Rock'n Roll Days

Dedicated to all of my friends who share these memories
and to my sons Tim and Ricco as an inspiration to create their own.

I started playing the guitar when I was thirteen. I had received lessons earlier for both recorder and piano with little motivation and little success. This time it was my own wish to learn an instrument.

Since I had entered the German Gymnasium (High School) with eleven, I had become exposed to pop music. At first it was the Beatles, then popular British bands like T. Rex, Sweet, and Slade. I dreamed of becoming a rock musician myself and joining a band, and what better instrument to play on stage than an electric guitar.

My first teacher taught me classical guitar and German folk songs. While this was not what I had in mind, it taught me the basics. At Christmas I finally received an electric guitar from my parents. I believe it was a Framus in gold flitter look, with two humbucker pickups and a tremolo. Lacking an amplifier, I connected the guitar to an old AM/FM radio, which produced a funny sound dominated by the distortions of the struggling little speaker.

When I was fifteen, I bought an old guitar amp. I really did not know what to look for in a guitar amp, so the one I bought was really a total waste of money. On top of that, the amp died within weeks after I bought it. My father had an electrician from his business put in a replacement amp. That amp, however, was built for electric keyboards and did not produce a guitar sound at all. It was not until I had saved enough money for a big muff effect pedal that I could finally produce a distorted guitar sound.

Listening to more rock music, my focus had now shifted to powerful and more involved music. Deep Purple was one of those bands, they practically invented the hard rock genre at that time. Their music truely was a revolution. Other bands included Uriah Heep and Queen. My favorite became Manfred Mann's Earth Band. Their use of synthesizers opened up a new spectrum of sounds for me.

I switched to a different music teacher. He was Jazz oriented and certainly not the ideal teacher for rock guitar. He sold me my second guitar, a Framus copy of the legendary Fender Stratocaster. That guitar was ok but overpriced. Besides teaching he gave me ill advice and sold me stuff that I did not need. Soon I knew enough to improve my play by myself and I stopped taking lessons.

Galaxis

With sixteen I joined a band in our neighboring community. We called ourselves Galaxis and rehearsed in a building adjacent to a church. Though it was great to play together in a band with drums and bass, I did not like the music we played and I left the band within a year.

I worked in a factory during the summer break and saved enough money for an amplifier. Still I did not have the experience to choose the right amp for myself. I saw a used Winston tube amp with two speaker cabinets stacked up. While it looked impressive, it did not have separate master and gain controls and therefore could not produce an overdrive sound.

Purple Haze

Purple Haze: (from left)
Riegus, myself, Olaf, and Manne.

With eighteen I formed my own band together with friends from school. Manne was playing the rhythm guitar, Riegus the bass, while I was the singer and lead guitarist. We found a drummer - Olaf - who had played in a punk band before. We called ourselves Purple Haze after Jimmy Hendrix' song and played heavy rock music. I wrote all the songs. Titles I remember were "On My Way Home", "slowly Friend", and "Through the Dawn".

Our rehearsal room was in a car dealership owned by the father of a friend. The location was great and the rehearsals turned into great happenings with lots of people watching them.

During that time we got in contact with other bands of the area. We would go to their gigs and admire their superior equipment. One of these bands was Blind Ocean. Their drummer Joe was a classmate of mine.

On stage at the open air gig
- I am playing my Framus Stratocaster.

During a school summer festival, we finally played life in front of a large audience for the first time. It was an open-air gig and we were playing over a real PA system. Though we were all tense, standing up on the stage was electrifying and exhilarating. And we performed quite well.

(PA stands for Power Amplification. It includes the big speaker cabinets usually stacked up left and right of the stage. The Power amplifiers to drive the speakers. A multi track mixer with individual sound and volume controls for each instrument. A multi-core cable and stage-box to bring the sound signals of all instruments from the stage to the mixer - usally positioned within the audience - and back to the power amplifiers on stage)

In summer I made some money again to buy a better guitar. My choice was a white Gibson Les Paul Custom. The Les Paul is the classic rock guitar and played by countless musicians. It has a powerful sound and immense sustain. The latter comes at a price: the instrument is very heavy. It was a good investment, too. In spite of its wear and tear, it has tripled in value since then.

Blind Ocean

Blind Ocean: (from left)
Joe, Micha, Naegi, Roland, and myself.

Micha passing out beer in "the workshop".

