I was introduced to music by my much older brother, who gained a bit of regional notoriety as the lead guitarist and composer for the bands White Wing, Asia and Solomon Kane. As I ONLY heard the music he, and to a lesser extent my other older brother, listened to, I was a bit of an odd 70's music nerd, in that I knew NOTHING of the radio hits of the day. Rather, I constantly heard Deep Purple, Zeppelin, Cream, Hendrix and the like as my brother painstakingly worked up their songs on guitar. HIS bands were MY bands...until Kiss and Van Halen. Those were the first two bands that were truly 'mine” and I went all in in my fandom of both bands. While I gradually became obsessed with sports, especially baseball, I never lost that fandom for all of the bands of that time and a good number of the 80's hair bands as well. About the mid-point of my 32 year teaching career, I took a computer class from one of our elementary teachers who my high school kids all spoke of glowingly from their younger years. I am almost computer illiterate, but having been alerted that he was a Kiss fan, spent two hours AFTER the class (and on a school night) excitedly discussing our passion for classic rock music. Jeff and I have been fast friends ever since and he introduced me to Mark, well... digitally, several years ago, as I would always share my newest foolish guitar purchase with him. I'm very excited to share our passion for the music that has meant so much to the three of us for close to 50 years.

 

My top ten 70’s rock bands:

 

1. Kiss

2. Deep Purple

3. Led Zeppelin

4. Montrose

5. Van Halen

6. Rainbow

7. Bad Company

8. Angel

9. Captain Beyond

10. Asia (South Dakota version)