THE DIZEAZOES #5: PRACTICE AND PARENTS

Says Paul Wheeler:

"When I first got excited about music, when The Beatles first broke in the states my parents, generally very cool people, put them down to the point where I was surprised by their negativity. They would say things like, 'You know Paul, in a year or two, nobody's going to remember The Beatles.' When my mom heard The Beatles' version of 'Money' she said, 'See? That's all The Beatles are interested in!'

"A few years ago my father started apologizing, mostly for being so wrong. Who would have thought? The Beatles are now very respected for all the great songs they wrote. Anyso, my parents were very cool about putting up with Dizeazoes practices in their basement. Of course, our practices were audible in the rest of the house. A couple of floors up our noise was more negligible, but on the first floor, where the kitchen was, it was certainly audible, and, of course, if you know anything about how the sound of bands carry, the bass tends to carry through walls and floors the best. I was told at some point that at least some of my family had decided that since it was my house the rest of the band allowed me to play the loudest. I was the one they could hear the most, so I must be playing the loudest.

"After a couple of years or so, my parents put in a request that we play in the other bandmembers' houses for a while. I believe that in the Dardick household we only lasted a couple of weeks. The Tyson and Carmack households may have actually put up with us for a couple of months, but after a while we were back in my mom and dad's basement, and as we were basically trying to play the most rebellious music we could come up with, my parents, who couldn't put up with The Beatles when they first came along, deserve some real points for putting up with our joyous noise!"