Kevin Donaker-Ring, center stage

Kevin 1 guitar collthumbThere’s “friends” and then there’s friends. Although the specifics of how Kevin and I met have been muddied by time, I’m now thinking it was early 1976, at a La Jolla Shores beach party.

My memory stems from the fact that I had wanted Kevin to go to Wings with me and that was June (rescheduled from May) 1976. He already had a guitar and amp and was taking lessons, but a lot of the connection was over a shared love of music, starting with The Beatles and later Cheap Trick, The Zombies and many others. Mike Oldfield’s “Tubular Bells” was always a particular favorite. He didn’t make it to Wings, but we did manage to catch Queen with Thin Lizzy soon after.

From almost the moment we began hanging out, we talked about starting a band.

And we did.

Read moreKevin Donaker-Ring, center stage

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