It Was Thirty Years Ago Today...

...but Sergeant Pepper had long since retired.

Anyway, this is what I was doing exactly 30 years ago today. It was the final day of my junior year at Walt Whitman High School in Bethesda Maryland and The Ramblin' Beach Guys (my old High school band) got permission to play a short set at lunchtime out in "the quad."

From left to right, we were:

• Danny Miller (lead guitar),now a film editor in Hollywood.
• Peter Saal (bass), who only played with us a few times and of whom I have lost track.
• David Halperin (singer), who went on to work on presidential campaigns and in the White house and who is now at the center for American progress.
• John Heilprin (drums), now the AP's United Nations correspondent.
  
• John Krivit (sometimes bass and mostly singer), who now teaches audio and media technology in colleges around Boston.
• And me (rhythm guitar), now a toiling minor functionary in a small state's government.

According to Danny, who is archivist for this once little-known and now mostly unknown group, we played a short set of rock and punk that day:

• Route 66 (probably The Stones version)
• Rockaway Beach (The Ramones)
• Is She Really Going Out With Him (Joe Jackson and a challenge for a novice guitarist)
• Lip Service/I Remember You (Elvis Costello and ?)
• Surrender (Cheap Trick)
• Imagination (The Stones)
• Hippy Hippy Shake (We probably based ours on the version played by The Razz in those days)
  

I think it's interesting that on two June 20s I am playing a small, supporting role in a performance. Rhythm guitar in 1979 and the briefly on-stage Simon in Stinkin' Rich in 2009.