The 8th Street Bridge Ken's Bands

Brandon in 1968 was a busy place for "Garage" bands. There was plenty of work in the surrounding rural area - with each high school hosting several dances a year. They wanted variety and were willing to give new bands a try.

I met Brian McMillan while working at Safeway in the summer of 66. He knew a drummer, Terry Hayden, and through Tates we found Jim, and John. We rehearsed through the winter of 1967 and called ourselves "The Common Lot"

Some early highlighs include our first gig in Cypress River, where we rented the hall, charged a buck, and made a tidy profit.  That was in May of 1968, and we did the same thing Baldur a few weeks later.  I think out first "paying" gig was at Oak  River. in June, were we played to quite a crowd in the arena. They had weekly dances, sponsored by a Community Club, and they paid $100

Brian's family moved to B.C. that summer and Jim took over the singing. We added Dave Jason on keyboards. We decided that Johnny's rhythm guitar playing was not necessary, and we asked him to leave. He understood, and it was for the best. But I'm sure we all missed the adventures we had in his 57 Chevy Wagon. About that time Ron Mosson (Moose) became our unofficial road crew and general helper.


As I recall that fall of 68 was busy. I remember playing the east End Hall - sort of our Brandon debut, and it went well. We started getting High School Dances in the surrounding areas.  Places like Plumas - run by a guy named Joe who paid $90, Newdale where we played a High School dance or two, Gladstone, Forrest, Killarney ...

I remember  a May Long Weekend Midnight Dance at the pavillion at Killarney Lake, a trip to Reston when the car broke down but thanks to the kindness of strangers we made it.  We kept pretty busy. I moved to Winnipeg in the summer of 1969 and in anticipation of my leaving we added Brian Minnaker on guitar. He didn't stay and 15 year old Del Krauchi was recruited. He turned out to be a great guitar player and I replaced him when he left Blind Justice a few years later.

Summer excursions to Clear Lake and Y-Point, while not directly on Band Business, were part of that whole time. Johnny's girlfriend was from Glenboro, and through her we met some other girls whose parents had a cabin at Y-Point. We ended up there for weekend parties a few times.  Some of us went to Clear Lake to see Them, perhaps our first chance to see a big name locally. On other occasions we went to "The Lake"  just to party.

Other Band-related trips included a few trips to Winnipeg where we would go to Garnet Amplifiers to check out equipment. I bought my Fender Bandmaster there, and later replaced it with a Traynor from Ted Good's. My guitar was a Hagstrom that I bought from Randy McGunnigal, a college residence neighbour. I added Johnny's 2-12 Garnet Cabinet - just to make it look bigger!

Transportation is always an issue with bands. We used whatever car we could borrow. Jim had a 53 Pontiac but didn't feel it was up to road trips. For a while we were lucky to get Terry's brother's 59 Pontiac Convertible,. We used U Haul trailers, except for a short period when we had our own home-made trailer, comlete with psychedelic paint job. In the later days we bought a panel van.