The Original EDEN
:
Jeff "Nob" Wyatt (guitar/vocals), Stan Dorsett
(bass/vocals), Jim Folk (keyboards/vocals), Van Lautsch
(percussion/vocals)
FORWARD
Here
I will provide a brief description of some of the history
of Eden as I recall it. This
EDEN - the band page is
accompanied by the
EDEN Photos
and
EDEN Posters
pages
that you will see in the navigation links on the upper
right. Many of the captions beneath those pictures
relate to the written material below.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
1971 - THE ORIGINAL EDEN IN THE
BEGINNING...
The band
EDEN was a
popular 1970's Saskatchewan rock group, which underwent a
series of various membership incarnations, and a very
temporary name change to
SPIRAL.
EDEN was
founded in 1971 by
Jim Folk (keys/vocals),
Stan Dorsett (bass/vocals), Van Lautsch (drums/vocals)
and me, Jeff "Nob" Wyatt (guitar/vocals). For most
of the band’s existence our booking agents were the
amiable brothers
Don Hergott and
the late
Sam Hergott originally
from Humboldt, Saskatchewan. They operated
Quicksilver Talent Agency
out
of Saskatoon and Regina offices, promoting and serving
countless prairie bands. I believe it was my
brother Bernie (aka
Daniel Wyatt) who
thought of the
EDEN name for
us,… or was it Van our drummer?? One day I'll find
out for sure. Anyway, Bernie designed a couple of our
promotional posters, as well as provided some cool black
and white photography. The above outdoor black and
white shot has always been my favorite. From left to right
you see me, Jeff “Nob” Wyatt, Stan Dorsett,
Jim Folk and
Van Lautsch – the original
EDEN of 1971.
This is a classic 70's style band photo taken in the
Qu'Appelle Valley near Craven, Sask., by Bernie Wyatt
(aka
Daniel Wyatt).
That location also became a favorite, outdoor party
place for the band and our friends during the summer of
1971. It was quite secluded and the farmer who
owned the land didn't seem to mind us being there,... or
perhaps didn't know.
A
TRAVELLING BAND
EDEN
originally
travelled by station-wagon pulling a large custom built
trailer provided by Jim's father, but it was just a few
months before we outgrew this mode of transportation. On
the
EDEN Photos
page
you can see that original trailer with the cool paint
job provided by my brother Bernie Wyatt (aka
Daniel Wyatt). As
our vision for the band expanded, so did the amount of
gear we acquired and toured with.
Deciding to upgrade, we bought a 24 passenger school bus
(from Wells Wayne Bus Lines in Southey, Sask.) with the
seats removed. We eventually stencil painted on the side
the silly phrase THIS IS NOT A SHCOOL BUS.... accidentally
spelling SCHOOL wrong,.... what was I thinking,... or
not(?). What dorks that none of us noticed until we pulled
the masking tape stencils off. But we just laughed and left
it that way rather than try and fix it. The roof had large
pieces of yellow paint peeling and hanging, which covered
rust beneath. Therefore we decided to have that roof
sandblasted, since we were planning on eventually
repainting the entire bus. We did finally at least get a
coat of primer on that roof to protect it, although it
wasn't long before we outgrew this puppy, finally blowing
that poor overworked engine sometime in Spring of 1972.
We then purchased a 48 passenger school bus (also from
Wells Wayne Bus Lines in Southey, Sask.) with a newly
installed powerful 427ci engine complete with automatic
transmission. Having our doubts about the automatic
transmission safely pulling the weight of gear we'd
accumulated, my mechanic father assured us that if we
shifted it manually when climbing and descending hills (and
kept our eyes on the tachometer and vacuum gauges) we'd
save both the engine and the brakes respectively. He also
told us that truck companies were actually starting to
build dump trucks with automatic transmissions. His
assurances proved correct. We used that bus for the
remainder of the years
EDEN existed,
and it was a most reliable, powerful and comfortable
vehicle.
Early one evening we started to paint that bus dark forest
green at Pat Folk's (Jim's dad) autobody shop, using some
leftover paint we managed to compile. Or actually, Jim
started painting it until his dad, Pat stopped by and
decided to finish it. It was funny because Pat was going
out to dinner with his wife Ruth,... so he was wearing a
very classy suit at the time. As a side note:... with due
respect to Jim's abilities,...although he was a good
autobody painter, Pat had done it for many, many years and
had earned a reputation as being one of Regina's top
painters. After grabbing the sprayer, Pat made it look so
easy and he completed the entire bus in about 30
minutes,... with his smock over his 3 piece suit. It was
amazing and amusing entertainment. I kept thinking about
poor Ruth,.... patiently waiting in the car.