Later that year, Thommy - of the guitarists of Blind Ocean - quit and Joe asked me to join them. Unlike Purple Haze, Blind Ocean was a popular band at the time in our area. I felt very honored by the offer and accepted, even though I felt bad for my friends at Purple Haze.

Together with me a girl - Karin - joined Blind Ocean as a singer, though she did not stay long. Later Roland joined as a singer, he also played rhythm guitar. The other band members were Joe the drummer, Micha playing the other lead guitar, and Naegi playing the bass.

Blind Ocean's rehearsal room had to be the dream of any rock musician. It used to be a spacey wood workshop with huge windows facing south and double doors. The walls had been painted in a number of unmatching colors over the years and were plastered with posters. The room was full of old stuff. Some was musical equipment including some amps and loudspeaker cabinets used as a simple PA for vocals. There was rather funny looking light equipment. It looked like it was never completed but it worked somehow driving a number of spotlights scattered through the room. Also, and maybe related to the light equipment were cables, electrical switches and other stuff of which no one knew how it had gotten there. There was an oil heater, which we had to fire up in Winter. The rehearsal sessions would then start in an icy room and end in an overheated climate. Perhaps most importantly there was always plenty of beer for the band, roadies and rehearsal guests, which would hang out on old sofas and seats. There were usually plenty of them and mostly the same group of faithful fans.

Naegi and Me during a gig in Salach.

Being a well known band, Blind Ocean frequently played gigs in pubs and youth centers. The proceeds from those gigs were used to update the equipment we owned jointly.

Blind Ocean's songs usually had a simple structure and were influenced by British rock music. Most of these songs were discontinued when Roland joined, and new songs were written. One of the songs that remained was Micha's "Down in Sevilla", an instrumental. The song starts and ends in a full-chord rhythm with electric lead guitar. The middle part consists of Micha's long flamenco guitar solo. This part of the show always gave us other musicians a chance to rest or to fix some technical problems, while Micha was alone on stage.

Sitting on my new Yamaha amp.

Blind Ocean Poster from 1979.

Another summer came and went and left me with newly earned money to spend. During the vacation at Lago Maggiore, I had picked up a flyer from Yamaha in a music store of the area. It advertised a solid state guitar amp, the Yamaha G100 212 II. The amp had two channels, one for clean sound and one with a separate gain control for distorted lead sounds. Solid state amps use transistors for amplifications, which makes them cheaper to built than tube amps. This sounded like the amp I needed, and I bought it shortly after returning from vacations. I also bought a Korg monophonic synthesizer. Though I could not play keyboards I was fascinated by the sound capabilities of this new type of instrument. I experimented frequently on the synthesizer, but we never applied it in our music.

We played many gigs and consequently kept on improving our equipment. My friend Udo became our sound man operating the mixer after we now had our own PA system. Joe had bought a mixer and a power amplifier, I had built two Voice Of Theater speaker cabinets, and from our joint money we had bought a multi-core cable and horns for the high frequency sounds.

Achim, who introduced explosives to our shows, operated the funny looking light and effects control panel. Later he also applied fog during the shows.

Me and my Les Paul
- during a Blind Ocean rehearsal session.

It was during this time that Udo, Ute, Ke and myself went to see a show of the American rockband Styx. The first act of the concert was a Canadian band called Saga - and we were all very impressed. Saga played complicated multi layered music with difficult rhythms. Besides Saga, also Kansas and Jethro Tull influenced me for the same reasons. All of these bands blended rock guitars with synthesizers. I would have loved to have a keyboarder in the band.

I would upgrade my guitar amp one more time to buy an Acoustic G60T combo tube amp. It had a cascading pre-amp to allow overdrive sounds even at low volume. While the Yamaha had a decent sound, the Acoustic really made my guitar sing. Later I built myself a hardwood cabinet for the amplifier from blonde maple. I also experimented with closed speaker cabinets for a while. In the end I settled for the open combo version with an Electovoice speaker. After replacing the tubes the amp still has a killer sound today.

	when the drums are beating low and electric basses blow gonna start a rage and turn the page for good hear that mighty guitar scream supernatural, glaring scene gets me into live through time we dive in mood
	- from the Cambala song "Cairo"

Cambala

Cambala: (clockwise from bottom left)
Burki, Joe, Roland, myself, and Andy.
- from a newspaper article.

Cambala contract for a gig in Eislingen.

