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Teaser 1978 at the Rio Theatre, left to right: Russ Martin, Gary Burke, Mike Govette, Howard Govette

After we moved to Northern California from Ontario, I met Russ Martin, Howard met Gary Burke and we got together to form Teaser.

We practiced every chance we could in a little shack in Matinez, Ca. that has since been razed. The ceiling had egg cartons stapled to it, classic rock band stuff. We’d go deaf every night.

I was acquainted with a young lady who happened to be the social editor of the local newspaper. That’s how I found my picture in the local Times Tribune, along with a band picture of us in performance. Pretty nice for being brand new.

Picture of me, picture of Teaser, and another story about a slide playing phenom named Roy Rogers. An early logo appears as well. Thank you, Kathy!

I was bartending at a little place called Sam’s Harbor in Benicia during the day, and practiced or played with the band at night. It was the best of times. One of the guys at the bar saw our band and just went nuts. He hired us for an obscene amount of money ($1000 in 1979) to play at his house in Benicia. We agreed, up for anything. We set up, got tuned up and played three really cool, rocking songs, starting off with an original called Bingo The Bug. We ended the third song by request of the three policemen who were walking toward us. There was a sizeabe crowd, and we admonished them to stay cool. They did. The owner talked with the policemen, who then left. A few minutes later, the guy walktoward me. I asked him if he got fined. He said “Not yet. Start playing.”

We waited about 30 minutes and began again, playing songs by Spirit, Zeppelin, and the like. We played about 15 minutes more, and the cops were back. The cop walked right up to me while I was playing and said to my face “Shut it down now or somebody’s going to jail!”

So we only played about 30 minutes in total, but we were hot! People talked about that party for days. Our local cred had been established early. We would eventually play both in the Benicia park for well over 1200 people on the 4th of July and later, as a power trio without Russ at the State Theatre in Benicia.

The guy insisted on paying me the $1000. I refused twice, then in a gesture of good will, I took it. We hauled all our equipment to our upper duplex, with everyone from the party in tow. The party carried on forever at our place. I got there late, put my equipment away and discovered I could not get into my room because it was full of people already. Good times.