Easy Nights

This is your chance (and mine) to hear a new release that was recorded 23 years ago on a now vintage Tascam 80-8 machine w/dbx. Things happened and time passed.......over 20 years! The material was recorded and mixed between 3 studios: Magic Bean (now in Jasper, IN), Blue Sky (now defunct)in Newark, OH and Jeree recording in New Brighton, PA. Did I forget to mention the stuff recorded at Jeree was 16-track/2 inch tape? Tim Harman and I contacted each other due to the declining health of our drummer, Keith Burgess. Tim still had all the original 1/2" tape and had decided to archive the material to digital for safe-keeping. I should also mention that the songs were re-mastered only weeks before the passing of Keith. Please enjoy the music with open hearts and open minds...it still sounds good to me even after all these years. I love you guys, Gregg

If ever a band's name was ironic, this was the one. Easy Nights NEVER had an easy night. The band, based around Athens, Ohio, played the unpromising and unrewarding southern Ohio/western West Virginia bar circuit in the late seventies. There were long trips in all weathers to bad gigs in country bars, tired supper clubs, frat parties, and Eagles and Elks clubs. Often what the band wanted to play wasn't what their employers wanted to hear (or their long-suffering agent had sent them to play), and when things went very badly they went home early. The drummer, whose band it was, weighed 300 lbs, so they normally didn't go home without pay - but the pay was never very good. The band's members - drummer Keith "Stacks" Burgess, bassist/vocalist Freddie Bolles, guitarist/vocalist Greg Shively, and guitarist/keyboardist/vocalist Tim Harman - had widely differing musical backgrounds, and wildly different ideas as to what the band should play. Bolles wanted a safe-n-steady country-rock cover band. Shively was an inveterate hard rocker who wanted to play jazz and funk. Harman's ambitions lay in the progressive and symphonic rock of the era. And Stacks, whose band it was, had learned drums listening to big band, Elvis, and Spike Jones records. He could play about anything, and liked a lot of stuff...but mostly he just wanted to MAKE IT. Out of poverty, out of obscurity, out of town. Easy Nights (the name came from a bottle of wine) was formed in 1976 by Burgess (then of the little town of Haydenville, Ohio) and brother-in-law Bolles (Athens). Harman (of the Lancaster area) joined in '77 as a second guitarist to Chillicothe-based Doug Runyan, a jazz-rock kinda guy. Runyan was soon replaced by the country-rock blues guitarist Gregg Inboden, of Logan. And by mid-'78, Inboden had been replaced by Shively. That was the configuration that lasted till 1982, when the band broke up in fatigue and frustration, having run its course of dreams and disillusionment. At gigs, the band played a mixed bag of cover tunes. It was the era of disco and easy rock; they played Clapton and Bee Gees, Eagles and Doobies - as well as power ballads from the R & B charts. A few oldies and current chart hits rounded out the official set lists...but regardless what song they were playing, in what genre, they didn't so much cover it as they...well...SLIMED it. Lyrics were bowdlerized, rhythms were skewed, arrangements were deconstructed. Half of the band thought this was funny; a quarter of the band thought it was disgraceful, and the last quarter was amused against his better judgment. In general, audiences didn't get it. What was meant as irony merely mystified. You wouldn't say Easy Nights was popular; even their fans didn't really like them. But that wasn't the point. Easy Nights' ambitions were to record their own material and break out of the weekend warrior division. Shively and Harman were the primary writers; their differing approaches and strengths worked together to produce interesting material. Two studio trips, in '79 and '80, yielded nine original tracks. Two 45 rpm singles (remember those?) on the vanity Jeree studio label were taken from the first session, got minor local radio play, but were never commercially released. Harman's "Trying to Get Over," sung by Bolles, was backed with the Shively-Harman composition "Lonely Dancer," sung by Shively; Shively and Harman again collaborated on "I've Lived the Life" (sung by Harman), which was backed with the Harman-Shively-Bolles ballad "Chills Run Down My Spine," again sung by Bolles. The five tracks resulting from the second session included the group instrumental "The Indian's Tennis Shoe," Shively's light fusion instrumental "Sorta Spiral," the progressive country instrumental stomper "Chicken Pickin'" (Shively-Harman), Harman's jazz-rock vocal tune "Mexico," and the moody Harman-Shively fusion instrumental "Influence." The songs were finally sequenced into album form in 2001, under the title "We'll Be There When They Get There." The recording documents material that both reflects and fuses the band's diverse influences and ambitions - jazz and funk, rock and pop, progressive and country - in ways that sound surprisingly fresh these 20 years later. Harmonically and melodically rich, effectively arranged for the gear of the era, and more or less competently played, there's an appealing "live" organic pulse that can only be produced by guys who've played together many a night. It wasn't the kind of music that became the next big thing in the early 80s, but it still makes an easy and interesting listen. Shively and Harman operated a central Ohio recording studio in the early '80s, helping support it by playing in country and rock bands with Burgess as default drummer; Bolles went on to a series of country rock acts. By the '90s none of the members were playing together, and only Shively remained in central Ohio, where he continues to play in area bands. Harman continues to write and record, now in Indiana. Keith Stacks Burgess moved his wife and mother with him to Florida in 1990, and worked there in a variety of businesses throughout the '90s, finally achieving the financial security that had eluded him in the music business. He drummed occasionally with local combos. He died in Flordia of cancer on July 19, 2001.

I still play in a classic rock and jazz/blues band on the weekends. My "real" job keeps me plenty busy! We play the same bars we played 20 years ago only under new ownership. The crowds haven't changed a bit....they still scream "Play Some Skynard!" no matter what is presented to them! Some things never change.

My mom and dad, The Beatles, The Who, Clapton, Jeff Beck, The Stones, Eric Burden, Jethro Tull, Leslie West, Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Page, Frank Zappa, Yes....who wasn't I influenced by?....Maybe the country pickers (with the exception of Chet Atkins).

All of the music you hear was recorded on Tascam 80-8 w/dbx noise reduction. A loft 440 was used for time delay effects. We used spring reverb because digital wasn't invented yet! Keyboards include Yamaha CP-30, Crumar Orchestrator and Arp Soloist. Guitars include: Kramer 350-G, Gibson (highly customized) Melody Maker, Gibson ES-175, Gibson ES-335, Ovation Elec. Custom Legend. Amplifers used: Fender Bandmaster 212 w/JBL E-120's/D120's, Peavey Pacer, Blown headphones with mics duct-taped between the speaks, Direct through a variety of Electro-Harmonix and MXR analog fx. We used a Carvin 16/8 console w/custom mix/meter bridge and a Tascam 35-2B for mixdown.

I think dogs are better than people.