At some point Naegi left the band and we were looking for a replacement. I had seen a band called Andy and Friends play weeks before. Andy was the keyboarder and he had produced amazing sounds on his synthesizers. When I called him it turned out that his band was falling apart and that he and his bass player Burki were looking for other band members. It took just one visit to our rehearsal room to convince them to join us.
Andy's arrival in the band brought a major musical impulse. He had plenty of ideas and wrote great songs. His synthesizers blended well into our guitar-oriented sound. They enabled us to play the kind of rock music of my favorite bands. It was a new chapter in music making for us, and it seemed appropriate to change the name of the band. Nobody seemed to remember where Blind Ocean came from anyway. We became Cambala - named after a species of African Teak.
It was the beginning of the eighties. Rock bands all over the country were discovering the German language. The arms race between the superpowers was leading to even more missiles being stationed in Germany. Peace was an issue moving many in Europe in what was to be the final decade of the cold war. Another was the use of nuclear energy and the protection of the environment. Our songs reflected the spirit of the time, and they did so using lyrics in German like the German bands BAB and Spliff.

Cleaning up on the morning after a gig in 84.

The more equipment we had, the more work each gig became. For an evening gig we would usually meet in the afternoon to pack everything up and then carry it into a truck or van. Then we would drive to the concert location and haul all that stuff on stage. We would set up amplifiers, cabinets, the drums, the mixer, monitor cabinets and the light system. Udo would hook up all the microphones and perform the sound check individually for each of us before we would all play together to adjust the overall sound. Usually there was not much time left to get ready for the show while the audience was starting to gather. After the gig, which in itself was exhausting enough, we would pack up, carry everything back to the truck, drive home and unload, often until the early morning hours. Each gig was significantly more work than moving an average household, yet we enjoyed it and considered it the essence of Rock'n Roll.

During a Cambala rehearsal session:
(from left) Micha, Udo, Joe, and myself.

Cambala played in various configuration all through the eighties. Roland and Micha left the band and later came back individually to join again. While they were great guys I believe that our most creative period was when we played with only one guitar: mine. But I'm biased of course. Andy and myself wrote our songs, and whoever would write a song would also sing it. Our songs were often complex with many different parts and layers. Andy's songs had initially been calm, sometimes almost romantic with orchestral keyboard sounds. Mine were usually rougher and inspired by the guitar riffs of Saga and Kansas. This might have influenced Andy, as his songs became rougher and faster over time.
In 86 we went to a local recording studio to compile a tape. We recorded songs like "Show On The Radio", "Mystery", and "Big Note Prayer". The instrumental "2nd Touch" was the title song. Making a record or even a CD was out of the question at the time without financial support. Roman, a friend of ours visited during the recordings and contributed to the backing vocals of "Big Note Prayer". He was a blessed musician: a wizard on the drums, he could also play the guitar and had an excellent voice.

Cambala in Concert:
Joe at the drums while fog floods the stage.

After the recordings Andy proposed that Roman should join the band as our new front man. Just like Andy's arrival, Roman had a big impact on our music. He had plenty of material and over time he contributed the majority of songs to our repertoire. His songs were composed in a straightforward fashion consisting usually of verse, chorus, and what Roman referred to as the C Part. Roman did not apply the tricky instrumental passages, which had been typical for Andy's songs. One of the songs I remember was "Cairo" which started with a fingerstyle guitar with clear sound and chorus effect and included some tricky rhythm changes.
Roman constantly had new ideas and during rehearsals we kept modifying our songs and trying out new arrangements. In fact our songs were never finished but rather in a state of constant change. While this was musically very interesting and demanding it kept us un-prepared for life performance. The number of gigs we played decreased and some tension built in the band because of it. It was mostly Joe who pressed to play live - and mostly Roman who held us back.

Unplugged

Together with Kerstin I had moved to Boeblingen in 85, about an hour drive from our rehearsal room. I had been enrolled at Stuttgart University and started working at IBM in Boeblingen in 88. The new job kept me too busy to write songs and so my musical contribution decreased gradually over the years. Tim was born in 1990 and his arrival shifted my focus further away from the band.
It was around that time when Joe our drummer quit the band. He said he missed playing live acts and planned to form a new band. I remember all of us sitting in front of our rehearsal room in the setting summer sun talking about our future plans and reflecting on the great times we had had together. Andy, Roman, and Burki were to form a new band, which would be called CAM Project. Joe would play in his own band Skull Bandit. Realizing that I didn't have enough time between my family and my job I decided not to continue playing in a band after ten crazy Rock'n Roll years.
Over the next years with Ricco arriving and both of our kids growing up, there was little opportunity to play the guitar at home. Whenever I tried the kids would hear me, and then they wanted to play too, which made it impossible for me to practice. Dust started to accumulate on my Les Paul and my amp - my skills were getting rusty. I found that there is a certain skill level under which you don't sink, even if you don't play for years. But I found that level to be pretty low.

