Band.
I play acoustic and electric lead guitar, sing, and act as the business manager.
I am a B.M.I. registered songwriter.
I have three Grandchildren: Mark, Madison, and Abigail from my beautiful
daughter, Michelle and my Son-in-law Wayne Mott.
I live in Riverside with my wonderful wife, Sandy La Londe, also known as
Sandy Lala. Sandy manages the Alder Eagle website. Sandy and Marsha
Allen are the leaders of the “Eaglettes”, the Alder Eagle Dancers!! They know
how to have fun!!
Since 1980 I have worked in the City of Orange at Varco, now called National
Oilwell Varco. I am a Senior Planner/Buyer. Varco has been a great place to
work because the people I have worked with here are great and they have put
up with me all these years!
I was born in Iowa at a very young age and moved to South Gate, California at
age 9. My family came with me.
I was very active in the Boy Scouts and I have been an Eagle Scout since age
13.
At age 15, I began working summers at the Lake Arrowhead Boy Scout Camps
where I started playing guitar and singing folk music, though they were paying
me to lead nature hikes and teach camping skills and such stuff. It was great
fun.
I started a folk group, “The Uphill Road”, with my brother Doug and two of our
friends, all Eagle Scouts. We considered calling the group “The Eagles”, but
we thought it was a stupid name for a band. What did we know, it was 1965!
We performed for many Scout, School, Church, and Community functions in
the South Gate area during high school, which was better than going to class.
We also performed at Hootenannies and Coffee Houses, which were like
concerts without drugs and alcohol. They did have coffee, but not much in the
way of Hooters or Nannies.
The group used to rehearse at the Mortuary where I worked while attending
East Los Angeles College. I am a Founding Father of the Theta Beta Pi
Fraternity at E.L.A.C. Now that was a blast! After graduating from Cal-state
Los Angeles with a degree in English, which I have yet to put to good use, I
started a Rock and Roll Band.
I played bass, because three guitar players were one too many and I owned a
bass guitar. We called the band “Iceboxx” because the singer, Victor, had a
white Chevy van with the word Icebox painted on the side in fancy lettering.
We thought two X’s were sexier than one. We did Stones, Zeppelin and such
cover tunes and played in famous bars like the “Outhouse” in Downey. The
Outhouse was kind of a crappy gig, so the band broke up.
I started a new band with Tony Del Rosario, Gene Winkler, Ricky Kasinger and
Timothy Lee. We called the band “Parsec”, which we figured was “spacey”
and “far-out”. We did hard rock cover songs, which weren’t too hard to play,
but did rock hard!
In May, 1975 we threw a big party out in the desert at Red Rock Canyon during
a full eclipse of the moon. It was spacey and far-out, and a lot of fun. It
became a yearly tradition we called our “Breakaway Weekend” and went on
for several more years.
We began writing and recording original songs and performing at the
Starwood and Gazzari’s in Hollywood and at pretty much any club that would
have us. We did an interview show on KNAC-FM in Long Beach and got some
airtime on KROQ with a couple of our songs. We had fun but that was as far as
it went. We self-produced an album and slipped into obscurity.
I quit the band in late 1979. I went back to playing guitar and singing with my
brother Doug, my cousin Gary Murphy and Bob Allende on bass. We wrote
some songs together and had fun jamming.
I got to know Vern Shumake through Parsec in the late 70’s. He and I have
been jamming together since the early 80’s. Bob, Vern and I did a lot of home
recording and song writing in the mid-80’s. We jammed regularly with our
friends like Scott Harpst, Russell Williams and Tim Allen, Marsha’s husband.
In 1981 I started a “Christmas Band” comprised of fellow Varco employees
that played once a year for the company Christmas Party. This went on for
almost 20 years in one form or another, usually with Vern and Bob joining in.
The last big Varco Christmas party we played was at the Disneyland Hotel
“Big Room” for over 2000 people, in Dec.1999!
In 2000, Vern, Bob and I started calling ourselves “Alder Eagle”.
I have been riding the Metrolink Train to work since 1999. I have made many
very good friends on the train. I start my commute each afternoon with
“happy hour” at the Cask ‘n Cleaver, which is in the historic Santa Fe Train
station in Orange. When the Cask started having live music in 2002, Alder
Eagle became the “once-a-month” house band. It is a beautiful relationship!
The Cask is a great place full of friendly people, with great managers and
wonderful employees.
I truly love my life! I am very lucky to have a wonderful woman like Sandy
Lala, a loving family, a great bunch of guys in my band, and so many friends. I
am truly blessed!
