SHOCK: The birth of my lifelong love for making music


During high school, Sid Pierce fronted for the band SHOCK, meaning he was (in his words) “the wild guy out front, singing, dancing and keeping the band running on high energy.” He also played a washboard. During the band’s second year, Sid played the drums –and enjoyed practicing his skills on whatever furniture happened to be handy.

Kelly Edwards, left, and Randy Thorburn were Sid Pierce’s partners in the rock band SHOCK during their days at Gainesville High School. They’re pictured practicing in the living of the home where Sid lived with his parents, the late Herman and Lessie Pierce, and his sister Beth. Sid said they that, for a while, his family only got three broadcast channels but had two TVs. “One of the TVs had a bad tube,” he explained, “and Dad planned to give it away.”

Editor’s note: This is one of the stories to be included in the personal memoir now being assembled by Ozark County native Sid Pierce, a Navy veteran, retired teacher and Branson sound technician who for many years traveled the world with country music recording artist Roy Clark. His dad, the late Herman Pierce (1922-1994), served as Ozark County Sheriff for 20 years. He has dedicated this story to the memory of his SHOCK bandmate Randy Thorburn, who died last year of a brain tumor, and to the band’s manager, Kim Ebrite, who died in 2012 after a long illness. 

 

It was 1971 while standing in the Gainesville High School lunch line that Randy Thorburn and Kelly Edwards introduced themselves to me. Both had transferred to GHS that year. Kelly, the boldest and most outspoken of the two, had moved from St. Louis to Hollister and then to Gainesville. Randy, who was more withdrawn, had moved to a Thornfield farm from Southern California.

Both had ideas of putting a rock band together and approached me to front the band.

“Why me?” I asked.

Kelly said, “Because everyone in this school knows you.” 

I told him to look around; the school wasn’t that big, and everyone knew everyone here. 

Before we got to Colene Rose, the lunch lady, to get our lunch card punched, we had formed a band. 

We recruited Leon Eslinger to play drums and Jeff Smith to play bass guitar – but we needed a bass for Jeff to play. We pooled our money and bought a used bass from Wayne Clark’s Trading Post in Gainesville. 

After a few rehearsals, my cousin Pam Robbins invited us to play at her birthday party in Bob and Peggy Robbins’ basement. It would be short and sweet, but it would get us in front of an audience. And it gave us enough confidence to play other house parties, including Jim McConnaughy’s surprise birthday party and Lana Bushong’s New Year’s Eve party. 

The Gainesville School District didn’t allow dances back then, but we were asked to play for the (no-dancing) junior-senior banquet at the end of the school year. It was then we decided upon the name SHOCK for our group. 

Some of the guys wanted to wear matching outfits. I was totally against that idea as I thought matching outfits were totally uncool. Nonetheless I was outvoted, and we went to Johnson’s Store to buy matching red shirts and white pants, the school colors. Seeing what my bandmates had chosen, I protested even more. A rock band doesn’t wear its school colors!

During a rehearsal the Sunday prior to the banquet, a strange car drove up, and we quit playing. I recognized Dale Dreckman getting out of the car. Dale’s parents lived not too far away, and he’d heard the loud music. 

Dale had returned home from Vietnam and he had longer hair with a red bandana tied around his head, and he was wearing his army field jacket. He asked if it was OK if he brought in his guitar and amplifier and jammed with us. While we took a break and let him set up, he started playing Neil Young’s new song “Heart of Gold.” Before long, Dale was teaching us the mellowest song in our repertoire. 

For the junior-senior banquet, girls were to wear dresses and the boys had to wear ties and jackets. The band used a classroom in the school’s new junior wing adjoining the gym for a dressing room. We were a bundle of nerves. Once dessert was finished, we were summoned to take the stage. We had to walk a short distance in view of the audience to get to the stage and into position before our schoolmate Kim Ebrite pulled open the curtain. 

We opened with “Heart of God” before going into our standard hard rock songs. The audience approved, and we were relieved when it was over as we were not accustomed to an audience who just sat and watched. 

As the summer break began, the band was thinking of new venues where we could play our music. A number of our friends, including some of the band’s girlfriends, would hang out at our practices. Kim Ebrite was a huge music fan, and he offered to become SHOCK’s manager. Kim had some good ideas about booking our own dances. He helped me each morning deliver the Springfield Daily News-Leader, and during that time we discussed ideas about booking dances. 

One day after school, Kim and I paid a visit to Jack Huff, the University of Missouri’s Extension agent in the basement of the courthouse. Jack knew us from his work with the county’s 4-H clubs and listened to us as we presented to him our ideas about having dances at the Lions Club’s community building. He said he would be willing to rent us the building if we would be responsible for cleaning up and leaving the building as we found it after our dance. He also stressed to us that we would have to have two adult chaperones to oversee the teenagers. 

Two weeks later, Kim and I got the key for the community building and began moving the tables and chairs and some other furniture to the back room to create space for the dancers and the band. Once SHOCK was set up, we walked downtown to Skeeters to get a couple of platefuls of fries to share while we talked about our set list for the evening. 

We were nervous and had no idea of what to expect. Would we have a decent turnout, or would this be like a rehearsal with only a few friends and girlfriends showing up? 

Back at the community building, a few parents started dropping off their kids early. Then carloads of kids started parking on the street in front of the building. More and more teenagers kept coming, and we were shocked to see so many people crowded into the small building. Before we even started playing, it was standing room only. Once the music started and everyone was dancing, we realized this idea was way more successful than we ever imagined possible. 

Within an hour, the overcrowded room of sweaty teenagers had fogged over the windows, and the tile floor was wet with condensation. Many of the boys stripped off their shirts, and countless trips were made outside to cool down. SHOCK kept playing to keep the audience from getting bored and leaving.

As the night progressed some kids had to go home, but older kids arrived at the same time check out the dance. The chaperones had their hands full just collecting the money at the door. 

By the third set, we found ourselves repeating some of the songs we’d played earlier in the night. We told the chaperones to quit taking money when we finished that third set. By the time we quit playing it, we were all exhausted. 

Kim brought the cigar box full of cash to the back room before our fourth set of the night. He gave each member of the band over $40. Our gate for the night was more than $200; our first dance had drawn over a hundred kids, not including our friends and girlfriends who we let in for free. That was more money than I made in five weeks at my part-time jobs. I was hooked!

Kim spent that night at my house, and neither of us could sleep as we recounted everything that had happened. The next day, when we were to meet at the community building to clean up, Kim and I discovered everyone else had something else going on. The two of us swept and mopped the floor and then moved everything back like we found it. On Monday after school we dropped off the key to Jack Huff. 

Our dance had been a huge success, and we couldn’t wait to do it again. 

Ozark County Times

504 Third Steet
PO Box 188
Gainesville, MO 65655

Phone: (417) 679-4641
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