Anyway, we previously had all the seats removed and built a
partition to house all our gear behind. Comfort was
important, so we purchased 2 left over reclining double
greyhound style seats from a local rock band called
A Group Called Mudd and
mounted them just behind the driver seat. This was a mighty
piece of transportation for us in which we traveled to
perform all around the southern and central reaches of
Saskatchewan and slightly across the borders of Manitoba
and Alberta. My mechanic father Jack Wyatt always
kept our buses in good running order to alleviate some
of the fears for all our parents as we traveled in extreme
prairie weather conditions which ranged from +35 degrees
Celcius to -50 Celcius. Although our parents did worry,...
they were very supportive. We did have an occasional minor
bus mishap or bus breakdown which left us stranded in
snowbank in a ditch or in snow drifts on the road during
Saskatchewan blizzards. But we're all still living.
EDEN
had
steady work. These were the days when there was an
abundance of available one-nighters on the prairies, and if
bands didn’t mind traveling, they had a lot of work.
The pay wasn’t so great, but the work was plentiful and the
communities that hired them generally treated traveling
bands with much appreciation and respect. It was not
at all uncommon to pass other bands on the road, driving to
or from gigs.
THE
MUSIC
Playing
mostly cover tunes,
EDEN did
however include original compositions in our sets most
nights. Some of the progressive 70's bands who's
songs we liked to cover included, Santana,
Deep Purple,
Procol Harum,
Emerson Lake and
Palmer,
Yes,
Gentle Giant,
Blodwyn Pig,
Uriah Heep,
Frank Zappa,
Edgar Winter,
Johnny Winter,
King Crimson,
April Wine,
Bloodrock,
Alice Cooper,
Eric Clapton,
Led Zeppelin,
Sly and the Family
Stone, and
others. Obviously, we liked to learn the difficult
stuff, just to stretch our horizons and abilities to see
if you could actually do it. Thinking back, as a band we
were certainly not lazy. We liked to work hard,.. and
the rewards included that feeling of accomplishing
something you never thought you could. We pushed each
other to improve as musicians and live players in every
aspect we could think of.
When it came to our original music, usually Jim or I would
would approach the others with a basic idea for the song
then we'd work out the final arrangement together.
Sometimes the songs worked and sometimes they didn't. Plus
at rehearsal times, before we'd dig in our heels, we often
liked to unwind and clear our heads by jamming. It was a
great way to loosen up and develop improvisation skills, as
well come up with new song ideas.
HARD
WORKING, FUN FILLED YEARS
EDEN's
career had many highlights, an early one of which was
having the pleasure to perform as a warm up act for the
ever popular Canadian rockin' blues influenced show
band
Crowbar in
the fall of 1971 at the old (now demolished) exhibition
auditorium in Regina, Saskatchewan. The song that
Crowbar will always be most renounced for is that well
known radio hit
Oh, What A Feelin (Whatta
Rush).
This concert occurred at a major crest in Crowbar's
popularity, so they had no trouble filling venues and
leaving people buzzing wherever they went. This
was a memorable gig for us because the place was packed,
the air was electric and we were scared shitless.
And what do people do when they are frightened out of
their wits? They pray, of course,..... which was
what we decided to do in order to calm ourselves down
before taking the stage. Finally when a stage hand
came backstage to retrieve us, we entered from stage
left while the crowd roared and the smell of marijuana
wafted through the auditorium. Although we had a
previous small Regina debut concert at a cool little
venue often referred to as the "Zig
Zag" Drop In Centre (after
the popular rolling paper brand), this particular night
was our big
Regina
debut concert, the outcome of which would give us
immediate popularity or an instant thumbs down from our
musician peers and local rock music lovers. To our
great joy and delight, this was one of those magical
nights that musicians yearn for, when everything
"clicks" on and off stage; one of those times when you
can do no wrong and even "mistakes" come across as being
well planned artistic occurrences. This was a make
it or break it night and we road high on the public's
good wishes and praise we received in the following
months to come. As a band we were so grateful for
this experience and thus decided to always have a short
prayer before we took the stage ever after that.
It became an integral part of most every
gig.
The original
EDEN was
a rare
breed of a 70's rock band, in that we discovered very early
in our career that we performed and functioned much better
when we took the stage without the influence of alcohol or
any other substance. We treated our time on stage
very seriously,... almost sacred. If people were good
enough to pay their hard earned dollars to come see us
perform (and dance to our music) we felt they deserved the
best we could give them. Plus, we always felt better
after a gig if we knew we'd given our best and played
well. BUT we still had enormous fun, although our
good feelings stemmed from adrenalin and the natural
occurring biochemical endorphins in our young brains.
