I bought this guitar from Terry Nixon in the mid 1970's. Terry was a wonderful person, a teacher and varisty basketball coach at Blaine High School. Sadly, Terry died of Cancer shortly after selling me this unit for C note.
The band (THE CRYSTAL TRICYCLE) was founded in December of 1966, when John Horgdal received a set of drums for his birthday.
Steve Sanders had played in a small combo prior to this time with Rick Batdorf and Brad Darley.
Brad (passed away in 1999 or 2000) played an old silvertone guitar. Rick Batdorf plays base guitar with his own band in Bellingham, Washington (Jack Benson Band) but at the time played the infamous snare drum!
I played a 1965 Guild guitar (one pickup) through a Magnatone amp. |
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WYNN HAWS (Jr.) had an old electric Wurlizter Piano, with built in speakers on the front (right and left sides) to project out into the audience. Wynn's dad was quintessential in our develop as he was the local International Muzak associated and had a ton of Bogan amplifiers, 28 inch horns with drivers and Seeburg juke box speakers systems and all the electrical speaker wire you ever needed. You put it all together with a couple of old high impedance microphones he had laying around and you had the basics of a public address system (yeah, that right a PA system).
LEN BECKETT had a Selmer Sax, and an outrageious amplifyer with reverb for special effects. Len later bought a Fender Jazz bass guitar and an Ampeg base amp - when he transitionalized to the bass.
JOHN HORGDAL of course received a set of drums from his parents, but soon purchased a set of blonde Ludwigs with dual bases and Zilgen cymbols.
STEVE SANDERS had the original Guild guitar, but later purchased a 1968 Fender Telecaster with a Fender Bigby whammy bar - probably the worst string intonation and sustain of any guitar ever played. A Fender Band-Master amp followed - with a ton of fuzz tones and wah-wah peddles and we were set.
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My side of the story is this. The year was probably 1964 or 1965. My brother and I had the opportunity take music lessons of one kind or another. At that time, the Beatles and the Rolling Stones were getting significant air time on the radio, and guys like Buddy Holly, Chuck Barry, and Jerry Lee Lewis kicking the butt out of the regular acts on the popular radio stations - who wouldn't option to take guitar lessons?
My Brother, Randy and I were each received Kay acoustical guitars (as presents)and the lessons began.
A couple of years later, we were each given Guild guitars and a single Magnatone amplifier with dual inputs, and probably 8-10 watts of power.
A number of friends from school were also interested in music especially rock and roll as it was called. John Horgdal, and John's sister Jeannie, Wynn Haws, Brad Darley, and I (Steve Sanders)formed the basis of the Crystal Tricycle. We named the band "The Suspicions", the "Wynn and the Losers", but later we changed the name to "The Crystal Tricycle" when Harry Horgdal (John and Jeannie's dad) came up with the name.
Why the Crystal Tricyle, none of us know - there was more than three of us. But the name stuck.
Mike Kartz joined the band on base guitar to add a bottom end, but shortly left the band, when girls, cars and a job become more of a priority. Odd, I thought playing in a band brought the girls around, but what ever.
Len Beckett joined the band on Saxaphone before Kartz left the band, but once Mike left we had to move Len over to base guitar. As a versatile musician he caught on very quickly, and continues to play Sax on a few numbers to this day.
Throughout the years the band has probably had no fewer than 30 members, but the mainstay core was the four of us: JOHN HORGDAL, WYNN HAWS, LEN BECKETT AND STEVE SANDERS.
There was even a short period of time when Bill Dodd sang with the band. To this day he (Bill Dodd) is still the "local" king of the Kareokee. Bill has a wonderful voice and during his rendition of "Unchained Melody" he could bring a tear to a glass eye.
Other members in the band included (on keyboards)Chris Gaudette a Birch Bay resident and Bellingham Highschool graduate. Chris was a few years older than us but I still loved his keyboard work on "Won't Get Fooled Again".
The band morphed throughout the years, and "rather" disbanded in 1973 or 1974 when John joined a band from Tacoma (White Rock - with Steve Buffington on guitar).
Len and Steve played with other bands around the county, such as Northern Waste, the Collection (Eric Jacobsen on keyboards), and Thumper to name a few.
BUT THE STORY DOESN'T END THERE (READ ON)!
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BOTTOM / BACKSIDE OF THE NECK - RUMOR HAS IT THAT SOMETIME EARLY SERIAL NUMBERS APPEARED HERE!
Further rumors report that many times the serial number listed at the base of the (backside) of the neck would be "sanded" off - to cover the fact that the unit was stolen.
But as you can see, there is no appearence of serial numbers or, of heavy sanding to remove same. |