Comeback

Playing my Larrivee
- in our yard in Old Greenwich.

Making music with my boys

It took me 10 years to return to making music. For a number of years I had planned to buy an acoustic six string. I owned (and still own) an acoustic twelve-string guitar, which is great for strumming but not satisfying for playing finger style. While I was looking for a suitable guitar from time to time, I did not want to spend a fortune and kept delaying the decision. Finally at my 40th birthday I thought the occasion was appropriate. After playing a number of guitars I started focusing on Larrivee. One of those guitars - made by John Larrivee in Canada - had exactly the round body I was looking for. On eBay I found a used Larrivee L10 with beautiful inlay work and an abalone eagle on the headstock. When I received it, it turned out that it was hand made around 1979. I started playing finger style guitar again on a regular basis and my skills were coming back.
Lately I am also playing my Les Paul again with Tim and Ricco. Ricco has started playing electric bass. Tim wants to give the electric guitar a try. He plays a � size Squire Stratocaster.
It is for their sake that I hope this story will continue...

Pit Burkhardt, August 2001.

...and the story continues indeed. While Tim pursued other interests (check his homepage for details) Ricco has really gotten into playing the bass. We are playing together on a regular basis, our favorites are standards such as "Come Together" from the Beatles, "Another Brick in the Wall", "Wish You were here", or "Have a Cigar" from Pink Floyd, or the "Mercury Blues".

I have discovered my commute to work as an opportunity to making music on the laptop - the possibilities available today using music software are fascinating. Inspired through the events of September 11, Ricco and myself formed Project Hope and recorded our own CD.

In the meantime we have added a number of songs, several are instrumentals, which are completely created on the computer. I will try to make them available online, so please check back.

Pit Burkhardt, January 2003.

[Back to Music]

