimes get up and play the drums with different bands. Finally I got the nerve to sing a song or two. I learned to play the drums from my younger brother, John. I learned from watching him play.

I was baptized by fire on the night he was to play drums but couldn’t make it to the gig which was at our parent’s bar. His band asked me to play for him. I had never played the drums much at all and certainly never in public. I did play that night for the entire gig. I just kept the beat, no extras! I think it was that night when I was truly bitten by the band bug. I just had to play and sing with a live band from that point on. Over the years, I have played with many different bands. I have always enjoyed going to the local jam sessions and getting the opportunity to sing or play the drums with the local musicians. I have a lot of memories of those times and plan to make more memories until the day comes that I can no longer get up and make the music happen.

Who would have guessed a set of bongo drums, played along with the Kingston Trio and other folk singers, would prove to be the springboard for a five-decade love affair with contemporary music? The bongos soon morphed to a trap set, inspired by the cool jazz of Brubeck et al., which became the gateway for the first band, formed within six months of the Beatles' appearance on Ed Sullivan. Drums soon gave way to the guitar and by departure for college, jamming with friends were the best-spent nights and weekends.

Since then bands have come and gone and different musical styles explored, but it always comes back to one thing: music is a language that knows few boundaries and to be able to "speak" it, even in a rudimentary fashion, has made me one of the luckiest people I know!

I have been a drummer/percussionist since my days in the elementary school music program pounding out paradiddles and other rudiments on a silver Slingerland concert snare drum. Throughout high school I was the lead snare drummer in the concert band, tri-tom player in the marching band, and the kit drummer in the jazz band and pep band. After graduating high school I played the drum set with a garage band in Lawrence and with the Community Jazz Band.

My early music career was put on hold when I enlisted in the US Air Force, got married and began raising a family. I wouldn't pick up a pair of sticks again until the winter of 1999. Since that time I have focused my studies on concepts in linear drumming and limb independence.

I've expanded my interest into drum building by making my own kit. It's a maple-shelled, wooden-rimmed old school styled beauty mounted on Yamaha and Pearl hardware. My percussionist rig consists of Latin Percussion Congas, Treeworks chimes and a variety of other percussion instruments.

I started out playing guitar and drums at the age of 7 being influenced by the Beatles, the Yard Birds and the Zombies. At age 15, I switched to bass after I joined my first band when the guitar players told me that I should play the bass because my hands were so big. In the mid 70’s, I moved to southern California and played with a local progressive rock band for a little over a year, and being tough times, I decided to move back to the Midwest.

The next ten years took me through classical and bass guitar instruction in college to doing solo gigs, studio & concert work for the local Christian rock acts and then spot gigs with other bands until the early 90’s. Since then, I have played in several local cover & original bands and my choices have always lead me to play with many fine and talented musicians.

My influences have encompassed all genres of music over the years, both personally and professionally. Continually, I attempt to explore and become more knowledgeable, as well as, dynamic as a bassist.

For the past twenty years I have traveled down some pretty wild paths and I am not seeing much change in near future. One thing that amazes me is that for every path I have taken, there has been a guitar by my side. Basically the moral to the anecdote is that no matter where life takes you, music will and always seems to be the driving force behind how we live this volatile thing called life. Everyone has a favorite song, or a favorite performer and most notably, every person usually knows what was happening in the world at the time they first heard their favorite song.

I am not quite sure what made me initially pick up the guitar, nor am I sure what caused me to keep playing, MTV perhaps? I think that maybe it was the first live band I saw back in the 70s. I think I was 10 or 11 and I can still remember standing by the elevated stage watching the lead guitar player pound out some mind-altering leads to Pink Floyd's "Another Brick in the Wall." I just remember thinking that the dude looked like a train wreck but the way he played, and how people moved as his hands shaped and structured the very notes he produced, was something truly life-changing. It was almost "pied-piper" like. From there I was a captive audience to anyone who could play.

I can honestly say that even though there are some great musicians in my extended family, i.e., J.P. Richardson(the Big Bopper), my dream of playing guitar did not come easily. There wasn't very many guitar greats from South Central Nebraska where I grew up. It wasn't until my early to mid twenties did I realize that I could actually make my dream a reality. While a college student in Topeka, Kansas, some friends introduced me to then a shaggy, red-headed dude, who taught guitar lessons at a local music store. I probably sat through 5 or 6 of the most boring sessions that I had ever attended. The stuff was too complicated and I didn't want to learn all of the notes that make up a chord or know what chords made a key. All I knew is that I wasn't learning and I wasn't getting any younger. This learning process of starting, stopping, starting, and stopping again, carried on for the next ten years. It wasn't until the late 90s when a light bulb finally illuminated my dense, dark, and ripened brain that I had a clue what I was trying to do. I am not for sure what happened, I just remember picking the guitar up one afternoon, playing a few licks, and saying to myself, I finally get it! Its been habitual ever since.

There are a lot of people that I want to thank for helping me over the years and helping me not only to become a better player but a better person. To my mentor Dan Falley(the once shaggy, red-headed, dude). You have helped me to develop a great gift, giving me the tools, the ear, the mannerisms, and most importantly, your friendship. To my brothers and sister who make up Patty King and the BackSeat Boys. Thanks for giving me the chance to step in and do what I have dreamed of doing for 25 years. You guys are the best and I love you! To John "woo-man" Wooten and Dennis Dinger. I couldn't have come this far without you guys!

By day
He's a grease monkey it's true
A slave
Fix your transmission like new
Change oil
Rotate your tires of course
He toils
Under the Flying Red Horse
And at six he rolls
Down his sleeves
Turns his collar up
When the boss man leaves
Close up the shop
Puts away his tools
Gives the last car keys
To the gas pump fools
Then he's home at last
No more goodwrench scene
And he scrubs his hands
Till they're surgeon clean
Takes a long hot shower
Some cologne and then
The change is complete
He's himself again
At night he's Doctor Sax
He's Mister Tenor Virtuoso
He plays to rhythm tracks on tape
No one like Doctor Sax
Not even Trane or Bird could blow so
The girls have heart attacks, they say
(He'll put it all on wax one day)
Some day
He will live just in his mind
Some way
Leave all his misery behind
His horn
He will blow breaking the curse
Reborn
Under the Flying Red Horse