IT CAN ONLY GET BETTER FROM HERE. by Dennis Ogle

I could see but now I'm blind
Not just my eyes but also my mind.
Pain has become my routine and
The Kool-aid's lookin' better all the time.
It's six days of hell to sunday,
then it's hell on sunday
The kool-aid's lookin' better all the time.
I want to free my tortured soul
before my body gets to old
Better to fade away before
I lose control
Can't hear over my old bones crackin'
Better fade away before I lose control.
Then again,
It can only get better from here.
Starting over is also a new beginning.
standing on the bottom means
you're feet are on solid ground.
It can only get better from here.

DENNIS OGLE by Dennis Ogle

    
     My mother, Connie Jean was born in Horse Cave Kentucky. She met my father,Larry Ogle while living in Flint, Michigan. They married and moved Valley Station, a suburb of Louisville, Kentucky, where they had my brother, Larry Ogle jr. Due to complications while delivering my brother, my mother was unable to have anymore children of her own. My mother, being who she is, decided to Adopt. My younger brother, Marc Ogle and I were adopted at birth and grew up knowing we were adopted. I couldn't ask for a better childhood, or a more loving family.
     I was born in Louisville Kentucky in 1964, and adopted into the family of Larry and Connie Ogle.  My childhood was typical I suppose. I've seen home movies that were not unlike the fictional Dennis the menace. Strangely enough, some of the earliest stories of me include some kind of interaction with alcohol. My father had a miniature barrel keg of whiskey that he kept on the mantle above the fireplace for show. According to my Mom, I stacked up boxes and chairs, climbed up on the mantle, crawled across to the keg, and opened the tap, letting whiskey spill out on the floor. This was all while they were asleep, and for no good reason. I have a problem with that because until I quit drinking twelve years ago, I was not known to waste even a drop of good liquor!
    Music has been in my life for as long as I remember, but if I had to put a start date on it, I would say it was when my mother put me into piano lessons at public school, first grade I think. You know, the generic ancient piano teacher with the larger than life musical note practice book, complete with the drawing of a hand with numbered fingers and songs like "Hot crossed buns" and "pop goes the weasle". It's a wonder I kept playing as the only thing I remember learning is the meaning of "This Sucks". I must've wanted to learn because my mother was very encouraging,and very accomadating. We tried several different piano teachers before finally finding Bernie Shwikert.
     Bernie was a good piano teacher. He had done some things with the beach boys and was a go to guy for studio sessions. Bernie was the first person to notice that I had a great ear for music. He couldn't help notice because my ear was getting in the way of my  learning to read music. He was frustrated. One day I came for my lesson and played him a song that I made up. When I finished, he told me to give him a minute, and he set up some mics and a four track recorder and had me play the song. He had me sing it twice as close as I could get to identical, and he said "see ya next weeek".
     Saturday came and Bernie played me a recording that would change my life. He had recorded a piano track, sped up to sound like a harp, added a bass track, and mixed my double-tracked vocals down to a drum machine beat on his four track (via ping pong).
     Needless to say, I was ruined. From that day on I knew exactly what I wanted to do with my life.
I don't know if I should thank him or shoot him, but after that day I knew I could write songs, and original music was all I really wanted to do. I never did learn to sight read. At least not quickly.
     As so often happens in today's society, my parents got divorced. I was eleven years old and their split kicked off the longest, most faithful relationship in my entire life. My relationship with alcohol.
I was a first drink alcoholic. From the first beer I knew I'd found my soul mate. I joined the rebelious crowd and started running the streets 'til all hours. That wasn't for the lack of anything as my mother had her hands full with three boys and if there were hard times, she made sure we didn't see it.
     A couple of years later my Mom met and married Russ Justice.  He uprooted us and moved us to Columbus GA. This was major culture shock for me. The old south. Good old boys, and all the stereo types that went with it. At thirteen, I had issues with just about everything that my step dad did. Against the odds he managed to stay with my mom until his death a few years ago. I gained a brother and sister (Barry and Kim), and later an unknown brother from Pikeville KY, mike. But that's another story. Also against the odds, I fell in love with Georgia, and the south as a whole. It's home.
