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Ya know, I actually could have been the singer in the AK-47s.
Russ DeGidio was supposed to handle the vocals, but about 4
days before their first gig, he split town. Bill DeGidio (Robert
Conn) called me and asked if I wanted to sing. I think the first
show was on a Monday night and I had just gotten hired at some
shop and my first night was 2nd shift on that Monday night.
Bad career move in retrospect. Anyhow, I suggested to Bill that
he take over the vocals instead of bass and call a friend of
mine, Randy Primozic, and try him at bass. It worked out. Still
haunts me that I could have been on that now legendary Cleveland
Confidential EP. Bill was a god. A lot of well deserved credit
goes to Mike Hudson for inspiring (or fucking up) a bunch of
us youngsters at the time to start bands, but Bill was definately
the major influence on those of us from the eastside. At one
point, Bill safety pinned an American flag (a small one, about
12"x10") to the back of his leather and had written in black
magic marker a bunch of band names on it. Then one Sunday afternoon
he sat in his garage unleashing a guitar attack upon his quiet
conservative Mentor neighborhood. The cops arrived and Bill
ended up arrested for defacing the flag. Another AK-47 moment
was when Randy and I were near a Gold Circle Dept. store in
Willoughby Hills. It was about 2 in the afternoon and for some
stupid reason we pulled up next to the front of the building
and I got out and spray painted the bands name on the brick
storefront. We ended up getting nabbed on that one as someone
had turned in his plate numbers. We sorta got out of it but
not before we had to wirebrush the paint off and also endure
a long lecture from a cop who had been in Nam and kept asking
us if we knew what the hell an AK-47 was. (Cheese
Borger) |
