Well, I am finally gonna write something on this blog...Did I mention, that I am a total procrastinator?.What I am going to do firstly, is re-post an article that I wrote for 2Do Magazine last year, but for whatever unknown reasons, never stayed up and running...It was the second coming of 'Music Scene' magazine, which I wrote for from 2005-2007..So, here it is, and I hope to post every week or whenever the urge hits.........This month I devote to my wonderful memories of Alameda’s beloved Tempo Music, and the Yeremian family. Like I wrote about last month, so many wonderful musicians have come, and continue to come, out of Alameda, and for those of us fortunate enough to be around back in the day(1948-1985ish), we surely had Tempo Music to credit for our nuturement. On some info that I got from Howard Jr., now living in New Jersey, the history goes kinda like this…Howard Sr., born of Armenian descent, served our country during WW II, playing in the army bands and such, meets his future wife, Jane, from Idaho, stewardess for United, make their way to the bay area. Howard, having been offered gigs(1^st alto sax, and clarinet) with the likes of Tommy Dorsey, Stan Kenton, and the CBS orchestra, but wanted to settle down and raise a family. Not sure how they settled on Alameda, so thankful that they did,and he soon opened his first store in 1948, at 1420 Webster St. , selling and repairing instruments, especially brass and woodwind, then moving down the block to 1510 Webster, where he would hold court at Tillie’s, as the mayor of Webster st. After South Shore Center was built in the late 50’s, Howard soon after moved the store there, along with so many other Park St. or Webster St. businesses. My first encounter with this great family was probably around 1965, after seeing the Beatles at the Cow Palace, and needing to learn the guitar. Me and my friends used to hang around at South Shore on the weekends, and now musical instruments were as important as baseball stuff, and occasionally there would be local bands playing there, Tempo was becoming the ‘hub’ for musicians, and I was a fledgling musician ‘wannabe’. Soon after taking guitar lessons at ‘Turner School of Music’ on Park St., me and my buddies were ‘hanging out’ at Tempo, schmoozing with the local ‘rock ‘n rollers’. It did not take long before a deep relationship would grow between us and the Yeremian family(Howard Sr., Jane, Howie, and Bruce), along with employees Fred Faella, and Steve Strick. While we did not have much money to buy better gear(I had a crappy ‘Airline’ guitar and amp), Tempo would rent ‘semi-bigtime’ equipment, usually for little or no $$..They had hearts bigger than gold, and I know that they just loved knowing that us young kids were learning, and playing music…and keeping out of trouble!!.. Gonna run out of space, so gotta relive a moment, we had rented the mighty ’Wurlitzer’ PA, of course we used up every input for everything, kinda ’blew out’ the speakers, and when pushing it back to the store, in a shopping cart, a wheel fell off in the intersection of Park and Otis, dumping the PA into the street, tearing up the grille cloth and knobs. We snuck it in the back door, and wearily told Howard what happened, and he said.. ’don’t worry boys, go get Howie some tutti-fruity form Loards, and he’ll fix it up. So much more to say about them, but times up. I have included a couple of pix, Jane and Howard, in front of South Shore store, and Howie behind the counter, hope they come out. Until next time, thanks for reading.

Welcome

My Name is Pat Potter.  I am a musician by trade and a native of Alameda where memories seep out of my head every day.  I will be posting soon of everything I can think of, and trust me I have a lot to write about. 

I will be back with posts to follow as soon as I get set up here.  Not such a techno on the net, but once you get me writing, I will post many memories and photos of the past and present of life in Alameda and my musical exploits. 

Uncle Pat