	Cambala
Cambala: (clockwise from bottom left) Burki, Joe, Roland, myself, and Andy. - from a newspaper article. Cambala contract for a gig in Eislingen.	At some point Naegi left the band and we were looking for a replacement. I had seen a band called Andy and Friends play weeks before. Andy was the keyboarder and he had produced amazing sounds on his synthesizers. When I called him it turned out that his band was falling apart and that he and his bass player Burki were looking for other band members. It took just one visit to our rehearsal room to convince them to join us. Andy's arrival in the band brought a major musical impulse. He had plenty of ideas and wrote great songs. His synthesizers blended well into our guitar-oriented sound. They enabled us to play the kind of rock music of my favorite bands. It was a new chapter in music making for us, and it seemed appropriate to change the name of the band. Nobody seemed to remember where Blind Ocean came from anyway. We became Cambala - named after a species of African Teak. It was the beginning of the eighties. Rock bands all over the country were discovering the German language. The arms race between the superpowers was leading to even more missiles being stationed in Germany. Peace was an issue moving many in Europe in what was to be the final decade of the cold war. Another was the use of nuclear energy and the protection of the environment. Our songs reflected the spirit of the time, and they did so using lyrics in German like the German bands BAB and Spliff.
Cleaning up on the morning after a gig in 84.	The more equipment we had, the more work each gig became. For an evening gig we would usually meet in the afternoon to pack everything up and then carry it into a truck or van. Then we would drive to the concert location and haul all that stuff on stage. We would set up amplifiers, cabinets, the drums, the mixer, monitor cabinets and the light system. Udo would hook up all the microphones and perform the sound check individually for each of us before we would all play together to adjust the overall sound. Usually there was not much time left to get ready for the show while the audience was starting to gather. After the gig, which in itself was exhausting enough, we would pack up, carry everything back to the truck, drive home and unload, often until the early morning hours. Each gig was significantly more work than moving an average household, yet we enjoyed it and considered it the essence of Rock'n Roll.
During a Cambala rehearsal session: (from left) Micha, Udo, Joe, and myself.	Cambala played in various configuration all through the eighties. Roland and Micha left the band and later came back individually to join again. While they were great guys I believe that our most creative period was when we played with only one guitar: mine. But I'm biased of course. Andy and myself wrote our songs, and whoever would write a song would also sing it. Our songs were often complex with many different parts and layers. Andy's songs had initially been calm, sometimes almost romantic with orchestral keyboard sounds. Mine were usually rougher and inspired by the guitar riffs of Saga and Kansas. This might have influenced Andy, as his songs became rougher and faster over time. In 86 we went to a local recording studio to compile a tape. We recorded songs like "Show On The Radio", "Mystery", and "Big Note Prayer". The instrumental "2nd Touch" was the title song. Making a record or even a CD was out of the question at the time without financial support. Roman, a friend of ours visited during the recordings and contributed to the backing vocals of "Big Note Prayer". He was a blessed musician: a wizard on the drums, he could also play the guitar and had an excellent voice.
Cambala in Concert: Joe at the drums while fog floods the stage.	After the recordings Andy proposed that Roman should join the band as our new front man. Just like Andy's arrival, Roman had a big impact on our music. He had plenty of material and over time he contributed the majority of songs to our repertoire. His songs were composed in a straightforward fashion consisting usually of verse, chorus, and what Roman referred to as the C Part. Roman did not apply the tricky instrumental passages, which had been typical for Andy's songs. One of the songs I remember was "Cairo" which started with a fingerstyle guitar with clear sound and chorus effect and included some tricky rhythm changes. Roman constantly had new ideas and during rehearsals we kept modifying our songs and trying out new arrangements. In fact our songs were never finished but rather in a state of constant change. While this was musically very interesting and demanding it kept us un-prepared for life performance. The number of gigs we played decreased and some tension built in the band because of it. It was mostly Joe who pressed to play live - and mostly Roman who held us back.
	Unplugged Together with Kerstin I had moved to Boeblingen in 85, about an hour drive from our rehearsal room. I had been enrolled at Stuttgart University and started working at IBM in Boeblingen in 88. The new job kept me too busy to write songs and so my musical contribution decreased gradually over the years. Tim was born in 1990 and his arrival shifted my focus further away from the band. It was around that time when Joe our drummer quit the band. He said he missed playing live acts and planned to form a new band. I remember all of us sitting in front of our rehearsal room in the setting summer sun talking about our future plans and reflecting on the great times we had had together. Andy, Roman, and Burki were to form a new band, which would be called CAM Project. Joe would play in his own band Skull Bandit. Realizing that I didn't have enough time between my family and my job I decided not to continue playing in a band after ten crazy Rock'n Roll years. Over the next years with Ricco arriving and both of our kids growing up, there was little opportunity to play the guitar at home. Whenever I tried the kids would hear me, and then they wanted to play too, which made it impossible for me to practice. Dust started to accumulate on my Les Paul and my amp - my skills were getting rusty. I found that there is a certain skill level under which you don't sink, even if you don't play for years. But I found that level to be pretty low.
	Comeback
Playing my Larrivee - in our yard in Old Greenwich. Making music with my boys	It took me 10 years to return to making music. For a number of years I had planned to buy an acoustic six string. I owned (and still own) an acoustic twelve-string guitar, which is great for strumming but not satisfying for playing finger style. While I was looking for a suitable guitar from time to time, I did not want to spend a fortune and kept delaying the decision. Finally at my 40th birthday I thought the occasion was appropriate. After playing a number of guitars I started focusing on Larrivee. One of those guitars - made by John Larrivee in Canada - had exactly the round body I was looking for. On eBay I found a used Larrivee L10 with beautiful inlay work and an abalone eagle on the headstock. When I received it, it turned out that it was hand made around 1979. I started playing finger style guitar again on a regular basis and my skills were coming back. Lately I am also playing my Les Paul again with Tim and Ricco. Ricco has started playing electric bass. Tim wants to give the electric guitar a try. He plays a � size Squire Stratocaster. It is for their sake that I hope this story will continue... Pit Burkhardt, August 2001. ...and the story continues indeed. While Tim pursued other interests (check his homepage for details) Ricco has really gotten into playing the bass. We are playing together on a regular basis, our favorites are standards such as "Come Together" from the Beatles, "Another Brick in the Wall", "Wish You were here", or "Have a Cigar" from Pink Floyd, or the "Mercury Blues". I have discovered my commute to work as an opportunity to making music on the laptop - the possibilities available today using music software are fascinating. Inspired through the events of September 11, Ricco and myself formed Project Hope and recorded our own CD. In the meantime we have added a number of songs, several are instrumentals, which are completely created on the computer. I will try to make them available online, so please check back. Pit Burkhardt, January 2003. [Back to Music]