The man who loves music
Jorge Barrera
Northern News Services
Yellowknife (Jan 22/01) - There are those who never find a passion. Some find it later, during a mid-life crisis or after a car accident. "G" always knew his: Music. He'll talk your ear off about it. He can't help it, it's like breathing.
 George |
It's a Sunday afternoon and the Broadway Restaurant is empty. "G" sips a glass of iced-Tea, a long weekend with upside down nights working as a bouncer at the Gold Range is over. He wants to start a band again, go on the road again, live the circuit again, like it was back in San Diego and Chicago, playing the clubs, funk, soul, blues, raggea.But a drummer's got to make a living and this is it. Unless you make it big you only get to play until last call.
" Music is my life," he says, "at this point I can play with any band, but there is a craving to do my own stuff."
He's wearing a bandanna with happy faces and a host of pins cling to his jacket: Teachers are my heroes, Ignore your rights and they'll go away, I'm taking the nuclear industry to court, wearing buttons is not enough.
He started the pin thing way back in high school and it stuck, like his moniker: G Force.
In high school in Chicago "G" and a couple of guys formed a band called the Moon Stone Players.
"There was one guy, a gangster, nice guy, but a gang banger and he started making fun of it," he says.
The Moon Stone Players concluded a new name was needed. That night "G" went to a basement party in some abandoned house in his neighbourhood and stayed up all night. He woke up late and wandered into the kitchen to watch a little TV. "Battle of the Planets," a cartoon about kid heroes with a leader who was on. When danger lurked, they became G Force.
"A light hit," says "G", who up to that point was known to the world as George, "G and his force."
"The funny thing is that (the band) never did anything," says "G."
"We never performed together, we'd always make up excuses before talent shows."
The band died but the name lived on to the point where George vanished and he became "G."
It's funny how things stick. It's funny where life brings you. For "G," one gig changed the course of his life.
He was touring with a blues band in California.
The band moved to Idaho in 1996, and that summer they came to Yellowknife to play at Folk on the Rocks.
"G" and the band's bass player were to be billeted with a woman named Margo Hopkins, but Rawlins Cross, the headline for that year, ended up staying there.
Anyway, "G" and Hopkins at a party and exchanged numbers before "G" went back to the United States.
Three months later "G" called Hopkins and a month after that, she asked him to visit. They were married in May 1997.
"I've been here ever since, " says G, but now he wants the road and a guitar player.This is no surprise. Music claimed him a long ago.
When "G" was 13 he played drums to "Jesus is a Friend of Mine", "He is a Rock" and "I Can't Wait to Get to Heaven" at a church gospel concert and got a $40 cheque for his efforts.
"When I was young I always had music in my head but I had a hard time bringing it out," he says. But that was before he learned to make music.
