My first band

A couple years later at the age of 12, I got a Harmony archtop for $50 with an add-on pickup that you could slide up to the neck or back to the bridge or anywhere in between. I also started taking lessons from Danny Rizzo on Water St. in Fitchburg, MA. He was a professional accordion player more than a guitarist but he knew his music. He was a pretty cool guy. He turned me on to a lot of Latin music. I learned chords and scales for all 12 keys. it was the Mel Bay Orchestral guitar method. 12 books. Also the Mel Bay Orchestral chord method. That was a great system for building your own chords. I use it to this day. So anyhow, somehow these older guys asked me to play lead for them in their band when I was 12. I had a Sears Silvertone amp. These guys must of been like 18 to 22! What a great experience! I stayed out till 2 in the morning with these guys. (what were my parents thinking?!) We played dances, weddings, etc. Phil, the rhythm player had all the cool equipment. A Fender Strat (this was before Hendrix and all that), an outboard reverb, an awesome amp (a Magnatone), then he actually got an echoplex. He could do all the really awesome sounds. He did the arrow swooshing sounds on Apache cause he had the Echoplex. i hardly thought it was fair since i was the lead player! This was all pre-Beatles stuff. Gene Vincent, Buddy Holly, the Ventures, etc. Ray, the keyboard player had a Wurlitzer organ, a parlor model we had to cart around. Our name was the Starfires from the band Phil was in before but we had to change it to the Starfires 4 because the old Starfires started up again and they held the registration for the name. We did "Be-bop-a-lu-lah", "New Orleans", "What'd I Say?" (Ray Charles), Walk Don't run by the Ventures, Pipeline, Bony Marony, Apache by the Shadows, Ghost Riders in the Sky (the instrumental by the Ramrods- NOT the Rockin' Ramrods who did Dirty Water) and of course, Wipe Out! which I learned to hate but everybody requested it. One time an agent booked us to play this bar, the WigWam in Ayer, MA where Fort Devens was. We walked in there to setup, took a look around, walked out and never went back. it was a rough place. we should have played it though. i think we would have been alright. Boy was that agent mad. I couldn't blame him. he was done with us.