Whistler’s Mother – Dark Dawn [Barnesville, OH, USA ; Psychedelic Rock / Hard Rock / Proto-Metal] (1970)

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• ˝A non-Quaker plunked down into a sea of believers, Matt Becker arrived at Barnesville, Ohio’s Olney Friends boarding school in 1969 fresh from the Detroit scene that spawned the MC5 and The Stooges. Socially isolated and nursing a deep resentment, Becker became an angry outcast, the resident freak lashing out in all directions. *”I think I was more notorious than popular. I look back and I think, ‘Those poor Quakers.'”* Salvation came in the form of the school’s only rock band, Whistler’s Mother, who quickly realized that the least popular kid in school was actually the most talented. Featuring John Stuckey on bass, Dave Howard on drums, and Nathan Kirk on rhythm guitar, the group of upperclassmen had been playing cover songs for disinterested denizens of Eastern Ohio. *”Matt came along and suddenly we were a different group,”* Stuckey recalled. *”Like overnight.”*˝

  ˝In addition to an apple orchard and a dairy farm, Olney had a stone slaughterhouse on campus—with a generator in the basement and a practice studio in the rafters. *”Just a plywood box up in the roof of this warehouse,”* Becker remembered. *”They slaughtered one day a week and we would sort of clear out and then there was this stink that would come up to where we were.”* Despite the smell, the slaughterhouse became a refuge for Becker.˝

  ˝Instead of going to class, he was there practicing five hours a day, eventually discovering an open tuning that channelled all his alienation and pain into a new song. *”‘Dark Dawn’ is one of those songs where you can just feel the powerhouse and the slaughter going on,”* Kirk said.˝

  ˝So enamored with the original, Stuckey plowed his earnings from bailing hay the previous summer to book the band a two-hour recording session at Columbus’s Musicol Studios. With time running out on the $75 session, Becker improvised the “Dark Dawn” solo in a live-wire single take. Musicol’s package deal included a run of three hundred singles for their two originals: “Dark Dawn” b/w “Goodbye”, with half dribbling out to friends and fans during performances at assemblies, in dorm basements, and at school dances, and the other half languishing for years in Stuckey’s basement.˝

  ˝The difference in age eventually split Whistler’s Mother—all but Becker graduated and relocated to Philadelphia, reconstituting the band under a new name. With his only friends gone, Becker didn’t last long at Olney. The long-suffering, peace-loving Quakers expelled him within the year. He returned to Ann Arbor and enrolled at Pioneer High School, which claims Bob Seger, and Iggy Pop among its alumni. *”That was the end of my guitar career,”* Becker said. He sold the National-brand guitar and Fender Concert amp that had produced the demonic “Dark Dawn” sound and donated the $150 to charity.˝

  (source: “Warfaring Strangers: Acid Nightmares” booklet https://www.discogs.com/Various-Warfaring-Strangers-Acid-Nightmares/master/1248404 )

  March 23, 2023 at 3:41 pm

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