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A Message From BRUCE KULICK From: Kulick.net by BRUCE KULICK 
HELLO everyone! I have to share the most incredible week with you all! I was asked by Jack Blades from Night Ranger to be a counselor at David Fishof's Rock n Roll Fantasy Camp this past week in Los Angeles and what an amazing event it turned out to be. I never worked so hard, and I never had so many chills performing with and meeting artists that I grew up listening to.Let me start with rehearsal last Wednesday. We needed to be familiar with about 30 songs in order to jam for the campers and back up the special artists. Little did I know that Sir Roger Daltrey from The Who would appear and we were not really ready for him. We had to perform a set with him that would end the week long events at the House of Blues on Sunset Blvd. 
After a long 6 hour rehearsal, I got little sleep to be ready for "camp" at 9:30 in the morning that Thursday. That was the day the campers would check in, and be evaluated for their talent so that we can put them all in bands and learn and compete by playing a cover or original song, and learn a WHO song for Roger to sing with them. Well the pressure was on, as after about number 30 I was toast! Really hard to judge so many various styles and abilities, but in the end by mid afternoon we jammed or judged them all. But the counselor band, featuring Jack Blades, and Kelly Keagy on drums from the same band, Elliot Easton from the Cars, Michael Lardie from Great White on keys, and Simon Kirke from Bad Company/ Free on drums, Vince Melemed from Jimmy Buffet helping out on keys as well, and Gary Burr guitarist songwriter for many huge hits, on rhythm guitars. What an amazing band! We also had Jeff Pilson from Dokken to help out, and Jimmy Renino from the Monkees, to fill in when needed. 
With all this talent our first artist to support was Dicky Betts from the Allman Brothers band. Those jams on "Blue Sky" and "Ramblin Man" left everyone speechless because as soon as he finished his first solo he pointed to me and told me GO! WOW, I felt like I was in the Allman Brothers Band. What a thrill to play with him and the campers loved it all. He was very happy with his backing band, and I felt honered to trade licks with him. After dinner (all meals were excellently catered) we had Colin Hay from Men At Work in to do his performance. Had a blast with his infectious songs like "Land Down Under" and "Who Could It Be Now". That ended the first day of camp! We had already choosen our respective bands and mine had a family theme. I had two brothers, Pat and Mike Kane, and a family, the Jones. Father Chris on keyboards and his sons Ryan and Mason. Mason, 15, looks like a future mod rocker star! I had him doing Pete Townshends as much as he could. And he drew blood in real Pete fashion for it! On Bass I got my Doctor Monty was a rock on the 4 string Black Fender P Bass, and his wife was there to cheer him on. My drummer, August a retired business man was having the time of his life, even though I was trying to get him to kill the snare drum everytime I got near him. My singer Shari was a total hippie love child. Brought up on the Grateful Dead. Her husband was by her side getting everything signed he could. They had a blast. I also had one more guitar player a true KISS fan, Jim. He was so happy to be in my band and I have to thank him for some of the pictures featured as well as Shari. 
I had to rehearse with them on Friday, Sat, and Sunday, and we got "Surrender" from Cheap Trick as the cover song choice and our random pick for the WHO song was "Substitute". Great song and I taught my guitar army of 5 to be an orchestra. We had a lot of strings, so it was a big sound as I had 9 in the band. Oh by the way, we were called "Gods of Thunder"! As the days went on we reheased, sweated ,got rained on and was treated to jams from the likes of Jon Anderson from YES. The core band backed him up, and to quote Jeff Pilson, we all had a tear in our eye from doing the classic YES song "Your Move" from Fragile. WOW. Jon was a sweetheart to everyone and I asked him some questions about his sound engineer from YES as I worked with him as well. Doc McGhee, KISS manager came in for a Q and A and he was great with the campers. Very honest and to the point. Told some great Motley Crue stories. Nils Lofgrin came in on Saturday and did a great clinic and a wonderful performance. He is the guitarist of Bruce Springsteen, and I know why the Boss loves him. Very talented. 
Saturday night my friend Bret Michaels from Poison appeared and we did some great versions of his Poison classics on acoustics, and then brought down the house with "Your Momma Can't Dance". He was very cool with the campers and we all had fun having them join us on stage with Bret. Everyday was 14 hours, and wonderful interactions with the campers and artists. We were so exhausted but everyone was committed to a great time of rock and roll. We were filmed by the Learning Channel for a documentary and VH-1 Classics was there to cover the event. That was wonderful to be on camera doing what I love. Music. Many of the campers knew me but were unaware of what I was up to lately with Grand Funk and my solo discs. Roger Daltrey was a real trooper and he visited the campers to see them preparing their WHO song for the big day. 
The big performance at the House of Blues was the culmination of an amazing week. First the campers where rehearsing at 10 AM and by noon, everyone after lunch had to get ready and over to the HOB. 3PM sharp the event started by the band warming up the crowd with a few classic songs. "All Right Now", with Simon singing and a Car's hit. Roger appeared and now it was time for the 10 band to compete. My band was number 5 so we all had to judge the bands. They would play the cover song, and then Roger would sing the WHO song. Some of the bands really had either one or both sounding great, but sometimes things were crazy, and what a good time the crowd had either way. I was excited for my band, I knew we weren't the best, but we had heart and soul, and we won the award for most improved and hardest working band! Roger looked nervous but they pulled off "Substitute" as I was only playing tamborine and guiding the band. After all 10 played, the winner and winning catagories were chosen. Now for the big performance by Roger. We played a few more tunes from our set list and Roger joined us for our mini WHO set. What a thrill to jam with him! I love the WHO so you can all imagine what it was for me to rip on my guitar for him. We played "Behind Blue Eyes", "See Me Feel Me" into "Listening to You" and a full version of "Won't Get Fooled Again". 
Roger made a comment to me after "Wont Get Fooled" as he knew how much it meant for me to be his Pete Townshend. So after that performance one more thing to do which was bow the crowd and have a big after camp party at a club in Hollywood. My band was there for the catered event and they presented me with a great gift . A framed Beatle photo that was totally amazing. Thank you all! JBL was a sponser so the counselors got a bonus of a 7.1 surround speaker system which is awesome to say the least. Lots of memories from the week, too many to share, but I will say that was an experience I wont forget for quite some time. I want to thank Jack Blades and all the other counselors for making my experience wonderful and to making new contacts and friends with the lucky campers who got to join us for this week in LA. David Fishof and his team (thank you Linda for jamming with me and looking out for me!) were great to us all. 
Now back to reality. BLAH! Anyway, the UNION DVD's are being shipping to me now so I will be getting them in the mail in the next two weeks. Can't wait for you all to see them. I also will be in Indy next Sunday and have a few cool Grand Funk shows for the next three weekends so go to the site for the details http://www.grandfunkrailroad.com/departures.htm. I am planning some European shows with ERIC SINGER and John Corabi in late April so look for those dates soon to be announced http://www.kulick.net/tour.shtml. |
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