Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Duke Fish

This is pretty cool.

Duke Dewey (pic) is a guy I know from Yellow Springs. Before I knew him, he was just a familiar face at Dino's Cappuccinos. I used to see him pretty much every time I went there, and in time we began to acknowledge each other's presence--we'd nod or say hi--whenever our paths crossed.

Eventually Duke initiated a friendly conversation with me, and I learned that he is a drummer. Being a former passionate drummer myself, Duke and I had something in common, so our conversation flowed smoothly. However, in the weeks following that conversation, our weekly interaction devolved back into "Hey, what's up? See ya."

One day several weeks after our conversation, when I popped into Dino's, the tiny room was full of customers, so I had nowhere to sit. Seeing Duke alone at a table for two, I asked him if I could join him. He didn't mind, so I sat across from him and we began a new conversation.

As Duke and I talked drums and drumming, seemingly from out of nowhere he mentioned that he is in the Woodstock movie. Puzzled and curious, I responded, "W-W-Wait a minute... What!?!" I continued, "Are you IN the movie or are you just in the movie?" He then explained that he was the drummer for Country Joe and the Fish. (So he is IN the movie.)

I still didn't know Duke's name at this point, so I asked him. He answered, "Greg, but most people call me Duke." He also told me some of his aliases (or stage names), which include Duke DeGreaze and Dewey DeGreaze.

That was about a year ago.



About a month ago I saw Duke for the first time since passing through Yellow Springs at the end of Aimless Leg 1. Because Country Joe and the Fish is from San Francisco, I asked him if he made it to San Francisco in September for the 40th anniversary of the Summer of Love. He said he didn't go, I think because he was not offered enough money. (Don't go thinking that was some kind of greedy rock star response, because it wasn't. Duke may have been borderline famous nearly 40 years ago, but he has to pay the bills just like everyone else.)

On this day at Dino's there was also a woman and her twentysomething daughter. The daughter didn't know who Duke is, but she had a laptop with her, so Duke and the girl's mother suggested that she visit YouTube and search for "Country Joe and the Fish." She did, and one of the search results brought up a western movie featuring Country Joe and the Fish as a saloon house band called The Crackers. I never knew Duke was in any movies other than Woodstock, so it was cool for me to see the YouTube video.

The movie is called Zachariah and I'd never heard of it. (In fact, I just found out the name of it today.) If you watch the video below, the blonde guy in the bar is a young Don Johnson (pre-Miami Vice).

(I didn't even know this exists, but Duke has a web site. It must be relatively new because I never found it when I googled his name after meeting him.)



--
Aimless
The Quasi-Aimless Trailer
You can contact me at 614-738-3867.

7 comments:

jafabrit said...

That was cool, I enjoyed reading that and learning something new. It never ceases to amaze me how many talented and interesting people live in such a tiny village.

Ryan M. Powell said...

Totally. There are so many exceptional people in Yellow Springs. I've met a lot of them, but there are probably many others I've yet to "discover." (I don't know Dave You-Know-Who.)

I guess everyone is bound to say something cool every once-in-a-while.

Thanks for the nice comment. Do you still play around in the train station's bathrooms?

jafabrit said...

"Do you still play around in the train station's bathrooms?"

I try not to LOL! We do a switchover in January and then a new show goes up in June. My fave thing at the moments is leaving weird art around town. You can see a couple of them on flickr:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/29045199@N00/

Anonymous said...

Cool story and video clip. Thanks to you I just found a great christmas gift for my step-father. I just ordered the dvd.

Ryan M. Powell said...

Brad: That's cool. Glad I could help. From the couple times you've mentioned your step-father, it sounds like you two are pretty tight. Also, whenever I get back on the road again, I'm going to try to head toward Evansville right away. I intended to do that on my way back from the west coast, with a stop in Madison first, but I ran out of time. I guess the six-day layover in Omaha complicated things a little. As you already know, I never made it to Madison on the way back, either.

Jafabrit: Since I'm pretty sure you do not read this blog on a regular basis (and because you responded to my comment), I'm guessing you've checked the box here to receive e-mail follow-ups to your comment. If so, I just wanted to let you know about the videos I've uploaded. So here are the links:

Quasi-Aimless Trailer

A Florida cop encounter

Dumpster diving in Vegas

There are plenty more videos on the way, too.

(In the future, whenever I want you to see a post, I'll just include 'Yellow Springs' somewhere in the post because I suspect that you go to Technorati every day and search for blogs about Yellow Springs. If that's what you do, don't forget to search for 'YSO' as well. Y'know, a lot of people use 'YSO' instead of 'Yellow Springs,' including myself sometimes.)

Ryan M. Powell said...

Also, Jafabrit, I'm going to add your blog to "Friends of Aimless." I didn't realize until now that you blog, too. (Probably because I was in the middle of a six-month trampin' session when you commented before.)

jafabrit said...

Thanks Ryan for all the info, and for the add. Yes I frequently check out yellow springs on technorati. I also run the Arts Council Blog so I try to keep up with all that is arty for that blog.
www.ysarts.blogspot.com

going to check out your videos now :)