Acknowledgements

I offer my sincere thanks to friends and fellow combo members Mitch Easter, Ted Lyons, Terry Rosinger, and Dale Smith who helped me fill the gaps in my memory left by the passage of “Father Time.” A very special thanks to Mitch and Dale for their pictorial contributions to this effort. The following was most definitely a Collaboration. Rick Reich

sacred irony By: Rick Reich – June 2001

The summer of ‘69 in Winston-Salem, North Carolina was a time of transition for the local music scene. During that year five guys from two recently defunct combos joined forces to bring a new brand of pop rock to the Camel City. Mitch Easter, formerly lead guitar player for The Imperturbable Teutonic Griffin, and Rick Reich, formerly keyboard player for The Ragged Edge, renewed a friendship that dated back to their early childhood days of 1960. On a hot afternoon at Bolton Park swimming pool, Easter and Reich had a chance meeting and their conversation instantly zeroed in on rock and roll. Both were looking to form new bands. Easter introduced Reich to fellow Griffin members Dale Smith (rhythm guitar & lead vocalist) and Corky McMillan (bass). Reich said that he and former Edge drummer Ted Lyons would be interested in jamming with them. After only a few sessions held in the basements of Easter’s and Reich’s homes, the band started to jell. During one of those sessions, they decided to name the band. The guys wrote some words on strips of paper, dumped them all into one of Reich’s many hats, Reich held the hat overhead while the other guys picked out words. The first word out of the hat was irony and the second, sacred. It was decided that Sacred Irony sounded pretty cool in the hot summer of ‘69. Most of the guys were in high school. Lyons would be entering 12th grade, Reich and Smith the 11th at R.J. Reynolds High School and McMillan the 11th at West Forsyth High School. Easter, the youngest, was entering the 9th grade at the North Carolina School of the Arts. The remaining summer months of 1969 were dedicated to many rehearsals, most taking place in Easter’s basement. The plan was to develop the band during the summer and hit the fall music scene with a vengeance. The band’s first appearance came on Saturday, September

13, 1969, at a battle of the bands held at South Stokes High School where they took first place and a whopping $25 prize. Initially the band covered tunes by The Who, Led Zeppelin, Iron Butterfly, Steppenwolf, MC5, Three Dog Night, Guess Who, The Rolling Stones, King Crimson, and many others. It wasn’t too long, however, before they started mixing in an occasional “original by the group” most of which were written by Smith and Easter. Following their South Stokes battle of the bands success, on Saturday, September 20, 1969, at the Carolina Theater in Winston-Salem (now the Stevens Center) Sacred Irony (see photos below) was the opening act for The Yellow Payges, a pop rock group from Hollywood, CA.

Mitch Easter

Dale Smith

Rick Reich

Ted Lyons Corky McMillian The publicity from this performance set the stage for a busy fall and winter schedule: 09/26/69: West Forsyth High School Homecoming Dance 10/03/69: East Forsyth High School Homecoming Dance 10/08/69: Dixie Classic Fair Battle of the Bands (1st place) 10/15/69: Salem Square Peace Rally (remember Vietnam war?) 10/24/69: Knollwood Coffee House 10/31/69: Clemmons Coffee House 11/01/69: Highland Coffee House 11/07/69: Koni Kai Lounge 11/08/69: Wake Forest University fraternity party in Reynolda Village

Barn 11/21/69: Clemmons Coffee House 12/06/69: Wake Forest University fraternity party in Reynolda Village

Barn 12/13/69: Wake Forest University fraternity party in Reynolda Village

Barn 12/18/69: Ledford High School Christmas Dance 12/20/69: Highland Coffee House

Carolina Theatre – Winston-Salem, NC

Yellow Payges Concert – September 20, 1969

McMillan, Smith, Easter & Lyons

Easter & Reich

West Forsyth High School Homecoming

September 26, 1969

Sacred Irony’s final performance of 1969 was at the Benton Convention Center in Winston-Salem on Monday, December 29, where they perfomed again with the Yellow Payges and were the opening act and back-up band for Bobby Sherman. The Center was packed with 3,000 screaming teens, mostly female.

A popular element of most Sacred Irony’s performances was it psychedelic light show provided under an exclusive arrangement with Asgard Light Shows. Asgard was the brain child of Clay Adams and Gary Foster, both close friends of Reich. The rear view projection techniques, colored and strobe lighting, and other mind blowing effects worked well with the band’s power pop/hard rock sound.

