Ronnie Hock

I spent my formative years (1968 – 1975) playing in Rock & Roll/Punk bands, part of the Ann Arbor, Michigan counter-culture music scene that included such ground-breaking bands as the MC5 and Iggy Pop & the Stooges , along with the SRC , 3rd Power, Bob Seger , Mitch Ryder , the Up , Nugent , the Rockets, the Frost , the Fruit, and many others. My professional career has taken me to Europe on several occasions, doing club tours in Scandinavia, residing in Oslo, Norway for a time, and residing, writing, and recording at a studio retreat in Southern Italy. On returning to the U.S., I moved to LA on two occasions to shop my music and moonlighted as a lighting tech. I worked for Theater Vision, Inc. (TVI) in North Hollywood doing location film, movie premiers, and trade shows.
Throughout the 1980’s I continued to write, record, and work behind the scene. I was a guitar tech working for John Mellencamp , a.k.a. Johnny Cougar and the Zone. I also worked as a crew member for Fantasee Lighting Inc. doing support for national touring acts, under the direction of world-class lighting designer and director, Stefan Graf .
Note: I include my work history as an invitation to anyone whom may have been involved with any of the aforementioned to drop me a line. I’d love to hear from you. Also, kudos to author David A. Carson for "Grit, Noise and Revolution": the Birth of Detroit Rock .
I am currently working in a local band, “The Bashers”. The band was formed in 1983 in beautiful Grand Haven, Michigan. I joined the band in 1992. The Bashers enjoy a large local following and get some airplay on local stations. We primarily play summer festivals, opening for national touring acts, performing for crowds in excess of 20,000. I continue to be involved in the technical field (gotta make a living). I work for C.A.E. Inc. , located in Hamburg, Michigan. C.A.E. is a leading innovator in illumination art. C.A.E. designs and manufactures lighting control boards and related lighting control products for the performing arts. C.A.E. evolved from Grand Funk Railroad's touring crew under the leadership of eccentric genius, world class innovator, designer, and good buddy Jim Fackert. I am also involved in writing and recording multimedia demos with Ivan Kral ( Patti Smith and Iggy Pop ) for the Detroit NBC affiliate WCIV.
About the Music:
The process goes something like this: I stay up till all hours of the night (and morning), going through a litany of ideas, pieces, waiting for something to show up - mostly waiting. The song “The Waiting Room” arrived while I was with my wife in, of all places, a waiting room, awaiting her chemotherapy treatment, wishing we were anywhere but there. Quite often, I feel that I am merely a conduit – an out of body experience. I refine melody and lyrics with my guitar or ukulele, with the remaining arrangement in my head. I pretty much know what I want to hear. The colors and textures are in my mind. Now it’s about communication. At this point I bring it to my longtime collaborator, Dennis Smith. Dennis is great at hearing and playing in several different styles: punk, gypsy, musette, Beatles, Byrds, 1930s ragtime. Tubas and 12-strings. We enjoy experimenting and have been doing so for 35 years. We have our own language and enjoy writing in several different styles. This makes for an interesting, eclectic mess. For this reason, we gravitate toward marketing and pitching songs for films, television, commercials and related media. “Let’s Go Tubin’” could be for a Woody Allen style romantic comedy; “Tip A Few” a pitch for Budweiser; “Hold You Close” Cancer Center of America.
We look to the success of Jon Brion: “I Heart Huckabees”; Mark Mothersbaugh: “The Royal Tenenbaums”, the great Randy Newman, Danny Elfman, the music in Scrubs, O.C., Grey’s Anatomy”…. I find some of the best music today can only be heard in commercials, television, and films. Not on “Pop Radio”. Hey, Iggy is doing a Cadillac commercial and, of course, Carnival Cruise Lines. Speaking of Iggy, isn’t it ironic? (Yes, there is a God and he loves peanut butter.) To all who dismissed him years ago as a freak show: Iggy and The Stooges are on the cover of March/April 2007 edition of American Songwriter Magazine. Where are all the critics? I’ll tell ya: dead, forgotten, or miserable and lost in some junkyard. "Dance around to the pretty music..."
I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Fred Strevy for his contributions to the music: his bass playing, his unwavering belief in the music, his willingness to wear many hats to get the job done, and, most importantly his friendship. And, finally as special thanks to John Dupuis for his contribution to the cause: a great drummer and friend (I’ll buy the Schnapps, Johnny).
In closing, life is sweet. I have a beautiful wife, Wanda Cline , who is a gifted artist, and a wonderful family. I love to paint. Play the ukulele, sip martinis on my porch. I have a 24-track studio in my backyard, a beautiful garden paradise where I create music and art and hang out with my friends. (I may not have found success, but it has found me.)
Click the links below to listen to more of my music:
Yeah, Yeah, Yeah *
A Figure 8 *
All I Needed Was You *
Apple Ave. *
Hold You Close *
I Saw Elvis *
Let's Fall Out of Love Again *
Maybe *
Queenie *
She Blew Me Away *
Tip a Few *
Sherry **
Food for Thought ***
Crack in the Mirror ****
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* (copyright 2006)
** (copyright 1987)
*** (copyright 1983)
**** (copyright 1978)
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My son, Dylan is also a writer/musician/organizer and very much interested in the Detroit/Ann Arbor 60's & 70's music scene. He runs an online arts journal, Watching the Wheels: a Blackbird , as well as the journal's myspace page and a personal blog, The Velvet Goldmine . (See his interview with White Panther Party Minister of Defence, Pun Plamondon .) He has studied poetry, living in a castle in Dorf Tirol in northern Italy with the family of Ezra Pound , read on a small European tour at Shakespeare & Co. and the D'Aini Gallery, Paris, France, as well as at Ruigoord , a small artists colony in Amsterdam, Netherlands at the invitation of writers Nina Zivancevic and Hans Plomp . He also attended Naropa University , founded by Allen Ginsberg and Anne Waldman , subnamed, "The Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics", where he received both the Hiro Yamagata Scholarship and the Jack Kerouac Scholarship for creative excellence. He has had many opportunities to read with such great writers as those already mentioned, Nina Zivancevic, Hans Plomp, and Anne Waldman, as well as been fortunate enough to read with such notable writers as John Sinclair , Ed Sanders , Pun Plamondon, Anselm Hollo , Laird Hunt , Eleni Sikelianos , Bobbie Louise Hawkins , Keith Abbott , Jack Collom , and many others.
In addition to that, he was cast in "Quest for the Code" as one of four young intellectuals to travel the world to research the Da Vinci Code , taking him to France, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Israel, and Egypt. Currently, he lives in Boulder, CO where he continues to write and network in a heavy artistic community, videotaping various arts events around town, such as the 19-year-old poetry reading series, "So You're a Poet" , as well as the Boulder International Fringe Festival's monthly C.R.A.B. events.
Below is one of those films, in which he uses an older song of mine in the closing credits.
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