      My Dad remarried during the time before we went to Georgia. His second wife was a beautiful, funny young lady named Teresa Wood. She had a four year old daughter named Tracy and when Marc and I would visit, she would bring her brother Paul Vance, and we'd hang together. I remember one day we picked up Teresa's mother, Dorothy, and went to King's Island, an amusement park in Ohio. I'll come back to them later, That marrige didn't last, and I ended up moving back and forth between Georgia and Kentucky, to diferent girlfriends and step moms.
     IN 1977 I was in Georgia attending my freshman year at Shaw high school. I was humming a tune, working with charcoal and pastels when this kid comes over and says,"hey man, do you sing?"
I think I said " yeah man! I play piano too!" That kid was Steve Taylor, and that was the beginning of my second longest and most faithful relationship in my life.
      Steve and I started writing songs and talking dreams and just about the time things got going, I had a falling out with my step dad and moved back to Kentucky. My dad was now married to a woman who wasn't pleased about having an alcoholic, distructive teenager to raise and at seveteen, I quit school, and joined the army. Went to Ft. Sill OK for a few years, they day I got back to Georgia the was a note from Steve that read "band practice is at five". We named the band prodigy and played a few local gigs ,mostly covers, but  we did some writing, and ya gotta start somewheres!
     By this time Steve and I had a fair amount of Piano based originals and were recording them at a studio called M&R PRODUCTIONS.  Guitarist Tommy Missledine joined our little trio and we called ourselves OTM. Yeah, you guessed it, Ogle, Taylor, Missledine! When prodigy finally fell apart, the three of us quit the band and the other three were throwing rocks at us as we loaded up our gear. I'll never forget how they were calling us the MTV boys 'cause our originals were bad-ass, and we were gonna be famous! Man, how hard can it be? especially now that there's a channel that plays ALL MUSIC ALL THE TIME! Hmmmm!
     We continued to write and record and and eventually it was back down to me and Steve. We took second place in the Chikasaw talent contest, but we did with our music. We got beat by a guy named David Mcbride doing an ALABAMA song. (don't know why I remember that). Steve and I parted ways again at this point. Steve went GIT in LA, and I got married. My marrige didn't last long, but my ex and I produced our beautiful daughter Lindsey. Steve came back from LA even more of a badass than he was when he left, BAAAAAAAD-ASSSSSSSS!!!. The devil is in the details, but that's plenty for this project, so I'm moving on.
     In 1988 Steve had formed a band with some GIT buddies called The Method. They were a talented club band with some monster caMSts like Doug "Gooch" Benett on drums, and Oliver Williams on guitar. It paid the bills, but Steve's heart wasn't into it. Got to be original. When Steve called me I was drunk, miserable, and ready to go for broke. The first night I was in Atlanta, we were having dinner at waffle house, and I remember looking at Steve and saying, " sometimes food is the only thing that let's me know I'm alive." JEEEEEEZZZZ! Did I mention I was drunk?
    We kept writtting and recording, mostly on a TASCAM 246 four track cassette recorder,and even brought in a dude named Shack Lewis to lay down some sax. Even with that we were still spinning our wheels. One day when I got home from work Steve said he got us both a gig in a cover band ,to keep up our chops and have some fun. A package deal. Steve on guitar, and me on keys.
     Blitz was a truely unique band. It was fronted by Robby Hiesner with Chris Gailfoil on drums, Chris Tapp on bass, me on keys and Steve Taylor on guitar. The thing that sat Blitz apart was that Robby suffered from Muscular Distrophy and he sat on a tall stool when he played to give the illusion of him standing. This guy was an inpiration. He didn't bitch. He didn't complain. He just rocked! We played  a Muscular distrphy summer camp for kids, and a Jerry Lewis telethon. Those were some moving gigs. Unforgetable.
     While Steve was in LA, he had contracted with a guitar builder to build him a custom guitar.When Steve came back home after GIT, his guitar wasn't finished and for the next couple of years, he got nothing but lip service from the builder. Steve had scheduled a trip to LA way in advance, and Blitz was playing a gig in South Carolina on the same weekend. Steve being the pro that he is, lined up a back up guitar player. his name was Dan Boul, and his favor to Steve would change our lives.
     Dan Boul had been playing a temporary gig with a band called Shebang, after guitarist Peter Stroud had decided to move on to other musical avenues. Dan approached Steve about the gig, and thought they might be interested in a keyboard player too, and just like that, we're the newest members of  SHEBANG!
