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| Ike Willis spent 15 years in Frank Zappa's band. He was the voice of Thing-fish, Zappa's 1979 concept album and Joe in Joe's Garage: Act I, II & III, Zappa's Rock Opera and toured extensively with Zappa. After Zappa death in 1993 Willis started a band inviting Terry Robb to join. COURTESY TY HITZEMANN, BUKOMAGAZINE.NET |
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| Album art for Terry Robb's 1994 record Jelly Behind The Sun with vocals by former Frank Zappa sideman Ike Willis. |
“Quincy Jones. There's a guy who did it all and crossed all boundaries. He arranged for Frank Sinatra and Michael Jackson.”
The best advice he ever received:
“Do exactly what you want to do. But know you'll pay for it.”
The scariest show environments:
“Getting shocked on the mouth from the microphone. Nobody in the world knows what that's like. It kind of knocks you out; you go blank for a while. Everything in your system gets backed up. I had to start all over.
“When I was young I played biker bars. I wonder how I made it through that stuff, with people beating each other up while we're playing. I was just so happy to be playing somewhere. Didn't matter if they were a bunch of crazy bikers. It was in the early '70s when there weren't any blues gigs; it was all discos. The Gypsy Jokers had a place called the Slow Pitcher; a guy had been killed with an ice pick to the forehead, closing the place. We played there the night it re-opened.”
The most overrated guy in all of music:
“Just about everybody.”
A movie or television show he's ashamed to admit made him cry:
“CNN.”
Well-known Parkrose musicians:
Besides Robb, here's a partial list of other well-known musicians that attended Parkrose High School: Michael Allen Harrison, Diane Walworth, Jim Wilson, Bill Lamb, Rick Walsh, Alan Hager, Ron Brallier, Dwain Myers, Del Martin, Gary Ogan, Barbara “Boo Boo” Lusch, Dan Presley, Sonny Myers, Casey Wamble, Kelly Stites, Dennis Springer, Linda Myers-Wickland, Jim Pepper, Eric Helzer, Mary Barger Kidd, Harvey Goodling, Pat Miller and Jane Miller Evans.
Certainly, we missed people from a list like this, and we apologize for it. Please let us know whom we left out.
Unfortunately, we're unable to mention the dozens, no, hundreds of talented Parkrose alumni that are, or have been, music teachers, part- or full-time working musicians, school band directors and choir masters.
>>more photos here
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