Avocations
The Influence
- For a while I played bass with a band call The Influence. In truth The Influence always was and always will be Chuck Trimble (On the left). He has had more musicians in his band than I have ever known but only three at a time. As far as I know The Influence has always been a trio.
Most the time I was with him we played with Drummer Mike Blaize (On the right). One of the nicest guys you could ever hope to meet and a great drummer. On occasion we played with Drummer Greg Garlock. Also a great guy and brilliant drummer.
Chuck always kept the calander full of dates and we played many bars around Cleveland. One of the more memorable shows was opening for Wishbone Ash (3/16/05) at the Winchester in Lakewood OH. To be perfectly honest about it I don't know a thing about Wishbone Ash other than I've heard of them before but thats impressive enough for me!Chuck is an interesting band leader. When I say interesting it is in reality a substitute for too many descriptive terms to list here, some accolades, some curses. He would alway keep you on your toes and always challenge you musically. He had a set list but rarely used it. I started compiling my own list based off songs he would call but I was never able to catch up. He seemed to know off the top of his head just about every song recorded in the 60's, 70's and 80's. On stage he would ask if I knew a song. I would say yes. He would ask if I knew another song. I would say yes. He would ask if I knew another song. I would say no. He would say "Ready?!" and start playing it! I wouldn't even know what key it was in! Sometimes he would pull out real eclectic stuff like Glass Harp tunes for example. There were times I loved it and times I hated it based mostly on the mood I was in. I am a confident player and usually able to fly by the seat of my pants but we were in front of a live audience and that is being as much in the hot seat as you can get and Chuck would be grinning ear to ear!