Because of our abstinent on-stage behavior, I often thought
of us as a bit of a 70's anomaly, since drugs and booze
usually ran rampant backstage for many bands we knew.
We didn't, however, have a "holier than thou" attitude and
thus never liked to judge other bands for behaving that
way. We just preferred not to. We reserved
getting tipsy and crazy for our band parties, which always
included our friends.
A
FEW OTHER BAND MEMBERS INCLUDED KEN 'SPIDER' SINNEAVE, DOUG
ZUROWSKI, BRIAN MORGAN, KEITH SOEHN, DALE SAUER...
Due to
medical reasons, our original bassist Stan Dorsett was
forced to sadly depart for a period, at which time the band
enlisted a series of bassists. These included Doug
Zurowski, Brian Morgan and
Ken Sinneave, who
years later came to be nicknamed "Spider" because of the
dexterity, accuracy and speed of his finger
co-ordination - resembling that of a crawling
spider. Ken also played a remarkably mean and
dirty sax in those days. We always made sure he
had a sax solo featured every gig. This was
usually in the Edgar Winter tune A
Different Game.
I don't recall the reason this incarnation of
EDEN disbanded;
I don't remember personality conflicts. I just
remember us having a lot of fun, musically and
otherwise.
Ken Sinneave has
since become a legend as one of Canada’s greatest bass
players, having played and recorded with names such
as
Streetheart,
Tom Cochrane,
Loverboy,
Lee Aaron and
Kim Mitchell.
Unfortunately we don't seem to have any surviving photos
of that time period with Ken. Maybe there's still
more boxes to look through.
Other musical members that were once part of our lineup
over the years included
Keith Soehn (synth/vocals/tape
sounds) and Dale Sauer (vocals/guitar). Even our
original roadie/soundman/lightman,
Bob Ell,
would sometimes take the stage with us for a song or
two, playing his Gibson ES330 guitar. Keith Soehn
has been creating and producing some very interesting
orchestral works. Check them out at
Keith Soehn
- music.
1975
- THE ORIGINAL EDEN REUNITE AGAIN...
Somewhere down the road
EDEN once
again reformed, resurrected and reunited with our original
bassist and good buddy Stan Dorsett, and the original, yet
renewed band happily played out its remaining years with
it's 4 founding members. It was an inevitable reunion
that just felt good and the timing was right and we were
"pumped". We played our final gig sometime in late 1975 or
early 1976, although we briefly reformed in about 1981 for
some rehearsals and demo recording sessions of original
material. Those tapes are packed away somewhere. By 1982
times had changed, our lives were different and priorities
needed to be re-evaluated.
EDEN parted
on very good terms. The fire had simply died and there were
other aspects to our lives that needed tending,... we had
grown. We remain friends to this day and when any of us do
get together the memories are fond and the laughter is
contagious.
As a
band, when we were “on” we were REALLY ON. But when
we were “off”,…well,…we were disappointed. The
EDEN years
were creative, challenging and fun days. It was an
education in music, life and long distance driving.
We were more than friends,... we were family. I feel
privileged to have been able to work with these
extraordinary and talented individuals who will always be
my close friends. My thanks also go out to
those hard working "road toads" and sound and light guys
that worked their butts off for paltry pay, greasy burgers
and fries, a few beers and lots of laughs. These
included
Bob Ell, Guy
Siefert,
Keith Soehn and
others.
I am also so very grateful for the fact that we have so
many existing photographs of those
EDEN years.
Many thanks to the photographers, who included Ray
Bell,
Bob Ell,
Bernie Wyatt (aka
Daniel Wyatt),
Jim Folk,
Stan Dorsett, Van Lautsch and others. Thanks to all the
above for supplying the photos that I posted on this
site.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
2005 - CALGARY REUNION OF THE ORIGINAL EDEN
In July
of 2005 the original
EDEN members
got together in Calgary for a band reunion. Although
the performance was rusty, it had lots of heart.
the
EDEN Reunion
page
shows a few photos of that celebratory reunion and jam
in the city of the Flames.
Photos were provided by Jane
Dorsett.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
FINAL NOTE
This
EDEN - the band page is
accompanied by the
EDEN Photos
and
EDEN Posters
pages
that you will see in the navigation links on the upper
right. Many of the captions beneath those pictures
relate to the written material above.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
If
anyone has any
EDEN band
stories or memories to share please email them to me.
THANKS FOR VISITING !!
Jeff Wyatt
Vancouver, Canada