Clay Adams

During 1970 and ’71, the band continued to juggle high school with rehearsals and performances. All of the rehearsals were now held in the basement of Easter’s Nokomis Court home. At breaks in the rehearsals, Mitch’s mom, Lib, would prepare grilled cheese sandwiches and sodas for the guys inspiring Smith to sing, “Cheese sandwich, good as gold, even tastes good when you get old! All right!!!” The neighbors of Nokomis Court began to complain about the regular, loud rock and roll sounds exploding from the Easter basement into the tranquil Buena Vista neighborhood. The first effort to reign in the sound did not include turning down the amps. Instead, Ken and Lib Easter, two of the coolest parents a teenage rock and roll guitar player could ever hope to have, fashioned a heavy curtain screen to wall off a section of the basement. This helped for a while but was still not completely effective as complaints from the neighbors continued. Again, turning down the amps was not an option. The next and successful solution was to pull down the curtains and construct a “dead” room with heavily insulated walls, ceiling, and doors (including a window door). It worked like a charm.

Nokomis Court rehearsal studio

Speaking of sound, Sacred Irony could most definitely generate mega volume. At one point, the band was wall to wall Marshall amps. Easter’s guitar leads screamed through a 100 watt amp over an 8 X 12” double stack, while McMillan’s 100 watt bass amp over an 8 X 12” double stack blasted away, Reich’s Vox Continental Baroque Organ grinded through a Leslie speaker cabinet miked through a 50 watt organ amp over an 8 X 10” cabinet, and Smith’s guitar harmonies and excellent rhythm work ripped through his 50 watt amp over an 8 X 10” cabinet. The vocals were run through a 100 watt P.A. to two twin 8 X 10” cabinets. But one of the most impressive and little known facts is that the drums were never miked, a tribute to the stamina and powerful strength of Ted Lyons and his successor, Terry Rosinger. In 1970, Lyons graduated from high school and was off to college, leaving a huge void that had to be immediately filled. A call went out within the close-knit combo community for drummers to audition. After auditioning several drummers without success, the band learned of a talented drummer with the band, Block’s Philosophical Battery. One afternoon, Easter, McMillan and Smith dropped by a Battery rehearsal session on the pretense of just visiting with a fellow combo. Little did the Battery know that their real purpose was to,

in effect, audition the Battery’s drummer, Terry Rosinger. Soon afterward, Rosinger received a call offering him the position as Sacred Irony’s drummer which he readily accepted. Rosinger brought a new dimension to the band’s hard rock rhythm with his double bass drums set.

Terry Rosinger

With all of this gear to transport, the band desperately needed a large vehicle. Easter’s dad, Ken, had seen the white ’59 Cadillac hearse that combo keyboardist Mac Chambers was driving around town and thought it would be a practical and totally cool solution to the band’s transpiration woes. Ken set off for Superior Coach Company in Greensboro and came back with a black ’61 Cadillac hearse complete with rear light fins and a working siren (the vehicle had once been used as an ambulance). Not long after, a Sacred Irony decal printed in large black gothic letters was applied across the rear casket door window. When that hearse rolled up to a gig site and a bunch of long haired musicians poured out along with amps, guitars, drums, etc. it was truly a sight to behold! The band had a loyal local following and would always turn out large crowds at its performances. There were occasional “road trips” to other NC venues, but the band rarely ventured too far from its Winston-Salem home. On one such road trip, at the first blast of music an instantaneous blackout brought the show to a screeching halt as all electrical circuits were blown to smithereens.

Thanks to a very competent maintenance man who repaired the damage and rerouted the band’s electrical connections, the show went on. Easter’s neighbor Doug Muir was an amateur photographer and documented many of Sacred Irony’s performances. Most of the photographs of the band shown here were made by Muir including the band’s 1970 PR photos taken in the Old Salem cemetery.

The ‘70s saw the band continue to develop its original music which was well received. They were huge hits at the local coffee houses were hundreds packed in.

“REASONABLE MUSICAL ENTERTAINMENT”

In July 1970, Sacred Irony rolled its hearse onto the dusty streets of Love Valley, NC along with an estimate 10,000 to 15,000 other souls for a weekend outdoor music festival featuring Big Brother and the Holding Company, the

Hampton Grease Band and other acts. Initially scheduled to play on the main stage, Sacred Irony was unexpectedly bumped from the lineup at the last minuet. While the group was back stage setting up its equipment, another band appeared and began setting up as well. Rosinger, pulling the concert schedule from his back pocket, asked the other drummer why they were setting up, since Sacred Irony was the next scheduled group. The other drummer, Jaimoe Johanny Johanson, said that he did not know anything about the schedule, but that his group, The Allman Brothers Band, were headlining the event and were going on next. And so they did. Although Sacred Irony did not perform on the main stage, which was a major disappointment, they did play an evening set to a crowd gathered at one of the community buildings.

