Johnny (john) Keyes (minch)

Dulaney High School

Class of 1970

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Johnny (john) Keyes (minch) - Class of 1970 - Dulaney High School

First Name	Johnny (john)
Last Name	Keyes (minch)
Graduation Year	Class of 1970
Current Location	Virginia
About Me	Hello Dulaney Alumni, Well, in 1970, I was John Minch, Dulaney High School senior. But that was soon to change. If you knew me then, then you knew that I loved music. I started a band called the “Rogues”. We were good, but we lost the first Dulaney battle of the bands to “Froggy and the Gremlins”. I was bummed. Then, I came back hard, and joined a band of college kids, (I was still in 11th grade) called “Procreation”. A few things still make me laugh. First, I did not realize what the word even meant until 5 years later. You mean my mom and dad let me do this? LOL. Also, all of the guys were rock hippies with long hair, Jeff Beck fringe jackets, and smoked pot. I was this little nerd kid, with really short hair, but I had good fingers as I had spent many years studying at Peabody. I didn’t realize it at the time, but it was kind of like Cheap Trick in appearance. I was a puppy. Mom and Dad would let me leave dinner early to make band practice. I’d load my little Farfisa organ in the front seat and I’d have to take out the back seat of the car to fit my blue sparkle Kustom tuck & roll speaker cabinet. As fate would have it, I got a second chance to come back against Froggy & the Gremlins, and we smoked them. Some of you may have seen these battles, and maybe even remember them. Procreation was a great band. But, they decided that they wanted to go to England to break out, and I was going to go to college. I ended up going to Salisbury State, which is now called Salisbury University. We were fortunate to have been the opening act for the first Led Zeppelin tour in 1969, and I played the Baltimore Civic Center with Zep, and with Vanilla Fudge as the headliner. I got to meet Jimmy Page. It was at this time that I said,....Man, I like this. I want to keep doing this. My time at Dulaney was some of my formative years. I learned to love electronics from Bill Roberts, who also had a great sense of humor. I obtained the understanding of what a good sense of humor was, from him, as well as electronics. And Mr. Devita and Miss Authur and Miss Bickford. How can I ever thank them? Actually, I did call Mr. Devita and thank him 10 years ago. He taught me poetry, and poetic tools. And we diagnosed lyrics from people like Simon & Garfunkel, and Dylan, and Pete Seeger. (and I learned about social activism). And even good old Mr. Harry Dumler, shop teacher. I am certain that we drove him mad with our antics. In Dulaney, I also learned much from my friends. I learned how to love from Denise O’Brien. She is now married with 3 kids and grandkids. I did write to her on this site, but she may not even remember me. And I learned to barter. I would trade Ward Smith a braunschweiger sandwich for PB&J at lunchtime. I could go on and on about the people at Dulaney that were my friends, and even those that weren’t. My friends supported me, and the bullies made me tougher, and helped me to get thicker skin. I can still remember their names as if it was yesterday. Now, if you are reading this and wish to drop me a line, or share a memory, this would be fantastic. Anyway, moving on, I spent one year at Salisbury. I spent most of my time there becoming the best foosball player that the school has ever had, and almost went to Germany to become a pro foosball player. One gets to make many strange but fun choices in life. My music teacher at Salisbury, Ray Ziegler, who is still a friend told me that Salisbury was not for me, so he pushed me out of the state to Boston where I spent a year at Berklee College of Music. I only spent a year there, and then returned to Maryland to live with my college buddies. Then, I got itchy for adventure, and one of those friends and I drove across the country. We were going to go to Mexico, but instead, we went to California, and headed north. We settled in Marin County, CA. It was that year, 1973, that I made a life choice. I wanted to start a band. A big band. A real band. But how was I to find members that would stick it out? Well, I recruited 4 other guys that I had jammed with from Maryland, and they all drove out to California to help me follow my dream. Also, smart move on my part,…if they suffered from homesickness, 3000 miles was simply too far to run back to mommy and daddy. We started a band called Pegasus. I changed my name to Johnny Keyes. John Minch was just a kid in a local band. Johnny Keyes was a guy who could become famous. My writing then was not mainstream whatsoever, and we were more like ELP, and we were very progressive, and the musicianship was stellar. We were one of the last bands to play Winterland. The video is actually on youtube, if you ever care to have a laugh. After slowly but surely getting a huge response from the crowds, but no response from any record labels, we became more and more mainstream (commercial) with radio airplay in mind. We had a couple of backers over time, and one of them believed in us to the point of moving us all down to L.A., where music central was. When we arrived, we met Larry Carroll, a local TV newsman. He did a piece for a solid week on what it was like for a new band to come into town trying to make it. Well, this TV piece made us a known entity immediately, and we were launched into the big time. We were playing the Starwood, the Whisky, and the Troubadour