Ozzie In Music and Photos

Ozzie in Music and Photos

Here is some music and pictures from approximately 1976-1978. The White Brothers photo is from 1975, I believe. This is a bit of the history of a longtime friendship and business partnership. You can’t play serious music without having the business partnership part. It’s said that you might not like each other but . . . at least, you’re friends.

It all started in High School when Dave Tschirhart met and invited Steve White to bring a bass and jam with a killer piano player friend of Dave’s, Bob Payne. Dave was playing guitar at the time. While in Bob’s basement it was suggested that Steve and Dave switch instruments. When we did, it was magic . . . Steve, it turns out was a wonderful guitar player and Dave found what turned out to be a lifelong fondness for the bass. Steve and Dave went on to jam with others, making many musical friends along the way.

Steve took a detour to play drums with Northwind in there, somewhere (Yeah. Steve was an awesome prog rock drummer!) On the side we put together several jam bands, often incorporating Steve’s brother, Chris, into the bands. Chris was also a drummer but, took on the duties of lead singer and band director for most of these bands. A couple of Dave and Steve’s bands were Slaughterhouse, infamous for videotaping actual pigs being slaughtered at the Utica Slaughterhouse and showing the video at Malow Junior High during a concert . . . It was extremely gross and inappropriate . . . The kids loved it! Also there was a greaser band that was quite popular playing 50’s music with a punk flavor and a band we put together for our (Steve’s and my) senior all-night-party. We were very Pink Floyd-esque with quadrophonic sound effects and all.

Eventually Steve left Northwind to form The White Brothers, playing guitar and using the same manager as Northwind, Ron Geddish. The lineup was Chris White-lead vocals and percussion, Steve White-guitar and vocals, David T (Tschirhart)-bass and vocals, Dennis Rotary-guitar and vocals and Terry Dresden-Drums and vocals. Dave Kmita, who was a roadie for the White Brothers and was an awesome ‘shower’ singer replaced Chris as lead vocalist when Chris left for personal reasons. Next, Steve, David T, Denny, Dave K along with Art Fraylick and, sometimes, a friend named Brian Daniels playing Sax, Flute and Hyperactive Craziness, formed a new business/musical venture called Ozzie. We were named the week that Ozzie Nelson (Ricky Nelson’s dad) died. We used to tease Steve about the cardigan sweater he wore all the time, calling him ‘Ozzie’ as in ‘Nelson’. The band started with Chris White-vocals, Dave Kmita-vocals, Steve White-guitar and vocals, Dennis Rotary-guitar and vocals, Art Fraylick-drums and vocals and David T-Bass and vocals. When we hired Jay Ricketts (actually, he hired us) on keyboards and vocals, the band began to really take off with our ability to play a huge diversity of musical genre’s. Denny left the group early on for personal reasons and David T left in 1976, sometime, to pursue his career in a different way, going on the road with a hotel band, playing dance music and jazz. The band eventually broke up to go separate musical directions and eventually found their way back together upon the death of our keyboard player and friend, Jay Ricketts, in 2008. We reformed as Ozzie in April 2009 after about a 30 year hiatus . . . WooHoo!!! And . . . now . . . we’ve decided to quit playing bars and have changed our name to WTFK (White, Tschirhart, Fraylick and Kmita . . . That’s right!) We will be doing special events, parties and outdoor functions such as the Sterling Fest and other festivals.

So here’s some of the awesome promo pictures we took and lots of music. Please forgive the poor quality of the recordings. I remastered them from some very old 1/4 inch cassette tapes that were recorded directly from the mixing board in various bars/clubs. Our sound man, who was a fully paid member of the band because he was such a musical presence was Steve Picciarillo. Steve deserves credit for the wonderful original mix. I just tried to save some very old recordings.

I hope you like it,

David T