Love Valley Rock Festival Ticket

At Love Valley, NC

R. Reich (seated), S. Hodge, T. Rosinger, M. Trunik, P. Tamer, M. Easter, F. Hunter

(note rear of Sacred Irony’s hearse at right)

l/r C. McMillan, P. Tamer, D. Smith

R. Reich

T. Lyons Also that summer, Sacred Irony and several other local bands participated in two music festivals at the Benton Convention Center. The bill included a variety of genres, including soul, rhythm and blues, rock, and pop.

Sacred Irony’s first foray into a professional recording studio came in March 1970 at Crescent City Sound Studios, Inc. located in Greensboro, NC. Subsequent sessions at Crescent City occurred during July and December 1970. All totaled, fifteen songs were recorded during these sessions and except for two, every song was an original by the group.

Crescent City Sound Studios, Inc.

Mitch Easter

Corky McMillan

Terry Rosinger

Rick Reich

Songs Recorded at Crescent City

I See Love That’s What Makes A Man

Teenage Lust (by MC5) Good Times (by Easybeats)

All Up To You Sure To Fall

Face Without A Name Where No One Cares

Destiny Changes In Me

Secret Lover Gone Gone Gone Let’s Go Steady

I Am Your Doctor Collaboration

During the final session, the band and a few close friends, including Chris Stamey, spent several hours recording some of their best work. During the recording of I Am Your Doctor, Stamey helped the band through a critical time change. The configuration of the recording studio did not lend itself to eye contact among the band members who were each isolated in cubicles . After a couple of flubbed takes, Easter and Stamey came up with the idea that Stamey would stand on a chair in clear view of all and at Easter’s signal, Stamey would jump down from the chair, thus signaling the other band members of the time change. It worked! The recordings were never commercially offered and only a few acetate recordings of the December session were made. However, several of Sacred Irony’s songs received local air play over AM radio station WAIR. Reich’s cousin, Tom Kent Newton, was a young “disk jockey” at the station and was the first to air the band’s music. Easter obtained a quarter inch tape copy of the recording from Crescent City. In 1987 (16 years after Sacred Irony’s disbanding), Blue Mold Records (with assistance from Easter) issued a compilation album of several NC “garage bands” titled Tobacco A-Go-Go Volume II, and included Sacred Irony’s song, I See Love. This is the only commercially available recording of the band.

The band’s successful run played through the winter of 1970 and spring of 1971 at various locations. A developing schism in the band over what direction it should pursue ultimately resulted in Easter’s departure from Sacred Irony during the late spring of 1971. He wanted the band to further its original music, but others wanted to included more covers of music from “high profile” groups. They believed it would further the band’s commercial opportunities and open up gigs at local bars and other adult venues like The Pavilion at Myrtle Beach, SC. Regrettably, in 1971 there were few if any opportunities in the southeast for bands like Sacred Irony to make significant money performing strictly original music. Other local music groups were realizing monetary success as “cover bands” at adult night clubs. For some in the band, the local teenage coffee house gigs were not enough. After a lengthy meeting in the living room of Easter’s home, he took what he believed to be the musical high road and left Sacred Irony. After Easter’s departure, the band made a few more appearances that spring and summer with Ed Dodson at lead guitar. Yet, the end of the summer of 1971 also saw the end of Sacred

Ed Dodson

Irony as McMillan, Reich and Smith said good-bye to Dodson and Rosinger and went off in pursuit of college education and other opportunities.

“Pics FromThe Past”

At Love Valley, NC

l/r Lib Easter, Mrs. Hunter, Ken Easter, Mr. Hunter

l/r A. Collins, T. Rosinger, D. Smith

Bolton Park Pool

D. Smith (4th from left knealing) R. Reich (6th from left sitting)

C. McMillan (8th from left standing)

A very skinny R. Reich

sacred irony

1969 – 1971

Mitch Easter – lead guitars (1969 – 1971) Corky McMillan – bass & vocals

Dale Smith – lead vocals & guitar Rick Reich – keyboards & vocals

Terry Rosinger – drums (1970 –1971) Ted Lyons – drums (1969 – 1970) not pictured Ed Dodson – lead guitars (1971) not pictured