Ordinary Boys is a duo featuring songwriters Wes Johnson and Walter Charchuk from Phoenix, Arizona. The two first met in 1985 while Charchuk was still the bass player of Phoenix area band Nuvo West, a cow-punk quartet, featuring "Sonic" Mike Stephens, former member of Red Squares on vocals and guitar. By 1987, Johnson and Charchuk were writing songs together and spending their lunch hours at various Phoenix parks. While playing their original songs with acoustic guitars from park benches, they often drew small audiences. By 1988, they recorded their first 4-track demos on cassette which Charchuk took to Fred North, who had produced two album releases for Nuvo West and was active with his own recordings in the Cassette Underground, an informal network of underground musicians swapping tapes by mail worldwide. North liked the 4-track demos enough to agree to produce some additional recordings from his 8-track reel-to-reel bedroom studio, Studio-X. By 1989, Ordinary Boys came out with their debut cassette, Living in an Ordinary World. The project was recorded within a month and released shortly afterward. Fred North became the informal third member by offering production skills in addition to some touches ..board, an occasional guitar part, and his wisdom on anything dealing with music. With the release of Living in an Ordinary World, Charchuk and Johnson wrote letter after letter and sent their cassettes to College Radio stations across the US, shortwave stations in Canada and Europe, and dozens of fanzines catering to the underground music scene. The first DJ to play their release was Jonathan L who hosted the syndicated program "Virgin Vinyl" from Phoenix rock radio station, 98 KUPD. This show featured new music from worldwide, and Ordinary Boys scored quite a coup when Jonathan L played "Money Talks" on the same program with Paul Kelly and the Messengers and The Smithereens. Soon, favorable reviews were pouring in from the fanzines, in addition to airplay on Phoenix stations, KUKQ and KUPD. Soon more playlists were coming from College Radio stations and two reports came in from the Dallas area from a fanzine writer, Mark Alman, who reported that "Money Talks" had been used as the bumper music for local radio station, KNON, for their fund raiser nights. Johnson and Charchuk applied for admission to ASCAP (American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers), met a long list of criteria, and were inducted as writer members in 1990. With the success of 1989's Living in an Ordinary World, the OB's became more ambitious with their next release, 1990's Southwestern Suburbia. This release, originally conceived by Johnson as a concept album where every song leads to the next, pushed the OB's musical talents to the very extreme of what they could muster. It took several months to finally complete and features Johnson's boyhood friend, Paulo Finateri, on sax on the first two tracks, Southwestern Suburbia and Take a Ride. In addition, Sonic Mike Stephens joined in on the fun by offering his songs I/U and Down in my Garage. Fred North added 2 nice instrumental pieces as well. At various stages, the project was almost too exhausting to complete, but became one of the better home produced albums to emerge during this time period. Each of the four songwriters from the project had radio airplay from at least one of their songs including a video that was shot for Down in my Garage in Wes Johnson's garage which aired on a local cable show in Phoenix as well as a show coming from the Bay area in California. It was still the songwriting strengths of the Johnson-Charchuk duo that powered the success of Southwestern Suburbia. In 1991 the two joined Sonic Mike and Fred North for a third Nuvo West release, Ranchero. By 1992, the duo decided to get back to their roots for a third Ordinary Boys release, Outakes, Mistakes, and Heartaches. This interesting tape was recorded all without the overdubs of multi-track equipment. It is raw and captures the two songwriters while practicing their craft, writing songs. Though not widely circulated like the first two, it remains a personal favorite of the two songwriters. It features two songs, Crack House and Headin' Back to Phoenix recorded at their first live gig at Hollywood Alley. There is also material recorded while practicing for the Arizona Music Conference and Showcase, an event featuring artists from all over the country performing at several venues over two nights for music industry personnel and the public. Ordinary Boys were able to secure a spot at the legendary (and now defunct) Sun Club, a venue noted for several wild Punk Rock shows. The OB's, Johnson and Charchuk, cooly waltzed on stage with nothing more than an acoustic guitar, a harmonica, and a bass guitar, and they rocked the house. There were bands from earlier in the evening and one that had yet to perform that all waited stageside to greet the two as they departed the stage satisfied in knowing that even with limited live venue experience, and no real band to back them, they gave one awesome showing of themselves. There were a few other recordings by the OB's and one more song, Miracle Man, to receive radio airplay but no other official releases. Wes Johnson took a few years off to spend time with his family, and Walter Charchuk further honed his skills with a new band he put together, Vapor Lock, again with Sonic Mike Stephens as a member. And then in 1997, Johnson and Charchuk put together a new band, Last House on the Left, with Vapor Lock member, Tom Myers, on lead guitar. They held rehearsals for a drummer and hired Grant Rayburn for the job. Rayburn was a young 20 year old and inexperienced but had great chops. The foursome were playing out at clubs within two months of starting rehearsals. One of the knocks against the OB's was the use of drum machines and limited clubbing experience. Last House on the Left put all that to rest and did it in dramatic fashion. They were playing the best clubs in a short matter of months and doing it at a frenetic pace. They recorded a killer 4 song demo at a small studio in two weekends and used those tracks to again receive radio airplay. Big Surf, a giant wave pool amusement park, played the Last House on the Left song Mexico over the loud speakers at the park while Johnson and Charchuk were there with their families. For two songwriters who were constantly told they had no talent or couldn't sing, that was a very surreal moment in time.
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