March 2, 2010
As I mentioned, over the weekend I was cleaning out the garage and found a drawer full of photos chewed to shreds by packrats. However, one photo survives and it's a very early shot of our band The Exits:



A couple notes: Yes, a packrat bit out of the top of the photo and two, notice that the film was developed in May of 1964, five months after the photo was taken. Typical sixties behavior, take two pics, put the camera away for six months, take another one, forget about it, finally take the film in for developing and find that there are photos of Aunt Bea who has been dead for three years.

This was taken New Year's Eve 1963 when the band was mostly surf oriented (The Beatles blew all of that away two months later when they appeared on Ed Sullivan). This is also about five weeks after the Kennedy assassination, maybe that's why Charlie is wearing black pants. Actually, white Levis were all the go and I seem to remember that Charlie wasn't into that hipster scene. That's Wayne Rutschman on sax, Charlie Waters in the black pants, Flattop Bozo on the Montgomery Ward drums (really crappy logo on the bass drum head by the way) and the late, great Wendell Havatone. Photo was taken in the Girl's Gym at Mohave County Union High School in Kingman and on the back it has the important information: our names and "got paid $60." That's for the entire band, not individually. Ha.

"Guy Man, you guys are bitchin'!"
—Miss Deines, our chaparone