The Bodes
We started playing electric guitar back in the early 60's, during high school. A small group of my friends and I were looking for something to do - there wasn't a lot for high school aged kids to do in the winter back then. We had taken a few guitar lessons, and one of my friends dad played a little Country and had a guitar and a small amp. We built our first guitar out of 3 layers of plywood, and an old classical guitar neck we found at the dump. We used a small speaker from a table radio for the "pickup". A bit muddy, but it actually worked! We would borrow my parents old mono tube amp that lived in an old dry sink (along with a tube am/fm tuner, and a record changer). We built a crude cabinet that had a collection of round and oval speakers from various TVs and radios that a local TV repair shop had given us. We plugged the guitar pickup (the little speaker) into the phono input of the tube amp, and that was that. Our drummer bought some sticks, and used what ever he could find (a hat box, a nail keg with a rubber top, etc). We originally had no intention of playing in public, we were just looking for something to do. Our bass player started out using a regular 6-string electric guitar. We originally had one friend who played sax, but we couldn't figure out the tuning (hey, none of us were musicians...). Our equipment left a lot to be desired, but we were having some fun!
Our friends finally convinced us to play a couple of songs in a local talent show. We played "Secret Agent Man" and an original instrumental called "Number 1". Our friends made a lot of noise in the audience, and we were hooked. We "upgraded" our plywood guitar with a Hagstrom neck and a real DeArmand pickup we got at a music store, and we got our first set of drums. Our bass player went off to college, so his brother took over, and eventually got a real bass guitar.
The Bodes, around 1965 - 1966
Partly because none of us were very good (no "musician egos"), we actually ended up being a decent garage band. We played loud 60's rock, with somewhat of an emphasis on British bands, and we practiced religiously. We slowly built up some equipment, but it never got very good. Our sax friend got a cheap electric 6-string, and he loaned it to us for a while. We eventually bought a second hand Hagstrom 12-string, and used it mostly as a 6-string. We also got an old Ace Tone organ, and since we had taken a few piano lessons, we were pressed into service as a keyboard player (simple stuff like "96 Tears", "Double Shot of my Baby's Love" and so forth).
The bass player and drummer went on after high school to play professionally with several bands. 1998 brought their 30th high school reunion (we were a year older), and we were asked to get back together to play a few songs. Well, that ended up being too much fun, so we started playing together again, and played a number of gigs that summer, and the next few summers (the bass player lives some distance from the rest of us, so that is a logistics problem, but he gets back here whenever he can).
The Bodes at their 30th high school reunion - June 1998