     Shebang was a band trying to recapture it's hay-day. Fronted by singer songwriter, Brent Daniel, the band had recently lost guitarist Peter Stroud, and by hiring Steve and I, Shebang became a four piece unit and along with drummer, Tim Allen, began what would be the last push for Shebang.
I was thrilled to be a part of the project. The band was sponsored by Coors Extra Gold, and to me ,that meant free beer. We had a manager and a fan base. It all felt quite professional to me. I was naive and yet un-affected by the lime light, but ultimately, Brent needed players, not writers, and Steve and I were writers.
     As I have said, the devil is in the details. Many the people I consider my dearest friends and musical family I met during this period of my life. Ed Hopson(rip), Mary Ellen Jones, Evie Newberry Johnson, Charly "Butch" Magruders, Mitch Cotton, Neil Catera, Paul Cornwell, Charlie Brusco, Amanda Hallman, the list goes on and on and I can't possibly list everyone.The story of The BLONZ is another story, and only a part of the story I'm telling now, so I'll keep it short, and mov on.
     ENTER DANNY HAMILTON.  Danny Hamilton and his girlfriend Christy Vance had managed to get Shebang all the way to the studios of Atlantic Records. Pretty impresssive for a couple of kids from Tifto,GA. With the break up of Shebang, Steve and I approached Dannywith a propositoin: Give us six months and we'll put together a band worthy of a record deal. He agreed, and we got to work.
Unless you've done it, you could never guess how entertaining it is to put a call to audition in the news paper. Characters come out of the woodwork. I was lucky enough to have a job, so I got to miss most of it.
    Steve called me at work one day saying" I found the Guy). When he picked me up from work that day, he poped in a demo tape and I heard "skin tight" for the first time. Steve discribed the singer as a young kid with big ears, and a big mouth. Turns out, the kid had a big voice to go with it, and he was hired on the spot. The Kids name was Nathan Utz.
     We eventually addded Mike Anderson on drums, and Tony Langham on bass, and Dirty Blonz was born. We later added Mike Fandino on bass and Aaron Tate on drums. We signed with Epic records, and in 1990, our album was released. We were dropped from the label two years or so later, but Blonz stayed together until Nathan Quit Blonz and started singing for Queen Anne's Revenge.
Those were fun times. Lots of partying, and lots of women.
     Girlfriends and bands don't always mix, and my girlfriend was no exception. we were so much alike, it was only a matter of time before we  canceled each otherr out via partying! We ended up splitting up right before we got signed. Her name was Katie Clark. Remember tha  name.
     After Blonz, Steve and I formed Chaingang. The original line-up included Brent Payne on drums and Vinnie Hornsby(sevendust) on bass. Nathan eventually came back and brought drummer Reggie Rodgers into the band.
     After Chaingang, Steve and I formed Inferno, With Paul Hand. Nathan  returned again for the band Mr. Natural which turned out to be the only band I ever got fired from. It was the beginning of a long, slow demise into a reality void of passion. I surrendered myself to being the best damn drunk I could be. The bottom was still a long way off.
    That kind of distructive behavior continued on until I quit drinking in 2001. A couple of years ago
I gotta call from an old girlfriend, Katie Clarke Boone. I went to TEXAS to seee her, and I've been here ever since. We're both sober now, and katie has a fifteen year old daughter. Go figure,
     One day Katie asked if I'd mind if she looked for my birthparents. I said not at all, and two weeks later, we had a phone number to a man that is supposed to be my blood brother. His name wss Paul Vance. While talking to Paul, I mentioned my dad's name and Paul said, "did you say Larry Ogle?"
"Was he married to a woman named Teresa?" I said " yes, Teresa Woods" The voice on the other end of the Phone said, "I know you, and I know your brother  Marc" Paul Vance  was my blood brother and his sister Teresa, my stepmother, was his sister, meaning my step mother was also my blood sister! Can't make this stuff up!
     Turns out I have three sisters, Linda, Teresa, and Ramona. I also have two blood brothers, James Patrick Montgomery, and Paul Vance. The family tree branches way out from there, but the relative that I've gotten to know the the best is my cousin Bill Stovall.
     My cousin, Bill Stovall  Just finished his first novel, BARTHOLOMEW STOVALL, and because of that I can now trace my lineage back to the 16th century.
     Life can be stranger than fiction, but that's my story and I'm stickin' to it. All I really have to say at this point is: Hey Bill! I'm workin' on your sequel!!        Thanx y'all!