Gary Lee Yoder

I seem to be on a music kick lately, which gives me the opportunity to finally tell another story.

Back in the very early nineties, when I was getting my master's degree at the University of California at Davis, my friends and I would frequent a bar in Davis called the Paragon. Every time we went there, a certain acoustic guitar player would be holding court. As bar musicians go, he wasn't bad, though we used to laugh because there wasn't a single 3-4 minute pop song he couldn't stretch into well over ten. His twelve-minute version of "Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard" was particularly laugh-inducing.

Eventually, my friend's curiosity got the best of them. We had to find out who this guy with the beard and Collins-worthy afro was. One of my friends went and talked to him during a break. And what do you know, this guy was Gary Lee Yoder, who in the early seventies was a guitarist for the band Blue Cheer, best known for their 1968 brontosaurus-like mauling of "Summertime Blues," which some critics give credit as one of the first heavy-metal songs. And now this guy was working for tips in a small bar in Davis, California, playing twelve-minute acoustic versions of "Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard." Made you think about how fame can be fleeting.

That's my one rock star story.