alternately every weekend. This was when rock was King. We were living the rock and roll life. I now look back and am glad that I am even still alive. These were wild times. I recalled traffic being totally stopped on Santa Monica Blvd due to the constant stream of young girls with tons of make-up, fishnet stockings and high heels, all coming to see us. Bands that you would know were opening for us. Motley Crue, Quiet Riot, Yesterday & Today, and many, many more. It was Randy Rhodes that got me into stage makeup. We did everything that all big time bands did, without going into detail here. I have many fun war stories. Let me share one of my favorite stories, though. My absolute favorite place to play was the Starwood. When we were still living in Northern California, our backer would fly the band down to play 3 days of shows. We would always stay at the Riot House. (the Hyatt on Sunset). We’d get back there at about 2am after a gig and we would all be wound up like a clock. It would be impossible to sleep, so the routine was always the same. It was me on the phone ordering another dozen bagels, demanding that they all be sliced in half, and with extra cream cheese. “Don’t forget the extra cream cheese”. On the phone, they would always say, “But sir, you have already ordered 8 dozen”. I would tell them that we were still hungry. I need not tell you how much a dozen bagels cost at the Hyatt via room service. It would almost be a down payment on a small house. But, we had a backer, and we were supposedly rock stars doing what rock stars do, and it wasn’t our money. “Thank God”. Anyway, 5 minutes later, the knock on the door came, and a guy would wheel in a cart with a huge dome on it, lift the dome for our approval, put his hand out for a tip, and look around the room to see what in the dickens was going on. We would usher him out the door fast. We would then draw open the drapes and open the the outside balcony door. We were 8 stories up above Sunset, and it was still hopping. Now, right across from the hotel was a common item. Billboard after billboard, and all huge. Right across the street from our room was a billboard with a guy and a well dressed woman both smoking cigarettes. And a half a bagel, loaded with too much cream cheese, when flung correctly could sail all the way across Sunset Blvd, and then…”splat”…….stick on the billboard. We had a point system. If you hit one of them in the privates or the face, 3 points, the body, 2 points, legs and arms 1 point, and if you missed or the bagel didn’t stick, a point was deducted. We would do this for hours. People, groupies, and more would stand below us and applaud. They would even find out when the band was playing so that they could come over to the Riot House to see the post performance hi jinx. After a couple of hours of this, we would finally get to sleep. Then came the real payoff. We would crawl out of bed at 11am, rub our eyes, and open the curtains, and laugh our you-know-whats off. You couldn't even tell what the billboard was advertising. And then, during the day, the sun would come out, and slowly, one by one, the bagels would fall to the ground. We were quite a hit with the local plump bird population. Anyway,….moving on….. I have recorded in every major recording studio in California. The Record Plants (both north and south locations, Motown, (we were the first white group to record there), The Enterprise, His Master’s Wheels, Different Fur, CBS & Golden State Recorders, Wally Heiders, Sound City, and the list goes on. From these experiences, I learned studio engineering and producing, and could now do both of these jobs competently. I have also had the good fortune to work with a myriad of BIGTIME producers, but I won’t list them here. But, I must thank them all. They believed in my band, and they believed in me. Just like my early friends and teachers at Dulaney. I have played Rock & Roll since I was 17, and I/we are all now in our 60’s. When I hit 60, I knew that I could never tour again, as the years playing out take their toll. But, I did still want to use my fingers, so I took a gig in a tribute band. This was weird for me as I was a writer and always had my own band. But, I found a band looking for someone to play Angus Young in AC/DC. I did this for 2 years. Maybe go to Youtube, and plug in “Bon Johnson”. Yep, that’s me, still having fun. Well, I never did get to sell millions and million of albums. Nope. But, I did get to live the rock and roll dream, and have had a life that few get a chance to see. Rock & Roll in the late 70’s, and 80’s in Hollywood was a period in time that was magical. And I was blessed to be a part of it. I was also a music teacher for 5 years, and I passed the musical torch to many kids. Being a teacher is to continue learning yourself. And part of what made me who I am, was my friends, mentors, and teachers at Dulaney. And I wrote of my experiences here to share, and to say thanks to you all. “Life’s been good to me so far”. So, maybe do the same as I have done. Reach out to those old friends. Reach out to those old teachers, and thank them. No one lives forever, and you might be surprised to hear the lift in their voice when you talk to them, or the smile on your face when you hang up the phone. Tell your own story here. if you like. In closing, I am healthy, happy, and married with 2 rescued fur babies. Life is short. Learn from my experiences, and go for the gusto. Live life to the fullest. Don’t put things off. Do them now. Now, go listen to “Right Now” from Van Halen with Sammy Hagar. It’s a great so...(read more)